Why can’t everybody design their own home?
Self-commissioned housing represents less than 10% of new housing in the UK, way below that of other European countries. Meanwhile we have a shortage of homes, and a system of housing supply that is ‘top down’, with large providers and housebuilders dominating the way that homes are designed and built.
BuildGroup is a collective custom-build approach to the design of housing, which will support the growth of self-commissioned housing in the UK. Our mission is to put people at the heart of decisions about where they want to live.
building for people.
A building group is a group of people that formally come together to collectively be involved in the procurement of housing for themselves and their community.
The ‘building group’ approach is new to the UK, although there are other established methods for community-led housing. The idea began in Germany in the 1990’s with ‘Baugruppen’. The aim was to produce better quality housing by having residents organise projects themselves, crucially these groups are supported in the delivery of their homes.
There is no set definition or rules for how the process works and the ‘Baugruppen’ model requires adaption and interpretation for the UK market. The important point is that a building group is involved in the process of developing homes for themselves, rather than the usual situation where homes are on offer to consumers as finished products.
What is a Building Group?
building for the planet.
Collaborative design.
For collective housing to be successful it must openly engage with a wide range of people including landowners, planners, developers and constructors. BuildGroup sets out how a community-led group can talk around a ‘real’ proposal which they can envisage and understand. This makes it useful for critical early discussions, giving community groups a way to quickly establish a proposal that can be used for briefing, feasibility, and financial assessment.
Over the last 20 years carbon emissions due to buildings and transportation have barely gone down at all despite all the fine words. What does it mean to declare a climate emergency, unless we act like it’s an emergency?
We need to build from low carbon materials, make buildings that require little or no heating, and enable users to produce as well as use power. We need to build denser cities that permit walking, cycling and public transport as the best and quickest way to travel. We need a shift to a circular economy, and that begins with acting together as a community.
BuildGroup defines sustainable development using the ‘triple bottom line’, with a rebalancing away from purely economic value, towards the creation of social and environmental value, by building places that foster supportive neighbours, with better quality homes and better environmental credentials.
The triple bottom line.
Join the movement
BuildGroup can be used to embed social and environmental value into communities but we can’t do it alone. We’re looking to collaborate with local authorities, housing associations, developers, other architects, community-led housing groups and individual households.
Get in touch to join the movement as we develop the BuildGroup resources.