Architects are often wrongly blamed for past failures in social housing, Mikhail Riches co-founder Annalie Riches says in this Social Housing Revival interview.
Riches set out in her career to design great social housing, in a bid to challenge what she saw as a prevailing notion that architects "can't do housing".
However, she confesses to taking issue with the term "social housing" itself.
Annalie Riches's studio designed the Stirling Prize-winning Goldsmith Street project. Photo by Agnese Sanvito
"I really hate the word 'social' housing," she told Dezeen. "The word implies there's a problem."
"I think of it just as housing. I wouldn't design it any differently whether it was private ? to me, it's housing." Founded together with David Mikhail in 2015, her London-based studio designed the celebrated, Stirling Prize-winning council-housing development Goldsmith Street.
The precursor studio to Mikhail Riches established in 2005, Riches Hawley Mikhail Architects, was founded expressly to specialise in social housing, Riches said.
"I was probably the driving force for it," she admitted. "I've always wanted to get involved in housing."
"I point to Margaret Thatcher"
Riches' interest in social housing stems from a fascination with Sheffield's Park Hill, acquired while she was studying for an architecture degree in the city.
Completed in 1961, Park Hill is a brutalist former council-housing estate. Now...