London is one of the fastest growing cities in Europe, with a current population of 9.5 million. The city's rapid population growth is putting tremendous strain on the already overloaded housing market. Densification strategies need to be implemented in London to alleviate this housing crisis. Past strategies such as mass housing projects and urban sprawl have proven to be ineffective in many ways such as disrupting the urban fabric, overloading the existing infrastructure etc. This research therefore proposes a novel strategy of distributing affordable housing evenly throughout London, with an experiment located in the borough of Islington. This new building strategy is addressed specifically for young professionals, one of the most overlooked populations affected by the crisis.

By examining London and Islington in particular, it was discovered that a vast amount of underutilized space exists between the various rooftops. The research took two paths in order to convert these spaces into affordable housing. First, a configurator was developed to analyze all rooftops in the area and generate plans based on the limitations of each rooftop and the specific needs of the individual users. Along with the configurator, a timber kit-of-parts was designed, allowing for a customizable building system on a mass scale. Due to the limitations of the sites, origami folding principles were implemented into the timber kit-of-parts system, allowing ease of portability. By creating site-specific strategies, coupled with the efficiency and scalability of a kit-of-parts approach, mass affordable housing can be implemented without destroying the urban fabric. This research makes note that the housing crisis will not be solved by one architectural intervention only and requires the collaboration of politicians, economists, and other stakeholders. However, the contribution of this research is to offer a novel approach to solving this issue, by developing a viable solution for the overlooked demographic of young professionals.