Garages to provide ‘pop-up’ housing for homeless people

Proposal by the Building Trust could see sheds turned into prefab homes in London. But would this only exacerbate existing problems in deprived areas?

We’ve seen pop-up shops and pop-up bars, pop-up galleries and pop-up cinemas – and now this ubiquitous marketing-speak has been applied to homeless housing.

The Pop-up HAWSE (Homes through Apprenticeships With Skills for Employment) is a proposal to convert disused lock-up garages in London’s Hackney into temporary accommodation for homeless people.

Conceived by Levitt Bernstein Architects for the Building Trust’s Home competition, the scheme would allow an 11.5sq m bedsit to be created within a disused garage for around £13,000.

Each unit would consist of a bedroom and shower room, with every fifth garage housing a communal laundry, kitchen and dining area. The structures would be manufactured off-site and delivered as a kit of parts, assembled on-site with the help of future occupants through an apprenticeship scheme. If the garages are redeveloped, the components can be dismantled and reused elsewhere.

“The proposals not only offer a home but education opportunities in construction techniques,” say the architects. “[It is] a way of regenerating street frontage and a practical interim solution between other development possibilities.”

Concerns have been raised about the idea of packing homeless people away in rows of lock-up garages, particularly on already deprived council estates. But David Cole, founding partner of the Building Trust, says the project has backing from leading homeless charities, including the YMCA and Crash, which helped to judge the competition.

“The thinking is that it is far better to give someone their own space with their own front door than put them into shared accommodation,” he says. “The new government guidelines will emphasise shared housing, but this often only instils the problems. This is a stepping stone housing project, allowing people to get back on the ladder.”

The trust is currently looking at different funding models, including the HCA’s Empty Homes grants programme – which provides grants of up to £13,000 per unit.

“We see it as part of the wider regeneration of existing estates,” says Jo McCafferty of Levitt Bernstein. “It would provide temporary housing, workshops and training opportunities for maybe one to two years, before moving on to another estate when demolition begins.”

The architects are in talks with several London boroughs, and say a project could begin within the next couple of months.

Is this a bold new vision to exploit underused space for urgent housing need, or a recipe for ghettoised barracks that will exacerbate the problems of deprived inner-city areas?