Words Ellie Hughes

The latest episode of the Homing podcast, with host Matt Gibberd, was recorded in Phin’s home, in the remarkable Vanbrugh Park Estate in south east London. The social housing estate was completed in the mid-60s, by the architectural firm Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, renowned for their work on the (rather fancier) Barbican Estate. “It’s not really about how the estate looks from the outside,” Phin explains. “It’s how it works from the inside.”

“I feel very lucky to live somewhere that fosters a community,” Phin adds. “There are pockets of green open space around the estate where neighbours can meet and children can play. It has been designed around the idea of a social life – we’ll have a summer party with a maypole [and] a tombola.” (You can see the exclusive video tour of Phin’s flat and the estate here on Patreon, priced £6 per month.)

In the episode, Phin explains how their childhood in two very different homes has helped to shape this philosophy: a village where “every house looked different and there were lots of places to escape to and make different worlds”, followed by teenage years in an identikit new-build estate in the Midlands which had “nowhere to play, roads everywhere, no pubs, no social infrastructure. It was quite draining to live and it taught me what not to do in a community space.”

Phin’s unusual childhood – home-schooling, hanging out with the “local weirdos”, and realising they were non-binary – was followed by the discovery, in Nigeria on a gap year project, that architecture could enrich society. That led to an architecture degree, and ultimately onto the multi-stranded portfolio career that Phin has today. The need for architecture to be better at repairing itself, and working with what you find are two particular guiding passions.

“I’m still trying to define what home is,” says Phin. “I don’t have cosy associations from childhood'; home wasn’t nourishing.” Fairly recently single, Phin says they are “now trying to find how to be at ease at home alone as a single person.” That means “redesigning the flat to be more about me” and playing a key role in community initiatives, such as The Gardening Club which they set up to bring green areas to life across the estate.

“We’re losing cultural rituals like weddings, so finding new secular traditions is so important,” Phin suggests. To address this, they host a big dinner with ice-cream and cocktails once a month with new and old friends. “I can rely on the community to help,” Phin says. “Being friends with your neighbours is so good, they’re so present in your immediate world.”

Forthcoming episodes of Homing feature Anna Jones, Sean Anthony Pritchard and Erdem Moralioglu. Subscribe to Homing or become a member of Patreon and as always, happy listening.