The Deck Access Housing Design Guide

***Shortlisted for the Architectural Book Awards 2024***

The Deck Access Housing Design Guide is the first practical design guide to deck access housing. It focuses on the contemporary use of deck access housing, sharing practical guidance and providing in-depth case studies, while also presenting historical context about this flexible and evolving housing type.

Despite a chequered history that saw it linked with urban decay and social malaise in the 1970s and 80s, deck access housing today, after a 40-year hiatus, is fast becoming the default solution for mid-rise housing in the UK, and London in particular. This is in part down to architects’ renewed interest in post-war Modernist typologies, but also due to specific planning standards that favour the qualities – dual-aspect plans, ‘public’ front doors – of deck access design.

This comprehensive, professional guide spotlights the best contemporary deck access housing in the UK and throughout mainland Europe, explaining and analysing exemplars in detail. Illustrated in full colour throughout with plans, elevations, photographs, project data and annotations, case studies include both new build and retrofit projects, in public housing, co-housing and Third Age residential projects.

Good architectural practice flows from an informed understanding of cultural and design history coupled with practical guidance and clear analysis of case studies. That is what this book provides for anyone interested in, or involved in the design and delivery of, deck access housing.

Featured architects from the UK:

AHMM · Apparata · Cartwright Pickard · Collective Architecture · DO Architecture · Hawkins Brown · Haworth Tompkins · Henley Halebrown · Levitt Bernstein · Maccreanor Lavington · Mæ · Matthew Lloyd · Pitman Tozer · Pollard Thomas Edwards · Proctor & Matthews · PRP · RCKa

Featured architects from mainland Europe:

ANMA · Arquitectura Produccions · Atelier Kempe Thill · Bureau Massa · DAMAST · Estudio Herreros · Fink + Jocher · KAAN · LEVS · Martin-Löf · MEF · Muñoz Miranda · Passelac & Roques · Waechter + Waechter