When incoming, wealthier residents entered Haggerston-Hackney, London- cost of living locally rose, and existing residents were often priced out of the area. My proposal arose from here- to ensure existing residents remain in the area whilst making way for a new demographic.

To ensure residents can afford to remain in the area, a new scale was developed, converting existing/new/average values for income/household price/household set-up into measurements of height/width/length, creating volumes for 2- and 3-bed units, and retail and open spaces.

If these volumes exceeded the volume for the average, the excess was demarcated as shared space within the block, and the hunt price would decrease accordingly.

An analogue algorithm based on a set of rules and constraints was developed as a way of configuring the volumes, putting social and structural needs first.

Inspired by Reyner Banham's 'A Home is not a House', form followed function, as the shared space relied on the negotiation between the residents to decide the internal activity. This form consisted of water/heating/electrical/ventilation tubes, as del as 'moving' tubes for spatial flexibility, and pneumatic tubes that act as a communication device between residents.

Gentrification often works as a trend. The existing residents often run on a longer cycle in an area, becoming more permanent, whereas the incoming residents run on shorter cycles- living in the area for 5 years, for example- yet are constantly replaced by new gentrified incomers, meaning their permanence relies on their temporality. The density of the block, therefore, remains ever-changing.

The configuration system left behind a number of architectural glitches (circulation/light/cantilevers). Instead of redefining the system, these were continued as design opportunities, creating an 'anti-system' within the configuration.

Some ways the glitches were solved included units being removed from the now-interconnected open spaces, being pushed to the periphery of the block, and in some cases, underground. These units often merged in materiality, loosening the divide between the permanent (existing) and the transient (incoming) residents.

We can begin to analyse the effects the designing of the glitches has on the social interactions within the block. Here, we can see how trends of gentrification expose similarities between the two demographics, for example one hand-me-down for an existing family now acts as a retro piece for a gentrified neighbour.

The glitches created an anti-system within the previously rule-based block, which can be seen economically, socially, materially, and aesthetically.

What began as a proposal to ensure existing residents can afford to live in an area, extended into a series of system-glitches, architectural design questions, and eventually a social merging of two demographics.