Introduction

COMPETITION ORGANISERS
London Affordable Housing Challenge
Official partners
London Affordable Housing Challenge London Affordable Housing Challenge

According to the Mayor of London’s website, the current median monthly rental price in Central London exceeds £650 for a room in a shared apartment, £950 for a studio, and £1300 for a one-bedroom apartment.

That is to say, London is unaffordable.

Low- and median- income individuals and families cannot meet the financial demands of the city’s skyrocketing housing prices. This makes living close to one’s place of work in London a privilege: the UK’s Office of National Statistics estimates the average commute time at one hour. Families in the low- and middle-income bracket, young professionals, creatives, and key workers in industries critical for London to function - like teachers or police - tend to live far outside London’s city center.

Something needs to be done. So we’ve asked architects and designers to propose solutions for affordable housing in London.

Affordability is by no means a design issue alone. The topic requires the long-term attention and coordinated efforts of policy makers, residents, and planners. Architects, however, play a critical role in designing the future of our cities.

A range of ideas were submitted, some realistic and others conceptual. Common themes that were investigated include: methods of increasing density within the existing building stock; using shared or state-owned spaces like rivers, highways, bridges, train tracks, and even Buckingham Palace, to construct new housing above, below, or within; reworking low-density building types like warehouses and industrial spaces; and reintroducing alternative methods for land ownership, like community land trusts.

This competition is part of Bee Breeders’ Affordable Housing Crisis design series, which has already introduced several great proposals to address the global demand for urban housing. Some of these submissions and others will be included in the inaugural forthcoming print publication by ARCHHIVE: Issue 1: What is Affordable Housing?

Bee Breeders would like to thank all designers who participated for contributing to this growing library of design ideas!

Enter the next competition edition
Denver 
Single-Stair 
Housing Challenge

Design single staircase, multi-story residential housing in Denver

Affordable Housing Series 18th Edition ideas COMPETITION

1st Prize Winner

Project name

Beyond The Shell

Instead of living my own dream, I wish I could have the opportunity to present my schemes to the public, to people who are from different professions and different backgrounds, and to people who might really need that scheme to help them sort through the issues they have now. I wish I could have the opportunity to hear the voice from them, to receive all the comments and criticism from them, which is extremely essential to any architecture proposals. We are building for people.

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Authors
Lianjie Wu
Country
United Kingdom

2nd Prize Winner

Project name

Re.Co.De: Redesigning Contemporary Dwelling

Vision competitions are an important element to test research ideas and thoughts and even to develop research by design activity in a more protected environment: when doing exploratory research to be realistic is much more relevant than to be real. And vision competitions have exactly this kind of connotation. Moreover, it is also very important to confront what you are doing in your practice and research with what many other peers are doing.

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Authors
Massimo Bricocoli
Gennaro Postiglione
Stefani Sabatinelli
Nicola Sirugo
Country
Italy

3rd Prize Winner

Project name

Informal Intimacy

Social housing as a typology is a complex work of architecture intended to be inhabited by a diverse population. The answers given to this typology are unfortunately based on simplified assumptions, repeated standards and uninspired architecture. Our interest in this competition was to create a vision beyond today’s monotonous development, which this competition allowed for.

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Authors
Medina Dzonlic
Daniel Andersson
Country
Denmark

BB STUDENT AWARD

Project name

Wesley New Town // Chronotopia

Architecture visions competitions allow for speculative ideas to be born that are free from various constraints involved with a built proposal. However, keeping in mind the reality of the socio-political and economic pressures of our world today, such competitions also encourage a negotiation between the speculative and the utilitarian, where a delicate balance could be struck in such short timeframes. Ultimately, competitions are a testing ground for ideas and I see them as a time-based exercise to develop and quickly respond meaningfully to a brief and its core ideas.

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Authors
Yip Siu
Country
United Kingdom

BB GREEN AWARD

Project name

Hedge House

Vision competitions give a freedom to develop or rethink our ideas. It gives opportunities to take another position and point of view which changes how we see things in a new way and boosts our creativity. But our motivation is not only intrinsic, at the same time we want to share our knowledge and our research by participating in vision competitions.

