How can urban density be re-imagined in new and creative ways?

We present ways in which the demands for housing today are being met.

“In the article entitled “Dispersed Densification: A Solution to London’s Housing Problem Using Small Sites,” the author James Dunnett explains that “to meet the demand for more housing in London today, there is great pressure to either rebuild existing housing estates at much higher densities, or to build on the Green Belt. Neither solution is desirable. But there is an alternative–here called dispersed densification on small sites.” 

Finally, we share information about The Affordable City (2020).

>> We encourage you to browse The Plan Journal and explore for yourself

 

Small Sites

In “Dispersed Densification: A Solution to London’s Housing Problem Using Small Sites,” the author James Dunnett explains:

“The footprint of the Scout Hall is of about 270 m2 [2,906 sq. ft.] and together with the hard-standing and paved area around it as shown on the Ordnance Survey map it covers about 850 m2 [9,149 sq. ft.]. Its present enclosure within the overall site measures 0.26 ha [0.64 ac.]—a Small Site + 4 %. Purely by way of an example, the drawing 1409-SK2E, reproduced below, shows an existing 14-storey block—Grade 2-listed Glenkerry House in London E14 designed by Ernö Goldfinger (on which the author of this article was for a time project architect) superimposed with its footprint of 600 m2 [6,458 sq. ft.] on the site of the Scout Hall. With hard landscaping around it, and assuming any parking provision to be in Courtrai Road itself, the total hard footprint in the SINC might equal that of the Scout Hall, and so, it would seem, should not have any greater impact on the natural assets of the site than the Scout Hall.”

Courtrai Road Scout Hall site in the context of the SINC, the railway and the surrounding housing, with the proposed Glenkerry House superimposed, with shadow cast. Drawing by © the Author.

 

Dunnett continues:

“It is also worth noting that such a block could be wholly or partly open at ground level, the building supported on stilts or pilotis above ground and thus interfering even less with natural life and movement on the ground surface. It could in fact have a smaller footprint than the existing Scout Hall. Glenkerry House provides a total of seventy-eight residential units varying from six-person to two-person.”

>> The abstract is available in THE PLAN Journal vol. 7/2022, no. 1 (in English)

 

The Affordable City

In the book The Affordable City: Strategies for Putting Housing Within Reach (and Keeping it There), the author Shane Phillips suggests that “the ‘three S’s [working together] of Supply, Stability, and Subsidy’ are essential” for attacking the current housing crisis.

280 pages
English
Island Press
September 15, 2020 
6 x 0.7 x 9 in.
ISBN-10: 1642831336
ISBN-13: 978-1642831337

To learn more, check out: The Affordable City

 

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The Plan Journal is intended to disseminate and promote innovative, thought-provoking, and relevant research, studies, and criticism related to architecture and urbanism. The journal grew out of an awareness that academia is all too often engaged in research that’s disconnected from the real-world challenges that face different professions, and that research is only possible for a small number of professional organizations, and, even then, with limited platforms for its dissemination. The overarching aim of TPJ is therefore to enrich the dialogue between researchers and professionals so as to foster both pertinent new knowledge and intellectually driven modes of practice.

 

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