At Home in the City

The concept of home represents fundamental human needs – both for physical shelter and emotional belonging – yet housing provision is a perpetual and global issue.

Could awkward, unusual and difficult urban sites hold the key to unlocking more homes?

At Home in the City examines how architects can overcome the restrictions and challenges of these overlooked sites to create dwellings of imaginative power. The projects showcased demonstrate the potential hidden within a place, engaging with the character of the site, its location, orientation and aspect, in order to create reflective and expansive domestic space for a variety of lifestyles.

Featuring historic and contemporary buildings from all over the world, the projects are organised around themes derived from the characteristics of each site, including thresholds and privacy, pushing boundaries, finding nature and retrofitting. The book is both a guide to working with difficult sites as well as a masterclass in how a deep understanding of site and place leads to special, poetic outcomes – and, critically, more much-needed houses.

Features:

• Exceptional projects from countries around the world, including: Argentina, Australia, China, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Korea, the UK, the USA and Vietnam.
• Designs from leading practices, including: acaa, Alan Power Architects, Atelier ITCH, B.L.U.E architecture studio, Hayhurst & Co, Guttfield Architecture, Only If, Sou Fujimoto and Sergison Bates.
• Stunning photography, drawings and plans throughout.

Alan Power studied architecture at Kingston College of Art and the Architectural Association in London, where he worked with Dalibor Vesely, the Czech theorist and historian. This education anchored his interest in the city as the crucible for architecture and stimulated the question as to how it may be reinvented as a poetic place to dwell.

He is a UK registered architect, and he runs his own eponymous architecture studio in London, which is an RIBA Chartered Practice. In addition to his individual house projects, including two for his own family that are included in this book, he has extensive experience in housing design, both new build and renovation. He is presently working on new build residential projects and a series of care homes for people with dementia.

He won an Architecture MasterPrize for residential design in 2022. He also won the RIBA Journal Eyeline drawing competition that year, a win that reflected his concurrent interest in architecture and painting.