February 8, 2016

Pocket Development’s 2 Bed Apartment Competition: Lessons from London

by Michael Mortensen, MA MCIP, RPP – a Vancouver Developer & Planner Abroad m4mortensen@gmail.com | www.plan-tlc.com ©2016
 


I thought Pocket’s Two Bedroom Competition would make a nice book-end to my earlier post “Making Apartments Work Harder: the 3rd Bedroom Challenge“.
We can learn a lot from London, and the innovative companies tackling the city’s housing affordability and supply challenges. For almost 3 years, I’ve been leading the design and development of mixed-use housing projects in the UK, and I’ve come to appreciate how deep and systemic the housing supply issue is here.

London Housing Challenges

  • 140,000 people moved to London last year but the industry produced less than 20,000 new housing units.
  • For the last 10 years, Greater London’s housing industry has under-supplied this world city by about 30,000 units annually.
  • Prices in London have surged and thousands of hard-working London households are left out of the housing market.

Pocket’s Response

Founded by Marc Vlessing, Pocket is focusing on the design and development of affordable apartments for “working Londoners” caught in the affordability and supply gap between Social Housing and Market housing. The firm aims to produce units at about 20% below the market rate with purchase mechanisms to keep them affordable over the long term. They’ve launched a partnership with the Greater London Authority to these ends, and they recently published the results of a very interesting Two Bedroom Design Competition that I’ll describe in a bit more detail below.

Pocket’s Two Bedroom Competition

Pocket is challenging housing design and size as a way to increase supply and affordability. They recently invited 19 London architecture firms to prepare design prototypes for liveable, space-efficient two-bedroom apartments. Their instructions were to design smarter and compact (but not micro) units that could comfortably accommodate a small family. And they also challenged the design teams to be innovative with plans that increase liveability, functionality, storage, privacy etc. The architects experimented with open concept plans that bend some of the London Design Guidelines that set out minimum apartment sizes amongst other criteria.

GIA

London Design Guideline Sizes

Some of the interesting plans generated include design features like:

  • Expandable / Flexible rooms;
  • Dual entries for sharers;
  • Innovative Storage Systems and ‘Storage Divider Walls’;
  • Study Nooks; and
  • Modular / Pod Concept Internal Finishings.

I’ve posted a few examples below:

Take a look at more!

What is impressive, and fortunate for all of us, is that Pocket shared their results online. Take a look! It’s well worth your time!

www.pocketliving.com/homes/ebook

Some of the open plan design approaches will not be unfamiliar to Vancouver architects, and the lessons of many of these case studies could be easily introduced into new Vancouver buildings. One thing I found interesting is how many of the UK architects who participated in this competition chose to use “single-aspect” designs – that is apartments with windows on only one side. “Dual aspect” design – with windows on two elevations – is a general requirement of the London Design Guidelines but in my experience it does not encourage compact building forms or efficient internal circulation routes.
This is perhaps where London can learn from Vancouver where we create very efficient buildings (Net floor area: Gross Floor Area) by designing units off of a central hallway and a shared lobby where you can create a bit more amenity. This approach does create some single-aspect units, but apartments on corners still benefit from windows on two different elevations. Light and ventilation are typically achieved through open plan designs and shallow unit depths.
It has been fun working and learning in another design culture and I really appreciate when other firms share their research so widely.
Kudos to Pocket for being such thought leaders.

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