1st Edition

Social Housing Definitions and Design Exemplars

By Paul Karakusevic, Abigail Batchelor Copyright 2017
    176 Pages
    by RIBA Publishing

    This is a growing sector undergoing a huge period of change - with local authorities able to build their own housing for the first time in decades. Social Housing: Definitions and Design Exemplars explores how social/affordable housing has been delivered and designed with success throughout the UK in the last 10 years. Weaving together exemplar case studies, essays and interviews with social housing pioneers and clients, this book demonstrates real-life best practice responses to the challenges associated with housing provision, with a focus on design ideas.

    1. Councils’ Housing  2. Renovation Strategies  3. New Processes Among Residents  4. Mixed Cities  5. Urban Responses and Challenging Sites  

    Biography

    Paul Karakusevic, director of Karakusevic Carson Architects, established the practice with the ambition of improving the quality of social housing in London. The focus for the practice is the delivery of successful and sustainable neighbourhoods, mixed-tenure housing and civic buildings that reflect both their unique, local sense of place and the real needs of the communities involved.

    "The layout of the book presents a series of projects, arranged by theme, from both the UK and Europe, interleaved with historical notes and interviews. Neave Brown, legendary in housing circles for his work in Camden in the 1960s, recalls the working conditions that allowed seminal schemes such as Winscombe Street and Alexandra Road to be built with an inventiveness that has been thoroughly exorcised by the tenets of the New Urbanism. The move to restore urban legibility in housing projects is no bad thing, but the sheer ingenuity of the 1960s surely has something to teach us. Dominic Papa covers these points in a thoughtful interview introducing the section on how urban scale strategies might contribute to housing provision." Harry Margalit, International Journal of Housing Policy. By Paul Karakusevic and Abigail Batchelor