New Towns New Tenures
Research and Education | 2020 - ongoing
Since 2020, at Oxford Brookes, Kingston University, and the University of Cambridge, our teaching design studio has been sited in the UK’s New Towns, built under the New Towns Act of 1946, as sites for exploring forms of living that move beyond the single-family house. We have examined Harlow (2020–2021), Basildon (2022–2023), Stevenage (2023–2024), and Milton Keynes (2024–2025).
This work has addressed one of the oldest yet most urgent challenges of architecture: the design of housing. It has explored the forms of life housing projects shape, their inherent hierarchies and gender relations, and the places in which they unfold. Crucially, throughout these years, the studio has investigated models of tenure that liberate residents from the fallible promise of the private house owned in perpetuity. Instead of reinforcing the idea of the Englishman’s castle, the studio has considered groups of people and building typologies absent from mainstream planning policies.
The housing question lies at the heart of society. While it provides security and freedom for some, it also fuels inequality, raises living costs, and places extraordinary pressures on environments both global and local. In politics and real estate, the common response is relentless new developments, typically on greenfield sites, characterised by atomised, self-contained, single-family units.
Working with existing buildings, reuse and retrofit have been central to our briefs, serving as tools and practices through which to propose shared forms of domesticity. We are grateful to those who have continuously supported the studio through talks, seminars, and workshops, including Owen Jarvis from the Co-Housing Network, Sal Wilson from HEAL, Shumi Bose, Ioanna Piniara, Jon Lopez from OMMX, Emily Priest at Oxford Brookes in 2019, and Lorenzo Zandri and Yushi Li for their photographs of the students’ models.
Teaching
The University of Cambridge
The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House
Site: Milton Keynes New Town
Taught by: Lola Lozano Lara, Elena Palacios Carral, Daniel Marmot (Artefact)
Students: Luca Batista Dias e Godoy Beltrame, Jessica Bendelow, Jyotsni Bhattacharyya, Faye Blackshaw, Thomas Bridges, Cristina De la Joya Peletier, Samira Elbahja, Elliot Hamilton-Croft, Holly McNicoll, Lara Peralta, Maggie Porter, Katerina Reguretska, Albi Rix, Nadina Solovjova, Reuben Tomlin, Nyahalo Tucker, Vanessa Tung.
The Practice of Everyday Life
Site: Stevenage New Town
BA Studio 3.4
Taught by: Lola Lozano Lara, Elena Palacios Carral, Sam Nelson (Type)
Students:
Magic, Party, Place
Site: Basildon New Town
BA Studio 3.4
Taught by: Lola Lozano Lara, Elena Palacios Carral, Sam Nelson (Type)
Students: Freya Dougan, Isabella Synek-Herd
2021-2022
Never Let Me Down Again
Site: Harlow New Town
BA Studio 3.4
Taught by: Lola Lozano Lara, Elena Palacios Carral, Sam Nelson (Type)
Students: Miriam Agiru, Hannah Back, Juliet Babinsky, George Birch, Alex Bramley, Mary Holmes, Bence Lipcsei, Precious Ndukuba, Sarah Portsmouth, Lalia Saidy Khan, Sang Wee.
Guests/Collaborators: Shumi Bose, Ives Brown, Barbara Campbell-Lange, Oliver Cooke, David Devine, Hunter Doyle, Rory Gardiner, Theodora Giovanazzi, Jane Hall, Moira Jones, Jon Lopez, George Massoud, Maria Rebecca Plaza, Ioanna Piniara, Davide Sacconi, Lorenzo Zandri.
Kingston University
2021-2022
Never Let Me Down Again
Site: Harlow New Town
BA Studio 2.1
Taught by: Lola Lozano Lara, Elena Palacios Carral
2020-2021
Uprooted
Site: Stevenage New Town
BA Studio 2.1
Taught by: Lola Lozano Lara, Elena Palacios Carral
Oxford Brookes University
2020-2021
The Approaching Obsolescence of Domesticity
Site: Various New Towns in the UK
MArchD DS7
Taught by: Lola Lozano Lara, Elena Palacios Carral and Sam Nelson
Technical Tutor: Emily Priest