Teaching Partner: Sam Causer

Site: Central Hill Estate, Gipsy Hill London

Themes: Social Housing; landscape; collective living; alternatives to demolition; the political nature of architecture; social and environmental 'sustainability'; housing and society.

Students spent some time to get the know the estate, meet the residents and think about ways they might address the issued raised to do with the council's desire to demolish the estate.

Projects included:

Homeless hostel
Doctors surgery
Vertical farming
Vertical street - high rise
Music and cultural centre
Housing + library
Housing + Gym
Housing + communal green spaces


Not all students responded by designing additional homes (to satisfy the demand for greater population density). Many addressed the problem of neglect and the detrimental 'sink estates' narrative.