The Free House project is a speculative, experimental idea for a new tenure model for housing; combining the concepts of stewardship, perpetual bond finance and zero-carbon construction. The project is aimed to build a single prototype house as a demonstrator of this new reality, with the home itself being represented as a digital autonomous organisation and held by a civic trust.
The overall aim would be to create a new housing market for high quality, zero carbon homes that become cheaper over time. If successful, this housing model could create a new template for public housing provision – one that’s both genuinely affordable, materially circular, and civically governed.
Dark Matter Labs is interested in designing and developing prototype housing models that create spatial justice; with housing and real estate representing one of the biggest barriers to climate and social transition we face. By starting small, and using the single house as a system demonstrator, the aim is to delve further into the design challenge that this represents.
We’re looking for partners, funders, policy makers, legal experts and designers to help make this prototype house a reality; building a real world example within the next 2-3 years.
Meggan Collins & Linnéa Rönnquist are both Strategic Urban Designers and Architects at Dark Matter Labs.
Dark Matter Labs is a multidisciplinary discovery, design and development lab behind Freehouse, working with partners, clients, and collaborators across the world to develop new working methods for system change.
Twitter: @DarkMatter_Labs
Website: www.darkmatterlabs.org
