BridgeHaven Houses by Max Slater

BridgeHaven Houses by Max Slater is a sustainable housing design project for Portsmouth, built around the idea that homes work better when they sit beside useful community infrastructure.

The proposal combines 97 apartments with a youth club, study space, health centre, retail units and a bridge between two green spaces. That makes the project less about housing in isolation and more about how daily life, movement and public use can share the same urban framework.

Project focus

The strength of the scheme is the mix of uses. Housing, retail, health care and youth provision all create different rhythms of activity, so the building has to manage privacy, access, servicing and public life at the same time.

Max uses colour theory, lit U-glass stair cores and public stairs wrapped around more practical fire-stair requirements to make movement part of the architectural identity.

Design ideas to notice

• The bridge turns movement between green spaces into part of the project brief.
• The youth club, study space and health centre give the housing a wider civic role.
• The retail units help the ground floor work as part of the city rather than a sealed residential edge.
• The stair strategy shows how circulation can become a visible design idea, not just compliance.

Portfolio lesson from this project

A housing project like this needs clear diagrams and sections. Practices should be able to see the programme mix, the access hierarchy and the public benefit without having to decode pages of presentation text.

Next step

Explore more student and project work in the Architecture Social Projects directory, or submit your own project for the showcase.

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