UNIT L:
Brownfield

Unit L – ‘Making Housing Public’ explores low cost experimental housing typologies and the unique communities they create. This year, with ‘BROWNFIELD’, we connect to a long and rich history of migration East along the Thames estuary in search of a “better”, more affordable way of life within the context of once prevalent, post-industrial, and so-called ‘ripe for development’ brownfield environments.

Finding ourselves on the Swanscombe Peninsula, we explore how such waterside sites are far from the vacant wastelands they are often described as, and have, over time, rewilded, becoming important sites for the preservation of wildlife and havens for the rarest of species.

In Unit L we have situated ourselves within the polarised perspective of protection versus development, to consider a more holistic and integrated approach fostering a symbiosis between the natural and human made environments; beginning with a simple SHELTER and working up to a COHOUSING development with connections to the surrounding public, communities and landscape.