An architecture company has won funding to convert garages into pop-up houses. Architects Levitt Bernstein have conceived a project that will transform disused garages in Hackney into temporary accommodation for the homeless.
Tenants will be charged £11 per week for an 11.5 square metre bedsit containing a bedroom and shower room. The houses will be built off site and delivered as kits to be assembled by future occupants through an apprenticeship scheme.
The housing components can be dismantled and reused again so the project can be continually developed to regenerate deprived areas. Jo McCafferty of Levitt Bernstein said: “The proposals not only offer a home but education opportunities in construction techniques. It is a way of regenerating street frontage and a practical interim solution between other development possibilities.
“We see it as part of the wider regeneration of existing estates. It could provide temporary housing, workshops and training opportunities for maybe one to two years, before moving to another estate after demolition begins.”
Lockner estate’s Blandford Court on Kingsland Road is the prototype for the scheme. Resident Edourd Vanderlin, 30, said: “I bought this property as an investment so I’m not too happy to hear it could be getting more noisy. We are just off a main road anyway.”
Resident Alton Behrich, 45, said: “I think it’s a stupid idea, I can just about fit a couple of motorbikes in there. I don’t know how they are going to build such a small house that won’t feel like a prison cell. Everybody’s going to oppose this.”
Concerns have also been raised about packing homeless people into rows of lock-up garages, particularly on already deprived council estates.
London architect David Roberts: “Personally I think ‘pop-up housing’ is morally bankrupt. Any architect who is serious about homelessness should be addressing the causes of problem, rather than using developer-speak consistent with the commercial forces making housing unaffordable for so many.
“There is political capital in presenting this as a temporary solution to under-used land, as much as to homelessness, but the houses are pretty much caravans.”
