The Housing Services Department at Royal Borough of Greenwich identified an acute need for affordable, single storey dwellings for people over 60 years of age. This is due to an increasingly aged population and a general insufficient supply of available housing which is specifically designed to cater for this user group. In parallel to this, the Council owns many small garage sites around the Borough which are not well used, or even semi derelict in some instances. Some of these sites have a tendency to attract anti-social behaviour, and none of them provide a positive contribution to the townscape.

With these two issues in mind, the Council was granted funding to construct new dwellings on six small sites across the Borough.

We developed a prototype single storey house that can be arranged in alternative layouts on different sites throughout the Borough. A monopitch roof with extensive glazing provides a good quality of height, space and natural light regardless of orientation. The additional height provided by this roof form allows the houses to sit comfortably within different urban situations and provides a generous double height space internally.