The Government has announced that a team consisting of igloo Regeneration (Nationwide's development partner, Oakfield, Swindon) is joint winner of the Home of 2030 competition.
igloo Regeneration, with Mawson Kerr, Useful Projects and Cast, has today been announced as joint winner of the UK government’s Home of 2030 competition. +Home prioritises nature and community over profit and seeks to abolish soulless housing estates.
The Home of 2030 competition was led by RIBA and the BRE, on behalf of the government departments MHCLG, BEIS and DHSC, to prompt innovative home designs that are green, age friendly, healthy and deliverable. The +Home entry was announced as one of six finalists in August before being crowned joint winner with Open Studio by Housing Minister Christopher Pincher today at Homes UK.
igloo, working with Sunderland City Council, now plans to build the winning +Home, and all five shortlisted schemes at the month-long Future Living Expo in Sunderland in 2023. The home will be built in entirety, along with the other five finalists’ entries, so visitors will have the unique opportunity to touch, feel and experience first-hand the winning vision for the future of housing.
The Sunderland Expo 2023 will promote advanced, low carbon, smart homes that enhance nature and promote wellbeing and community. It promises an innovative programme of activity centred on the new housing being delivered by Sunderland City Council and igloo in the centre of the city as part of the flagship Riverside Sunderland masterplan.
igloo’s founder and chief executive, Chris Brown, said: “There were over 400 entries in the Home of 2030 competition, so just to be shortlisted for the award was great. All six schemes are inspirational.
“igloo champions citizens and communities against the corporate stranglehold over house building in the UK and as part of our work with Sunderland City Council on the Riverside Sunderland masterplan, we will be delivering the Expo as the first phase of 1,000 new homes, so it’s a perfect opportunity to showcase all the winning Homes of 2030 including +Home for the first time.
“+Home sets out to transform the UK housing sector, enabling community-led and self-build homes that people can design themselves. The 2023 Expo will be particularly special as it will be the first of what we hope will be a series of Great British Housing Fairs, modelled on the highly successful annual Finnish Housing Fairs.”
Peter McIntyre, Executive Director for City Development, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to see igloo recognised for their work in this hotly-contested competition. Their innovation, commitment to sustainability and focus on creating communities is exactly what appealed to us in Sunderland, and we’re pleased that they’re bringing all of that to fruition for us on our Riverside Sunderland development, which will of course be a showcase for the winning designs from this competition when we host our Sunderland Future Living Expo in 2023.
Judith Sykes of Useful Projects said: “The intense collaboration with the team through the competition has enabled us to evolve our ideas for the +Home and I am delighted that we have the opportunity to demonstrate how they can be delivered as part of the Sunderland Expo. Our starting point is the residents, designing in the things needed to support low impact and healthy lifestyles. The need for generosity of spaces and green places, core to the +Home, has been amplified by the global pandemic. I am hopeful that all the winning concepts will drive a rethink on how we plan and build communities.”
Will Mawson of Mawson Kerr said: “High quality housing at volume is one of the significant challenges of our time. Being recognised in this award is a huge achievement for the team and is the result of a great deal of thought by many leaders in their respected fields. This is the start
of the journey in realising these typologies. We greatly hope we can now go on to deliver the homes people need to live sustainably, in comfort and enjoy for many decades to come.”
Mark Farmer, founder and CEO of Cast Consultancy, said: “I am absolutely delighted that Igloo Regeneration has been successful in the Homes of 2030 competition and that Cast was able to play a key role as part of the winning team. There has never been more focus on the quality and performance of our homes, so this is a timely announcement. This debate has no doubt been accelerated by Covid-19 and the impact of home working and social isolation on our lives but a longer term structural shift in wider societal attitudes was already happening pre-pandemic, which is now fundamentally challenging what owners and occupiers need, want and expect from their homes.
“The igloo team has analysed these challenges in great detail and has set a template here for a new generation of homebuilding. There is also an implicit opportunity in our proposals to reform how we physically deliver new homes, harnessing the disruptive power of technology and manufacturing to innovate and further modernise methods of construction. I am also pleased to see that igloo will make all of this come to life in partnership with Sunderland City Council through its exciting Future Living Expo 2023.”
Find out more about the Home of 2030 competition here.
Find out more about the Riverside Sunderland masterplan here.
Find out more about Sunderland Expo 2023 here.
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