Harlow Re-new Town is a speculative housing proposal in collaboration with OEB Architects, housing lawyer Nick Bano, urban data analyst Dominic Humphrey and filmmaker Stuti Bansal for The Davidson Prize in 2024. The proposal reimagines how new homes might be introduced into post-war British New Towns by renewing existing neighbourhood centres.
The brief called for the reuse of an existing building(s) within the proposal. We were drawn to the post-war British New Towns for their ambition, scale and impact, while acknowledging some of their current challenges, specifically their low density, the lack of connectivity between neighbourhoods without a car, and their over-reliance on the single-family house typology.
Located in Harlow, a New Town on the edge of London, the proposal presents housing ideas that respond to Britain’s increasingly diverse communities. It focuses on the small shopping parades at the centre of each neighbourhood, locally known as hatches. These sites are explored as the foundation for a new form of community-led housing. The selected site, Slacksbury Hatch, comprises a parade of neighbourhood shops and a series of underused garages to the rear.
The proposal draws inspiration from the compound house, a multi-generational housing typology found across Africa. In this typology, the compound — a semi-public space at the centre of the home — accommodates communal activities such as cooking, eating, entertaining and important communal rites, rituals and celebrations, fostering collective identity. At Slacksbury Hatch, this idea is translated into a shared courtyard, replacing the area of garages behind the shopping parade. The compound becomes a space to work, build and repair together, socialise, grow food, and exchange ideas and skills.
Some shop units are retained, continuing their important communal role, while others are reimagined as shared facilities, including a launderette and a communal kitchen supported by a community-run growing allotment. Rather than rigidly designed flats, homes are organised around a flexible grid of spaces that can be subdivided and reconfigured to accommodate residents’ changing needs.
Harlow Re-new Town is structured around these key principles:
Imagining Affordable Development
Harlow’s seventeen ‘hatches’ are municipally owned, meaning that rather than the land being sold for private development, public ownership can be retained through a Community Land Trust, ensuring long-term affordability. A not-for-profit Community Building Company enables members to contribute skills and labour while receiving training and employment. Resale values are capped at cost plus inflation, preventing speculation and ensuring homes are available to future residents. Working with Nick Bano, a housing lawyer and author, we imagined how this setup could help address the UK’s housing challenges.
Collaborative Construction
A Community Building Company enables residents to participate in designing and constructing their homes without needing full upfront capital. Skilled professionals guide the process, providing training and ensuring quality construction. The model avoids the risks of informal self-build, protecting residents from liability for defects while building long-term skills.
Bio-based Materials
New construction uses hempcrete infill over existing masonry structures. Lightweight yet thermally efficient, the material supports passive heating through clerestory glazing and winter gardens. Hemp can be cultivated locally in the UK, sequesters carbon at up to 15 tonnes per hectare during growth, and is naturally non-toxic and fire-resistant.
A Local Circular Economy
Materials from nearby demolition sites are reused. Salvaged brickwork, concrete panels and curtain wall glazing are repurposed, while roofing membranes become shingles and surfaces. The process establishes a neighbourhood materials hub, turning local demolition waste into a resource for community-led construction.
Carbon Saving
A typical new-build two-person home embodies around 80,000 kgCO₂. By reusing existing structures, repurposing local materials, and introducing low-carbon products, Harlow Re-New Town could significantly reduce this. Working with Dominic Humphrey, an Urban Data Analyst, we calculated that the Re-New Town approach could save between 45,000 and 60,000 kgCO2 of carbon per home. The strategy demonstrates how adaptive reuse across multiple sites could generate significant collective carbon savings.
Renewable Energy
A shared network of ground source heat pumps installed in Harlow’s extensive green spaces provides efficient heating and cooling for homes and businesses within the hatches. This system could extend to surrounding neighbourhoods, contributing to wider decarbonisation while providing sheltered community spaces with stable internal temperatures.
By combining community ownership, circular construction and spatial models drawn from collective housing traditions, Harlow Re-New Town proposes a new vision for the future of Britain’s New Towns: neighbourhood centres where housing, skills, production and shared life are built together.
Finalist for The Davidson Prize 2024
Collaborators: OEB Architects, Nick Bano, Dominic Humphrey and Stuti Bansal