You can’t fault HafenCity’s masterplan, but is it almost too planned and polite? And when are they going to finish that concert hall…?

This majestic expressionist 20s office building shows the complexity and beauty which can be derived from a single brick and a single window. (You can fit 400 flats in it too…)

Gehry’s art gallery gave birth to the ‘Bilbao effect’: the lifting of a challenged area through the sheer power of iconic architecture. Did adding housing to this mix work for Rotterdam and Hamburg?

‘The problem with delivering a lot more new housing in crowded cities is that they don’t make new land you know.’ Or do they…?

A ‘human zoo’ is the only way of describing Funenpark: a series of unique pavilions set in a parkland with no streets and teeming with pedestrian activity. Could English residents ever live in this public way?

Gating estates can be controversial: but perhaps the ability to do it, even if only at night, can give residents occasional freedom to enjoy their shared space more freely?

Grafting large new communities on to existing cities is a sensible way to add more homes: but communicating that to existing citizens is a fine art. Utrecht shows the way.

Living in an icon can be surprisingly simple: you just have to learn to love giant flower pots and pendant lamps.

Artist communities are rich with potential for communal activity, but also for gentrification: what if people don’t want to join in?

Fancy cleaning the common areas where you live twice a year? And doing the gardening? What about sorting the rubbish out? It’s a step too far for a lot of people, but not for these co-housing pioneers…

Elephant’s regen story is long, complicated and highly political. This is a short crit of the successful spatial quality of an early phase, enhanced through the retention of mature trees from its 1960s past.

A map showing my 2015 housing tour of Europe.

This essay, written by Claire Bennie, was commissioned by NLA in June 2015 to provide background information for the NLA competition New Ideas for Housing, supported by the Mayor of London.

How to meet London’s housing needs is one of the most pressing issues facing the capital today. The Architectural Association School of Architecture is joining in the debate and as part of its public programme, is holding a series of events next spring to bring together architects, politicians, planners, developers and commentators to debate the key questions.

In these straitened 21st century times, the architectural and residential development world is feverishly concerned with building homes for the ‘private rented sector’.

Claire Bennie and Lesley Chalmers; chief executive of English Cities Fund join Jenni to discuss if the way we build our homes does affect the relationships we build with those around us?