> The Lonely Club – Re-establishing a Social Network

> UK

>FINALIST

Team Members:

​
Ashley Waitt

Throughout “Sapiens” Dr. Yuval Noah Harari argues that Homo Sapiens are social animals and that the Digital Revolution is asking Sapiens to evolve faster than ever in history. Theoretically the Digital Revolution offers infinite opportunities for social exchange, knowledge transfer and social mobility and yet, paradoxically, the UK’s population is experiencing alarming statistics of social and economic division, loneliness and isolation.

As feelings of disfranchisement and disempowerment grow, alongside unaffordable contexts, Co-Habitation, Co-Living, Co-Working models, Open Source Learning and Free Ware initiatives the sharing of physical, intellectual and technological space is increasing, becoming the norm, rather than the exception.

Within this context this project, through retrofitting, Wikihouse community assembling and governed space standards, develops a mixed-use proposal that provides private, semi-private and public spaces, free knowledge and skills exchange, co-living model, which has the potential to be a viable alternative to the current UK housing crisis. This project provides a substitute to current housing policies and addresses issues of affordability, social mobility, exchange and healing whilst creating a physical truly social network.

The mass disposal of M.O.D Barracks sites, by 2032, within UK cities provides existing infrastructure and a canvas to explore the formation of this societal shift, which could be applied throughout all the Barrack sites. Economically by Local Authorities, gifting this land to the vulnerable and gaining capital from those able to do so, this project argues that the longer-term State burden of providing social housing, adult education, un-employment and sickness benefits could be proven to be dramatically reduced through long term goals, rather than a short financial gain. Conceptually, the historic physical and social structures of the barrack’s highly controlled micro community, which has a wider role in the protection of society, provides an interesting counter point to, and synergy with, the emerging project.