Foreword

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!

COMPETITION ORGANISERS
London Affordable Housing Challenge
Official partner
London Affordable Housing Challenge London Affordable Housing Challenge
Enter the next competition edition
Los Angeles Affordable 
Housing Challenge

Design affordable housing solutions in Los Angeles

Affordable Housing Series #16 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.

Read full interview
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.

Read full interview
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.

Read full interview
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.

Read full interview
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.

Read full interview

Honorable Mentions

Show Honorables Mentions (6 of 6) Hide Honorables Mentions projects
Project name

Weaving a Homescape Tapestry

Project name

Postcode M25

Country United Kingdom
Project name

Mind the Gap: Somersault Terrace

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

Country Germany

Shortlisted projects

Show Shortlisted projects (3 of 40) Hide Shortlisted projects

nuttapong chantrawatana

atipat kritsanapan

polpipat naksawat

ratasakon chantaluxsul

Thailand

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

yein corbett-lee

ji young ha

United States

kyle hui

Australia

matthew edwards

jack lee

Australia

Oasis Progresive plug-in housing

juan david martinez granados

karen daniela ramos castañeda

carlos daniel rey ortega

Colombia

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

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

german arismendi

tamara corts

gonzalo acuña

Uruguay

ximena moraes

nicolas quagliata

nicolas percovich

veronica slyomovich

Humphreys architects

Uruguay

marcela sarroca

elvira lopez

maria jose cayon

Humphreys and partners architects

Uruguay

Informal Intimacy

medina dzonlic

daniel andersson

Denmark

mark spraggon

Australia

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

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

jessica hester

anthony cricchio

gabriela villalobos

United States

ziang ao

tao ma

ximeng li

United States

maher h

Mnmstudio architects

Philippines

kalliopi bouzounieraki

sofia katsarou

United Kingdom

Football's (be)coming Home

jeffrey lam

douglas leung

Hong Kong

alexander mcdow

maarten mutters

jeremy haest

james spittle

United Kingdom

Mind the Gap: Somersault Terrace

melissa shin

amanda shin

United States

birkan aras

Turkey

Postcode M25

amrita raja

katharine storr

United Kingdom

federica annamaria ferrari

elisa laura costa

Italy

soha salem

Egypt

patrick ceguera

United States

yu heng lim

yun chou han

matthias tan

jason tan

National university of singapore

+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Singapore

misak terzibasiyan

vytaute venskute

Uarchitects

Netherlands

stephane lambert

sam austen

isaac cherian

joe jack williams

Feilden clegg bradley studios llp

United Kingdom

honglian zhang

wei xu

ya fei wang

China

william bayram

United Kingdom

A Bridge of (Terrace) Houses

william maddinson

United Kingdom
3 from 40