Housing crisis could be alleviated with revamped banks and churches, exhibition shows 

St Mary’s Church of Angels.

The accommodation crisis could be addressed by housing people in revamped bank buildings and even churches, according to those behind a new exhibition looking at fresh solutions to the current housing shortage.

The Irish Architecture Foundation and The Housing Agency’s ‘Housing Unlocked’ Exhibition, which began in the Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin on Wednesday, is the first of its kind and showcases eight projects selected from a longlist of 55, each aiming to highlight innovative methods of housing people.

It includes ‘Building Societies’ by Tom Cookson and Sarah Carroll, which explores how regional bank buildings in towns around Ireland can provide housing ‘above the bank’ while using halls for communal public spaces and further housing opportunities.

Another project is ‘Thirty-Three Churches’ by David Lawless and Sophie Kelliher, looking at a case study of a Dublin church, St Mary’s Church of Angels on Church Street. It was prompted from the Archdiocese of Dublin’s submission on the draft Dublin City Development Plan, in which 33 churches were identified as having the potential to deliver housing through proposed rezoning.

Modular homes

Other projects look at rapid-build timber modular houses and grid systems that could speed up supply, while another imagines apartment-scale houses with roof gardens and ground-level car parking, all in one block.

Bob Jordan, CEO of The Housing Agency, said of the projects: "One of the things they are challenging is this notion that we need to continually expand to deliver new housing."

He said there is often "a civic element" to these ideas, and that not redeveloping such buildings also has a negative impact on the overall environment of a town or village.

"The overall thrust is to come up with simple and practical changes, rather than really elaborate ones," he said.

"Part of it is we want to see how the public engages with these exhibits, what they say about them, because that will refine them further."

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Nathalie Weadick, director of the Irish Architecture Foundation, said "architecture is not the problem but is part of the solution".

She said not all of the proposals comply completely with current planning guidelines but could proceed with relatively minor "tweaking".

"I am not saying they will all be brought into reality but we are hoping it could be a lightbulb moment for anyone focussing on public housing and furthering the development of housing in this country," she said.

"Sometimes it is not necessarily about building new buildings, it is about using what is there."