Edward Friel

Access to an affordable home in London was once a right, not the privilege of a few. Following the unrelenting commodification of London’s social housing stock over the past 35 years, thousands of people have been removed from their houses, forced to surrender their community and relocated far from where they have made their home. This is no more apparent than on the Carpenters Estate, Newham. The estate sits in a void, partially occupied but mostly decanted, following Newham council’s failed attempts to redevelop the area. This process has led to the breaking and scattering of a once thriving community of residents.

This project speculates on a series of shifts in the existing power structure of home building in Newham, to renegotiate the relationship between the key actors and find a common ground in their interests. Through the formation of a Community Land Trust, Still Home questions whether the residents of the Carpenters Estate can gain agency and control over where they live. And if so, what is the future of social housing on the Carpenters Estate, at the scale of the neighbourhood and of the home?