OPAL (One Planet Affordable Living) was a 20-month action research project funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust between Transition by Design and Bioregional.
The project was based on an initial research project and report we produced to explore how we could engage and support the development of low-carbon, affordable communities in the UK.
The OPAL project focused on three priorities:
During the project we identified the need for a structured process to support community-led housing groups. We explored and tested ways to deliver this support and the result is our service offer to community-led housing groups. These are structured through the phases of vision, plan, build and live for compatibility with the stages used by the wider community-led housing sector. Find out more about our services for community-led housing groups here.
We also invested a lot of time considering ways to achieve affordability, conducting detailed investigations into Mutual Home Ownership. In this we worked with Quaggy Low Field Green Sussex Cohousing
This work has now formed into a project called Fair Rent, which you can see introduced in the below video and was funded for development in 2020. If you’d like to find out more, please contact Transition by Design.
*This guide was created by Transition by Design, an Oxford-based co-operative and Community Interest Company which offers architectural and strategic design services for citizen-led housing groups
For more information please visit transitionbydesign.org*