Policy and Research • New Homes in New Ways

The temporary housing crisis is a national scandal. We're exploring how meanwhile sites could deliver much-needed homes for people in need.

London faces huge challenges in providing a safe and secure home for everyone who needs one. Currently London councils are spending £4m each and every day on housing people in temporary accommodation: hotels, bedsits and private rented flats—many of these substandard, unsafe, or lacking basic amenities. Even worse than the financial implication is the human cost: one in twenty-three children in London is living in precarious circumstances; many have spent their entire educational lives moving from place to place every few weeks. This cannot go on.

Over the last few months, we have been working with Wates Group and modular specialist Rollalong on several combined initiatives.

Firstly, as a demonstration of how MMC can help to deliver good quality homes, cost-effectively and quickly, we have designed, manufactured and installed a prototype two-bedroom, three-person apartment that can be easily delivered into urban locations using standard shipping methods—no police escorts or complex logistics required.

Secondly, we have been advocating for new powers for local authorities to grant automatic permission for temporary accommodation under permitted development powers, similar to the way in which the Nightingale Hospitals were built at speed during the pandemic. Homelessness is also an immediate crisis and requires a similarly bold response.

"The room was so small that the four of them had to share one double bed...it made daily activities very difficult, and without space for a table, they ate all their meals on the floor."

Human Rights Watch, describing the experiences of Amaka, a pregnant mother of three boys living in temporary accommodation

Building Hope

We started designing our modular demonstrator in December 2024, and on the morning of 7 February 2025 the prototype rolled into central London. Arriving on three lorries, the home was rapidly assembled from the three pre-manufactured volumes, which were built inside Rollalong’s factory in Dorset, and included all decorations, fixtures, fittings, kitchens and white goods.

Sitting lightly on the ground, these modules—which cost around £2,000 /sqm fully-finished—can be installed in a temporary condition; but with a sixty-year design life, NHBC warranty and full building regulations compliance. The homes are generously proportioned with areas and internal dimensions in alignment with the Nationally Described Space Standards. They even have ceiling heights of 2.9m, far beyond that found in most permanent housing.

Turnkey cost of just £2,000 per sqm

Designed, manufactured and installed in two months

Fully space standard compliant

All Boroughs are encouraged to identify opportunities for the meanwhile use of sites for housing to make efficient use of land while it is awaiting longer-term development...meanwhile housing should count towards meeting a borough’s housing target.

London Plan 2021, Policy H3

Flexible, adaptable, deliverable

Our two-bedroom apartment comprises three modules, each 2.9m wide ensuring that they can be delivered into constrained urban locations without specialist logistics or police escorts. The bedrooms have been designed to sleep two people in each, meeting the space standards for a three-person apartment but allowing for an additional bed space if required.

By inserting a fourth standard module between the living room and the second bedroom—as the plan here demonstrates—a three-bedroom home can easily be created. Again, this meets the space requirements of a three-bedroom, four-person home, but can comfortably accommodate five, or even six people achieving 90% of the space required under the standards.

The modules are joined together along the wall lines, allowing them to be taken apart to be easily moved from place to place—enabled by a hot-rolled steel frame that makes each module stiff enough to be lifted. Even so, the homes achieve NHBC Accepts and BOPAS warranties, full Building Regulations compliance and are designed for a minimum sixty-year life.

According to policy H3 of the London Plan, meanwhile use housing counts against borough’s housing targets, and the use of modern methods of construction is encouraged.

Early morning outside the Building Centre on 7 February 2025 as the first of the modules in moved into place.

Partially-installed home outside the Building Centre showing two of three modules in place.

Interior of the prototype home looking from the entrance door through the living and dining area.

Status
Prototype completed 2025

Location
Building Centre, London

 

Collaborators

Lead Contractor: Wates Group
Modular Manufacturer: Rollalong
Structural Engineer: Design4Structures

Project Team

Simonpietro Salini
Andrea Villate
Oliver Simpson
Russell Curtis

Project list