ABSTRACT
In recent decades, architecture has become so rarefied, that simply designing for those who need it most can seem like a radical gesture. While the rest of London is busy throwing up high-end apartments as speculative investments, Peter Barber has quietly built an impressive set of social housing blocks. This case study presents one of Barber’s recent projects, a cluster of cottages for homeless people, built around a garden. Reviving the neglected typology of the alms house, updated with a wavy parapet, coloured doors and round windows, the project shows that who you design for can be as important as what you design.