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Authors
David Saand
Simone De Bergh
Björn Vestlund
Jay Williams
Country
Sweden

Honorable Mentions

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Project name

Weaving a Homescape Tapestry

Project name

Postcode M25

Authors
Amrita Raja
Katharine Storr
Country
United Kingdom
Project name

Mind the Gap: Somersault Terrace

Authors
Melissa Shin
Amanda Shin
Country
United States
Project name

Football's (be)coming Home

Authors
Jeffrey Lam
Douglas Leung
Country
Hong Kong
Project name

A Bridge of (Terrace) Houses

Authors
William Maddinson
Country
United Kingdom
Project name

Affordable Palace

Authors
Benedikt Hartl
Thomas Haseneder
Country
Germany

Shortlisted projects

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Routemaster Housing

Nuttapong Chantrawatana
Atipat Kritsanapan
Polpipat Naksawat
Ratasakon Chantaluxsul
Thailand

A CITY ABOVE THE CITY

Namir Cisneros
Estefania Serrano
Lisandra Perez
Diego Hernandez

University of Puerto Rico

+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Puerto Rico

Weaving a Homescape Tapestry

Robert Newcombe

University College London

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
United Kingdom

Wesley New Town // Chronotopia

Yip Siu

United Kingdom

Intervals

Yein Corbett-lee
Ji young Ha
United States

London Circuit Estate

Kyle Hui
Australia

The London Stack

Matthew Edwards
Jack Lee
Australia

Oasis Progresive plug-in housing

Juan david Martinez granados
Karen daniela Ramos castañeda
Carlos Daniel Rey Ortega
Colombia

SUPER PARK ROYAL

Kerry Ngan

Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London

+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
United Kingdom

The Circular Concept

Shi yin Ling

The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
United Kingdom

Automonument

George Clarke
Harry Lewis
Saskia Furman
Oliver Bennison
United Kingdom

Xiaowei Bai
United States

BLOQUE

Robinson Almeyda
Sebastian Torres
Simon Camacho
William Larrota
Colombia

Re.Co.De: Redesigning Contemporary Dwelling

Massimo Bricocoli
Gennaro Postiglione
Stefani Sabatinelli
Nicola Sirugo
Italy

BACK ON TRACK

German Arismendi
Tamara Corts
Gonzalo Acuña
Uruguay

LONDON APPTOWN

Ximena Moraes
Nicolas Quagliata
Nicolas Percovich
Veronica Slyomovich

Humphreys Architects

Uruguay

LONDON AIR

Marcela Sarroca
Elvira Lopez
Maria jose Cayon

Humphreys and Partners Architects

Uruguay

Informal Intimacy

Medina Dzonlic
Daniel Andersson
Denmark

THE ARCHES

Mark Spraggon
Australia

London Calling

Ana Rolim
Larissa Falavigna
André Figueiredo
Brenda Ciríaco
Brazil

Face Value: A New Proposal for Affordable Housing in London, U.K.

Ibrahim Salman
United States

The Hive

Alfred Bonsra
Abdullahi Hamza
Oluwaseun Fayankin

Primetech Design and Engineering Nigeria Limited

Nigeria

Hedge House

David Saand
Simone De Bergh
Björn Vestlund
Jay Williams

White Arkitekter

Sweden

Beyond The Shell

Lianjie Wu
United Kingdom

Affordable Palace

Benedikt Hartl
Thomas Haseneder

Opposite Office

Germany

The VIADUCT

Jessica Hester
Anthony Cricchio
Gabriela Villalobos
United States

AIR IN AIR

Ziang Ao
Tao Ma
Ximeng Li
United States

Economical paradigm through aesthetics, discovering obscured realms of London City

Maher H

MnMStudio Architects

Philippines

SKY CITY

Kalliopi Bouzounieraki
Sofia Katsarou
United Kingdom

Football's (be)coming Home

Jeffrey Lam
Douglas Leung
Hong Kong

Highway To Homes

Alexander Mcdow
Maarten Mutters
Jeremy Haest
James Spittle
United Kingdom

Mind the Gap: Somersault Terrace

Melissa Shin
Amanda Shin
United States

Volume for rent

Birkan Aras
Turkey

Postcode M25

Amrita Raja
Katharine Storr
United Kingdom

PLUG AND LIVE

Federica annamaria Ferrari
Elisa laura Costa
Italy

The Green River

Soha Salem
Egypt

LONDONTOWN (HOUSE)

Patrick Ceguera
United States

London Pop Up

Yu heng Lim
Yun chou Han
Matthias Tan
Jason Tan

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Singapore

The Dome Treehouse

Misak Terzibasiyan
Vytaute Venskute

UArchitects

Netherlands

Driving Change: From Cars to Homes

Stephane Lambert
Sam Austen
Isaac Cherian
Joe jack Williams

Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios LLP

United Kingdom

LONDON BRIDGE--Affordable housing in London

Honglian Zhang
Wei Xu
Ya fei Wang
China

Reprogramming Infrastructure

William Bayram
United Kingdom

A Bridge of (Terrace) Houses

William Maddinson
United Kingdom