Property News · January 21, 2016

Self-build pioneers: the estate pointing the friendly way out of a housing crisis


Grand Designs it isn’t, but the singular vision of architect Walter Segal lives on in Lewisham – and the families who built their own homes are inspiring a future generation in search of affordable housing in Britain“Unconventional,” was the only word the estate agent could think of to describe it, when Alice Grahame and her husband Paul came to look around a house in Walters Way in the leafy south London suburb of Honor Oak. “And a bit weird.”A decade later, Grahame has become so fascinated by the weirdness of her street she has curated an exhibition about its origins at the Architectural Association. The show tells the heroic tale of a time in the 1980s when the London borough of Lewisham took the bold step of letting residents take the future of their homes into their own hands, with the UK’s first self-built council housing project. In an unlikely twist, it also reveals how the project’s pioneering principles, largely since forgotten, are enjoying a revival in the very same borough – with a new self-build project that could provide a revolutionary template for community-led affordable housing. Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
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