Ealing Broadway Building Society
Through the co-production of housing, this project proposes to address the power imbalance present within the built environment through reforming the production of the spaces we inhabit, from the consumption of developer-led housing to a social structure of co-production giving the residents of Ealing Broadway, an area threatened by gentrification driven by Crossrail, the means to shape their own environments.
The social process of communing that would take place: co-production of housing – Barn raising and Building Societies allowing people to come together to collectively meet their own needs. Initially addressing the first barrier to engagement with the built environment; knowledge, Ealing Broadway Building society would continue to serve the wider society by supporting learning about the built environment and it’s production.
The problem with residential developments of scale often is that the residents have no power to modify or redefine the uses of the shared space. In this model, the central space is managed co-operatively by the residents, allowing greater resilience as a community. The upkeep of the public spaces is funded by the rental income from the ground floor commercial units, which produces a surplus to allow the Building Society to exist as an educational program to inspire others to form beyond the delivery of the homes it was set up to deliver.
Housing is one of the first spatial needs to be commoditised and capitalised upon by developers and consumers alike. The Building Society would ensure the long-term provision of affordable adaptable homes by setting up a Community Land Trust to take ownership of the site, and managing through who has access to leasing the homes through the cooperative management.
Lillian is a Masters student of Architecture at The University of Sheffield. Increasingly concerned with the inequality existing as a result of land economies, and the role of the architect as a tool for capital gains through gentrification, she has developed projects researching fairer ways of procuring spaces for living around future connectivity hotspots such as crosssrail and HS2.
