COMMUNITY LED HOMES ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN COMPETITION
Bristol City Council has announced the community-led housing groups who will be taking forward plans to develop five council-owned sites for affordable housing.
Congratulations to the following on their successful bids:
1) Bristol Somali Resource Centre
2) Hometime Community Led Housing Group
3) We Can Make and Black South West Network (partnership)
ABOUT THE COMPETITION
In March 2022 we launched a new design competition inviting architects with an interest in Community Led Housing to work with Bristol-based community groups to help them realise their ambitions and unlock small sites in the city for affordable housing.
As part of their Community Led Housing (CLH) Land Disposal strategy, Bristol City Council had secured a small amount of funding (around £20,000) from the Local Government Association (LGA) to help five community groups progress their bids to develop selected parcels of council-owned land in the city for community-led affordable housing.
Find out more about Bristol’s Community Led Housing Land Disposal programme here.
WHAT WE LOOKED FOR
We looked for architects interested in supporting the ambition of these CLH groups in developing affordable housing to help them tailor their ideas and aspirations and progress their concepts and designs ahead of their land applications, which each CLH group needed to submit by 11th August 2022.
MORE ABOUT COMMUNITY LED HOUSING
Across Bristol, groups of visionary individuals and community organisations are getting together to re-think and re-imagine the way in which they would choose to live and meet the housing needs of those in their communities. These groups recognise that housing is about so much more than providing a roof over peoples’ heads and want people to be able to live in homes and environments that are expressly designed to put community at the forefront of neighbourhood place-making and place-keeping.
THE TIMELINE
Stage one - selection of programme partners
At this stage we were looking for programme partners. Architects were invited to apply to be involved in this programme, by completing three simple questions describing why they felt Community Led Housing is important, why they wanted to be involved and what they would bring to this process.
Stage one of this competition closed on Thursday 8th April 2022. Eight architectural practices were shortlisted and invited to take part in Stage two.
Stage two – match making
26TH APRIL - ONLINE MATCHMAKING EVENT
Bristol Housing Festival hosted an online match-making event. All eight of the short-lists architects gave a five minute pitches describing their key interests, their proposed approach and their relevant experience.
The pitches were followed by a round of ten minute breakout sessions, akin to ‘speed dating’ in which the groups and architects had a chance to ‘meet’ and chat more specifically about their schemes.
Following the event all the architects and all the community groups were asked to complete a voting pro forma, which allowed all parties to rank the top three architects/groups they’d be most keen to work with and why.
The voting was used to determine the best-fit pairs, with the two architects with the lowest votes eliminated from the completion process at this juncture. Following the vote the final pairs were decided by Bristol City Council, who were ultimately the client in allocating LGA grant funding for the subsequent design work.
The partnerships formed to develop design proposals for the sites indicated were:
Emmett Russell & Knolwe West Media Centre (Queens Rd Car Park)
One50Studio & Bristol Somali Resource Centre (Tenants Hall)
Transition by Design & Knolwe West Media Centre (Pensford Court & Whittocks Square)
Archio & Hometime (Woodborough Street)
Askew Cavanna & Sorrel (Woodborough Street)
Clifton Emery & Canopy (Woodborough Street)
Stage three – design development
6TH SEPTEMBER - SHOWCASE EVENT
BCC hosted a showcase event at St Werburghs Community Centre. This was a celebration of all the work the paired architect-CLH groups had done, as well as an opportunity for peer review of the designs. A Design Panel including representatives from BCC, Bristol Housing Festival, Bristol Community Land Trust and University of the West of England, all provided comments following the presentations as well as feedback after the event, to encourage and inform all the CLH groups’ with their plans.
The showcase was well attended and hugely enjoyed.
Thank you for a great showcase! The presentations have been very thought provoking. Housing Association
Fantastic Event. Very Inspiring. Homes England
The event was a fantastic opportunity to learn about the design and engagement process each architect had gone through with their respective CLH groups.
Wow - the consultation event that was enabled through this process, looked incredible! This was an inclusive, engaging and potentially highly empowering community-led development proposal. Panelist
MEET THE TEAM
BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL, HOUSING ENABLING TEAM
Enabling the delivery of affordable housing and supporting the Council’s policy of disposing of land to support the development of affordable housing by Community Led Housing groups.
THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION (LGA)
The LGA Housing Advisors Programme have awarded funding to support BCC’s second tranche of CLH land disposals to explore innovative design solutions for affordable housing on difficult sites. The focus is on how we can combat challenges and constraints to bring forward additional affordable homes on land which otherwise would not be developed.
BRISTOL HOUSING FESTIVAL
The Bristol Housing Festival is think- and do-tank hosting an ongoing conversation to incubate and pilot new ideas and technologies, champion best practice and showcase better homes and city community living across Bristol.
CLHWEST HUB
CLHWest Hub is a not-for-profit organisation providing CLH advocacy, policy advice, technical support, and general advice and guidance throughout the community led housing (CLH) project process, to community groups and local authorities. CLHWest covers the South West Region and is also part of the national network of technical advisory hubs.
