The Nottingham Trent river basin was chosen as this year’s competition site, with competitors looking at ways to “explore a new paradigm of sustainable post-industrial regeneration. The focus of the project is the development of a sustainable neighbourhood, providing accommodation for 12-15 families plus essential services to ensure an effective work-life balance.” First year PhD candidate Jordan Lloyd and Eric Chancellor, who is currently undertaking MSc Sustainable Architecture Studies teamed up with Nottingham based historian and design graduate Chris Matthews to design a scheme that employs a fundamentally different development mechanism for house building.

The Trent Bank proposal is a design-led framework that centres on self-provision as a sustainable development and procurement model for new neighbourhoods. It proposes that the first move should be to convert an existing riverside depot into a self-build factory/academy. The community factory then becomes the engine which equips a community of ordinary people to procure and build their own user-made neighbourhood, which can be more affordable, more sustainable and more suited to their needs than a market-led development.

This approach is influenced by the principles set out in A Right to Build, a joint research project between Sheffield School of Architecture and London-based practice Architecture 00:/. In collaboration with 00:/’s Alastair Parvin, also a former Sheffield student and author of A Right to Build, the team have developed a proposal which uses the WikiHouse system: an open source construction system developed by 00:/ and published under a Creative Commons license. The WikiHouse system allows non-professionals without formal training or skills to design, share and download 3D models for houses, the parts for which can be cut from standard 18mm plywood sheets using an automated CNC milling process. The houses can then be quickly and easily assembled with no need for formal training or power tools; not unlike an IKEA kit.