Urban Vessel

Enabled Self Procurement (ESP) is a new concept for housing developments. Instead of relying on the private sector to build speculatively, ESP involves future residents stepping forward early in the process, investing in the development and therefore choosing what kind of house and street they want to live in. Our proposal for a new pattern book house adopts the terrace typology to create both private gardens and public shared gardens – Urban Vessels. The terraces are constructed of Lenotec timber panels with blue engineering brick and ceramic details giving the public spaces a strong, crisp character. The largest terraced house has a generous well-lit multi-purpose space on the top floor that can be used as a playroom or home office as well as a master bedroom.

The competition was run by ‘YouCanPlan’ which set up a website where prospective house builders could select an available plot on a self-build site. They could then select an architect's design for a house from the online pattern book, customising their home through choices such as number of floors, balconies, interior layouts, kitchen and bathrooms etc. The interface kept a running total of cost with the ambition that one day self-builders could click to buy the site and plans, ready to start building.