Unit 38

Unit 38 are an architectural design collective who specialise in delivering high impact social projects and community wealth building strategies through participatory design and a co-research approach. Unit 38 is named after our first office above a nail salon – ‘Pretty Nails’ – inside Seven Sisters Indoor Market at Wards Corner, Tottenham. We are a workers’ cooperative focused on community-led developments operating at the intersection of low-carbon architecture, democratic ownership and economic policy. We have worked on a range of community planning projects across the country which emphasise retrofitting, cooperative ownership and community wealth building. We want to offer design services to communities who are typically excluded from processes of urban change – ranging from migrants and refugees to low-income groups threatened with displacement from their neighbourhoods. While we don’t think architecture alone can address wider issues of societal inequality, it can demonstrate viable alternative futures, which in turn can enable new economic and ecological possibilities. Consequently, we strive for a multi-disciplinary approach which enables communities to realise their own ambitions for neighbourhood change, through directly taking charge of the development process.