Co-producing affordable housing futures: Tools for community participation

Kyle Buchanan and Mellis Haward, directors of architectural practice Archio, reflect on their experience of developing a toolkit to facilitate the co-design of community-led housing. In the following interview, Kyle Buchanan and Mellis Haward reflect upon the participatory approaches that their practice Archio adopts to negotiate the delivery of better quality community-led improved housing. Their work aims to build trust by interpreting residents’ lived experiences and aspirations, examined through architectural knowledges and practices. The following discussion focuses on the co-production of design artefacts as tools. These enable community stakeholders to negotiate shared ambitions for their neighbourhood within community-based development and regulatory processes, such as development management. In 2016, Archio was invited by London Community Land Trust and Citizens UK to compete for the opportunity to design and deliver eleven affordable homes on a former garage site at Brasted Close in Lewisham, London. Unusually, the public was asked to evaluate prospective architectural teams through a ‘Pick an Architect’ workshop held on the development site, where they were asked to evaluate practices’ ability to engage with residents and communities. Archio’s proposed approach anticipated their development of a toolkit of practices for collaboration during the development of affordable housing. These design tools were refined through use across a series of later commissions, including a co-housing project at Angel Yard, Norwich, and a resident-led estate regeneration scheme at Astley Estate, Southwark