When we talk about London’s housing crisis, conversations often begin and end with numbers.

How many homes are being delivered? How many storeys? How many units per hectare?

Those questions matter. But they can also distract from a more fundamental one: who are we actually designing for?

Working on Brooke House at GRID architects reminded me that housing isn’t simply about increasing supply. It’s about creating homes that allow people to live independently, confidently and with dignity over the long term.

Women’s Pioneer Housing has spent more than a century responding to these challenges, and Brooke House presented an opportunity to reimagine that long-standing mission for a new generation of residents.

That responsibility meant understanding not just the organisation’s mission, but the experiences of the people already living there. The Brooke House site had three small buildings containing 39 bedsits. 

We spent considerable time listening to existing residents and understanding what worked, what didn’t, and how the existing accommodation affected everyday life. Many homes fell below modern space standards. Accessibility was limited. Communal spaces offered little opportunity for social connection while still respecting privacy.

Those conversations shaped almost every design decision that followed. They reminded us that success would not be defined simply by delivering more homes, but by creating homes that residents could continue to thrive in as their lives evolved.  Although the headline for this project is that the building is designed for women only, it was the age of the WPH existing tenants that had more of an impact on the design.

Rather than simply replacing outdated homes, we wanted to create somewhere these residents, and new ones, could genuinely see themselves living for decades.

Good housing quietly supports everyday life.

At Brooke House, that meant creating generous dual-aspect homes (100%) with abundant natural light, providing ten fully wheelchair-accessible apartments, ensuring every resident could move easily throughout the building, and designing external spaces that encourage interaction without demanding it.

Independence isn’t achieved through one dramatic architectural gesture. It comes from hundreds of carefully considered decisions that collectively make daily life easier, safer and more enjoyable.

That approach extends beyond the apartments themselves. Retaining mature trees, introducing a sequence of gardens and creating accessible communal external spaces, like the 11th floor roof terrace, all help foster a sense of belonging that is often overlooked when discussions focus solely on housing numbers.

As architects, we often speak about value in terms of efficiency, sustainability and viability. Those remain essential.
The development incorporates an all-electric energy strategy, air source heat pumps, photovoltaic panels and heat recovery systems to reduce operational energy demand while improving comfort for residents.

But projects like Brooke House remind me that there is another form of value that deserves equal attention.

Creating housing that allows someone to remain independent as they age. Delivering homes where residents feel safe. Designing places that support wellbeing, community and dignity.

Those outcomes are harder to quantify, yet arguably have the greatest long-term impact.

London undoubtedly needs more homes.

But as we continue addressing the housing shortage, we should be equally ambitious about improving the quality of those homes and ensuring they respond to the people who will actually live in them.

For me, Brooke House reinforces something we strongly believe at GRID: inclusive housing is not a specialist sector or a niche typology. It is simply good architecture – architecture that starts by listening, responds to people’s lives, and ultimately gives them a better place to call home.