The Housing Centre

The Housing Centre is a compact yet adaptable space, accommodating the day-to-day functions of the charity. Whilst providing desk space to permanent staff, the Housing Centre also acts as a drop-in clinic for residents facing challenges with their housing needs, or in need of further support. Whilst there are often just two or three staff attending to the needs of their tenants, the building also opens itself up to wider community events, as well as general meetings to which all residents are encouraged to attend. 

Working on a constrained site on which a disused 1950s concrete garage stood, our client sought a building that embodied their organisational values: resourceful, modest, whilst remaining hopeful and aspirational.

Many who visit the building are in need of support. It was central to the brief that the building accommodated more than office space– it has to provided a calm, welcoming setting for staff and residents, that may not be exuberant but embodied a sense of optimism. A north-facing clerestory brings in an even, diffused light throughout the day, and limits overglazing the frontage to the street which compromises the discretion of those visiting the building when in need of a quiet conversation. 

The exterior of the building is clad in Scots Larch– a naturally durable softwood with a warm, pinkish-brown hue– which has been arranged to create a rhythm of flat and projecting battens changing in width at different parts of the elevation. This rhythm is reinterpreted internally where a panellised base forms a shelf all around the interior of the building, before stepping back to provide display space between vertical battens within the working areas of the office. 

Separating the workspace from a kitchenette and WC, a large fluted storage wall conceals the archival documents of the housing association, which are regularly accessed by the charity's staff. 

Compact yet adaptable, the building provides an uplifting, approachable space where flexibility supports changing needs over time.

The process to develop the proposals involved the preparation of drawings, models and diagrams to help us communicate with the stakeholders of the charity and its many members. Their input allowed us to understand daily life at the charity, the comings-and-goings of its residents, and the adaptability required from the space. Perspectives allow us to test and develop our architectural ideas, whilst illustrating small moments from every day life– hang up coats or offering a place to sit before meeting the staff– in a manner that shows how the architecture responds to the use of the building.