Bee Breeders Architecture Competitions has announced winners for the London Affordable Housing Challenge Competition, tasked participants to propose solutions for affordable housing in London.

London remains one of the least affordable cities in the world, with typical housing prices far higher than those in low or medium income jobs could afford. The London Affordable Housing Challenge 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. A range of ideas were submitted, some realistic and others conceptual.

First prize was awarded to Lianjie Wu from the UK, whose BEYOND THE SHELL project took 3D printing to the next level. The design proposal takes advantage of the free-form nature of 3D printing to offer a compelling design for mass affordable housing complexes that grow and mold with their inhabitants.

Second prize went to Gennaro Postiglione, Nicola Sirugo, and Massimo Bricocoli from Italy for their Re.Co.De: Redesigning Contemporary Dwelling - project, which saw proposals for rearranging the interior layout of a typical housing block. 

Third prize was awarded to Medina Dzonlic and Daniel Andersson from Denmark for their Informal Intimacy project which seeks to establish a new architecture for social housing using modernist principles.

Student Award went to Yip Siu from University College London in the UK, and the Green Award went to Simone De Bergh, Björn Vestlund, David Saand, and Jay Williams from Swedish company White Arkitekter.

See the winning projects below with short jury comments:

1st prize: Beyond The Shell by Lianjie Wu from UK

Jury comments:

"3D printing has made great strides in recent years. A host of startups and technology companies are prompting new waves of investment, research, and publicity for this form of construction as a means to cheaper and quicker building. This design proposal takes advantage of the free-form nature granted by these technologies to offer a compelling design for mass affordable housing complexes that grow and mold with their inhabitants. A typical grid-like structural frame is provided as the base infrastructure on which a seemingly infinite range of curvilinear designs can be fitted to; these are fabricated in mobile trucks carrying digital fabrication tools for construction. The perennial question to ‘adaptable design’ is whether it can truly live up to its promise and deliver a project that is fully functional and adequate for its users."

Read interview with the 1st prize winners

2nd prize: Re.Co.De: Redesigning Contemporary Dwelling by Massimo Bricocoli, Gennaro Postiglione, Stefani Sabatinelli, Nicola Sirugo form Italy

Jury comments:

"Coliving and cohabitation serve to increase density by reorganizing the layouts of existing buildings for more efficient spaces, and to include shared amenities for larger groups of inhabitants. The designer of this project states: “the real revolution in housing is indoors.” The proposal rearranges the interior layout of a typical london housing block, as the designer claims, to mirror the growing variety of job positions and of family arrangements. The ways in which people organize their urban lives to afford housing "is to be more closely investigated, as this brings along significant changes in terms of housing cultures, patterns of solidarity/community, and socio-spatial organization."

"The design offers a selection of flexible interior organizational components - including the bathroom core, the equipped wall fitted with shelving and insulation, and movable partitions. The layout accounts for a mixture of user profiles, from the single adult student, to the elderly couple, to the divorced parent with child. The jury wonders, in what other building typologies can this project be applied?."

Read interview with the 2nd prize winners

3rd prize: Informal Intimacy by Medina Dzonlic and Daniel Andersson from Denmark

Jury comments:

"This project, titled Informal Intimacy, seeks to establish a new architecture for social housing using modernist principles. In its simplicity and austerity it offers flexibility, with a wide range of spatial combinations that relate to people’s wide-ranging identities. The submission states: “The project dismisses the idea of social housing being an architecture based on standardized minimums, a one size fits all, instead the architectus is established as a field of opportunities."

"It offers a mix of intimate and flexible rooms for large collectives or a small number of inhabitants, the arrangements being based on a variation of spatial sequences. The range of drawings, images, and models this submission included proves a highly-refined and thoroughly-studied idea. The jury asks, is this project intended to be suitable only for new construction, or can it also be applied to infill sites and existing infrastructure?."

Read interview with the 3rd prize winners

BB Student Award: Wesley New Town // Chronotopia by Yip Siu from UK

Read full interview with BB Student winner 

BB Green Award: Hedge House by White Arkitekter/David Saand, Simone De Bergh, Björn Vestlund, Jay Williams from Sweden

Read full interview with BB Green Award winner

Top image: 1st prize: Beyond The Shell by Lianjie Wu from UK

All images courtesy of Bee Breeders Architecture Competitions

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