How can we design out loneliness?

And build happier, healthier communities

Nine million people in the UK are affected by loneliness, and it's not just the preserve of the old. Younger people are experiencing it too. Maybe it's down to an over-reliance on phones, social media, gaming and other online activities, or perhaps it's because working from home, at least part of the time, has become the norm. Whatever the cause, loneliness is on the rise and it's impacting our health - and the NHS.

Sources: Marmalade Trust; UK Government; Campaign to End Loneliness; Nesta

Home is the starting point for all our daily interactions, where we forge relationships with our immediate neighbours and the wider community. How those homes are designed can have an enormous impact on the success of those relationships. As well as providing privacy and security, our homes need to foster integration and make us feel part of a place, not isolated or alone. From re-domesticating Park Hill’s 'streets in the sky', to designing for sociability on the regenerated Carpenters Estate, we tie the front doors of our schemes to meaningful third, and even fourth spaces, to help people socialise and live happier, healthier lives.

Reinventing the doorstep

Park Hill, Sheffield

Play on your doorstep

Lund Garden Quarter, East London

Growing on your doorstep

Eddington, Cambridge

Reinventing the door step

Park Hill

In 1961, Park Hill was one of Britain’s first completed schemes of post-war slum clearance and the most ambitious inner-city development of its time.

Its iconic ‘streets in the sky’ aimed to recreate the community spirit of traditional streets within a high rise development.

Our late 2000s redevelopment of this landmark with Studio Egret West took those rundown walkways and reconnected them to people's homes.

Front doors are re-oriented to create shared entrance foyers, encouraging conversation, chance encounters and friendships.

Hallway and landing windows look out on to the streets, so people can wave to their neighbours, and keep and eye on the place.

Residents' personalities and lives reflected in their corner windows.

Leanne Cloudsdale, Park Hill resident and founder of Concrete Communities

It’s taken me decades to feel ‘at home’. Like many London dwellers, renting was my mode for living – and with that, came the notion of impermanence, which made it hard to build a sense of belonging to a space, place or postcode. This all changed when I moved to Park Hill in 2022. Within a matter of weeks, I felt rooted and energised. Its design has a powerful part to play in fostering these sensations – with a number of factors uniting to create an extremely special place to live.

There’s the initial architectural ‘wow factor’ of its sprawling, concrete embrace. Then there’s the abundance of varied, landscaped green spaces, which helps blur the boundary between inside and outside (thanks to floor-to-ceiling windows). Acoustically, it’s like nowhere else I’ve ever lived – shifting breezes mean gentle signs of life are heard throughout the day (and evening). Children playing in the nursery, the odd game of ping-pong, football, picnics, people laughing in The Pearl. It doesn’t disturb me, it just gently reminds me that I’m never alone. A collective Park Hill pride and genuine community helps us all feel connected – we care about our building the way we care about our friends.

Our ‘streets in the sky’ give us the freedom to move around from floor to floor and flank to flank without ever worrying about the weather or cars. We can stand in the fresh air and talk to neighbours without the sound of traffic roaring past (or the need for an umbrella). It’s hard to unravel why the magic formula works so well, but perhaps it’s because Park Hill’s architecture puts the human first. It gives us love, light and a strong, structural framework for being ourselves.

Photo credit: Vitsœ

Play on your doorstep

Lund Garden Quarter, Newham, London

Lund Garden Quarter

Lund Garden Quarter is the first significant new build phase of the Carpenters Estate regeneration, combining strong placemaking aspirations with high-quality architectural design and the deep retrofit of the existing Lund Point tower.

The ground floor of Lund Point will be completely re-imagined as a vibrant and flexible co-work space accessible to everyone, creating a focal point on Carpenters Square.

Two new play garden streets are created on either side of Lund Point, orientated to pull nature into the site and offer views out to green space for all homes.

Sensory planting and natural play features enhance the parallel residential entrances ensuring seating and play spaces are on the doorstep.

The existing trees on Carpenters Square will be retained and improved to create an urban forest. Carbon sequestering trees breathe life into the Lund Garden Quarter providing flexible seating, youth play and sustainable urban drainage.

No money but lots of community

Our long-time collaborator, engineer Martin Stockley, grew up on the original Carpenters Estate, moving from a terraced house to the Lund Tower in his teens. Click the arrow on the image for his reflections on the importance of street life in building a community.

Growing on your doorstep

Eddington, Cambridge

Eddington in Cambridge sets new standards for placemaking, while supporting both the University and the city’s need for new homes. Shared gardens are sequences of small communal green spaces that allow for growing, playing, cycling and passive recreation. They are part of the 40% site area dedicated for healthy landscapes including 50 hectares of informal open space.

How do we design and manage public realm to foster wellbeing?

Elly Mead, Engagement specialist

Eddington was created to ensure post-graduate students, university staff, and wider Cambridge residents, can live long and prosper in a sustainable community, with strong links to the city, other employment opportunities, and existing neighbourhoods. While the first phase is undoubtedly an exemplar development, with high standards of housing, landscape design, and community amenities, phase 2 goes further in fostering active social interaction among residents.

With the launch of new development phases, our research in collaboration with the University’s Behaviour and Building Performance Group (BBP) and Max Fordham explores innovative ways to integrate landscape and urban design to enhance health and well-being. The emerging masterplan proposes equal allocation of homes for permanent communities and University staff, addressing the unique complexities of transient and permanent populations. This dynamic presents opportunities for understanding the interplay between social behaviors and the built environment.

‘Third spaces’ beyond home and work that have historically nurtured community – cafes, pubs, libraries and hair salons – are dwindling in many areas of the UK. Landscape offers a promising alternative third space to connect communities with added and measurable health benefits.

Our research adopts a holistic framework for investigating the physical, social, and cognitive dimensions of well-being in urban spaces. Through literature reviews, design workshops involving residents and students, and comprehensive case studies, we aim to identify the spatial, managerial, and procedural factors that define successful public realms, seeking to create enriched environments that inspire physical vitality, mental health, and social cohesion in Eddington and beyond.

Image courtesy of The Glass-House and KCA

If you’d like to continue the conversation with Greg Moss on designing homes for health, you can contact him here. If you want to delve further into the subject, check out what Greg has been reading for this piece:

Lessons for St udents in Architecture by Herman Hertzberger (1991)

All to Play For How to design child-friendly housing by Dinah Bornat (2025)

The Lonely Century by Noreena Hertz (2021)

Making Home: Belonging, Memory, and Utopia in the 21st Century edited by Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, Christina L. De León, and Michelle Joan Wilkinson (2025)

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