Can council housing influence trends in residential architecture?

Croydon Council has taken an important step in improving the quality of housing the local authority offers. They will use their private development company Brick by Brick to build architect designed council houses on sites across the Borough. This will hopefully set a new trend for how this type of property is designed and built. It could also have a wider influence on residential architecture in London and beyond. The Council's Smaller Site Programme is an impressive £270 million investment in the creation of new homes. It is expected that up to 1,000 properties can be created across the sites. This would help to address housing needs in the Borough.The project is progressing with the first batch of planning permissions (representing 111 homes on nine sites) submitted in November. The second batch will follow early in December, seeing plans for an additional 162 homes on 11 sites. The applications for batches three and four will round out the initial stage of the programme, expected for submission at the end of December and early in 2017 respectively.If all permissions are granted construction work on the sites could begin in the spring of 2017. This in turn would result in the first homes becoming inhabitable in the summer of 2018.Coffey Architects was incredibly proud to be asked to take part in the programme and submit our designs for sites. Of the 20 from batches one and two six of the plans are ours. We are keeping our fingers crossed that all permissions are granted.We have long held the belief that council housing should play a larger role in shaping residential architecture in London and all across the UK. We feel the properties should be designed to suit each specific setting and the needs of the inhabitants rather than just sticking to outdated stock designs. We are really proud to contribute our knowledge and skills to the Smaller Site Programme.