Yes in my Backyard

Hafer Road was recently featured in a BBC news clip about a small pressure group called London Yimby (Yes in My Back Yard) which are encouraging teams of homeowners in suburbs to get together and initiate their own building developments. Inspired by a group in San Francisco by the same name, they believe this strategy can benefit communities and provide a solution to the housing shortage. In this way, the homeowners can create new home for themselves, housing for their children and extended family, suitable housing for the elderly and visually enhance the overall neighbourhood with a new and improved design. Due to space limitations in cities, they believe suburban areas in the UK could be denser by building higher.

Hafer Road was used as an example of a scheme where the local home owners in Clapham got together to demolish the existing building to build new homes for themselves while also adding additional units for more families. Completed by Mark Fairhurst Architects in 2016, the cooperative housing development replaced 8 existing flats on a former bomb damaged site with four maisonettes and a further 12 residential units. A new basement provides accommodation for maisonettes naturally lit via two external courtyards to the rear and a continuous light well to the maisonettes and communal entrances, two stair cores giving access to 8 flats above.

Working closely with the developer Kuropatwa Limited, Wandsworth Council and On the Rise Housing Cooperative, we developed the design to suit the end user and prospective tenants. This scheme demonstrates what is possible when a community works together.

Link to video: Housing: The Yimbys who want to shake up suburbia – BBC News

Link to find out more about London YIMBY: https://www.londonyimby.org/