LSA Design Think Tank – Architectural Agency

ED/GY Mid rise proposal

Since January our trailblazing first cohort of students has been working in five Design Think Tanks, which are practitioner-led groups all of which are offering daring new urban proposals for London. In the following weeks we will publish their proposals. Here is the first: Architectural Agency.

We are ED/GY: Ethical Dwellings for Generation Y. Amid the current housing crisis in London, Generation Y are losing out. We cannot afford to buy, and yet we are low priority for social housing. Many of us are trapped in this difficult situation with no realistic, equitable options available. We have a responsibility to address the issues facing our generation: we are millennials trying to solve the housing crisis for millennials.

We have formed to challenge the current bias in public policy that favours home ownership at the expense of public good and common interest. We will use our agency, as spatial thinkers, to act beyond the design and delivery of buildings to create transformative urban proposals and social change. To do this we must be canny: exploiting and manoeuvring within the current systems to leverage opportunities for the good life in today’s crisis.

ED/GY High rise proposal

For ED/GY, the home is not an asset, it is a place to dwell and belong. We offer a model of collective ownership that allows long term residents to build equity at a rate they can afford. In opposition to traditional ownership, ED/GY’s proposal facilitates the pooling of resources between larger groups of millennials – unlocking access to our developments for those who cannot get on the ladder in the current market.

ED/GY homes will facilitate the evolving ways that we want to live. In a growing global city, we recognise the economies of sharing and the social benefits of a strong community. We present generous communal living arrangements with choice, a measured balance between the individual and the communal. Our dwellings respond to the new rituals and patterns of living that Generation Y are shaping.

ED/GY recognises the potential of intensifying London’s edges, bolstering existing communities with the vibrant energy of young, hard-working millennials. We will create attractive places to live, work and play with the metropolitan intensity and density that is required to support a rich and diverse community.

ED/GY Low rise proposal

We have tested our research and its spatial implications at three scales: low-, mid- and high- rise. Without a specific site, our propositions are strategic re-imaginings of existing typologies envisaged as applicable to sites across London. The dwellings we propose are designed for sharing: for us it is a luxury not a compromise.

Read our publication

Architectural Agency Led by Matthew Dalziel from Interrobang and Will Hunter from the LSA, Architectural Agency explores the power of the architect. Its practice members are Carmody Groarke, Haworth Tompkins, Hut, Interrobang, IF_DO, Liddicoat & Goldhill, Mikhail Riches, PDP London, and Studio Octopi; and its student members are Raphael Arthur, Chiara Barrett, Ian Campbell, Jack Idle, Fabio Maiolin, Phoebe Nickols and Fiona Stewart.