Gateshead Innovation Village, Gateshead

Our multi award-winning Gateshead Innovation Village is an exciting live research project looking at new ways to solve the housing crisis. The village is testing a range of modern methods of construction and smart and energy-efficient technologies all on one site, and has created a community of 41 homes for affordable rent.

Given the scale of housing need in the UK, combined with skills and sustainability issues in traditional construction, we recognised the need to do things differently and understood collaboration was the only way to make this project work.

We selected five innovative suppliers and built 16 volumetric and 19 modular houses, alongside six traditional, to robustly compare performance. Aiming to inspire change in the UK housing industry - we’ve been able to demonstrate how we can create quality homes more quickly and efficiently, as well as challenging perceptions of modular housing.

We’re proud that initial results show the 2025 Future Homes standard has already been achieved in regards to CO2 emissions on this gas-free development - and we’ll continue to evaluate the construction methods, smart and energy-efficient technologies used on site - sharing our learnings to drive improvement across the industry.