Geraldine Dening is a practising architect previously based in London and currently an Assistant Professor in architecture at the University of Hong Kong. Prior to this, she was Senior Lecturer at De Montfort University where she ran BA and MArch design studios, a history and theory seminar course on social housing, coordinated the Masters in architectural design, and managed the professional practice module. She was also a Design Fellow at Cambridge University, where she co-ran an MArch design studio. In 2015, Dening co-founded Architects for Social Housing (ASH) CIC, a community interest company in the UK, to respond architecturally to London’s housing ‘crisis’.

Dening’s research explores the causes of the UK housing crisis and its relationship to and impact on public housing and its residents. Focussed initially on housing estates in London, her work uses architectural design methodologies to demonstrate that refurbishing, improving and increasing housing capacity on existing estates, rather than redeveloping them as high value properties for capital investment, is a more socially beneficial, environmentally sustainable and financially viable solution to the population’s housing needs than the demolition of the city’s public housing during a crisis of housing affordability, enabling, as it does, the continued existence of the communities they house.

In addition to proposing and designing new homes, Dening collaborates with residents and community groups to identify improvements to the existing buildings, community facilities and landscapes that have positive environmental, social and economic impacts. The work also involves collaborations with environmental engineers on the comparative environmental costs of demolition, analysis by structural engineers on the structural viability of the proposals for infill and roof extensions, and with quantity surveyors to establish the financial viability of the schemes.

To date, Dening’s work with ASH has produced design alternatives to demolition for seven London housing estates, including Knight’s Walk (2015); the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates (2015-16); the Central Hill estate (2015-17); the Northwold estate (2017); and St. Raphael’s estate (2021). These designs have contributed to saving the homes of some 6,800 residents from demolition, as well as helping to shape London’s housing policy, such as making refurbishment the default option for regeneration schemes in London, and removing the subsidies towards the demolition of existing public housing.

In addition to working with public housing estates, Dening has also worked with several housing co-operatives to research and design alternative forms of housing provision. These include new co-housing for the Drive Housing Co-operative in Walthamstow; a new community space and co-housing for young people leaving care for the Brixton Housing Co-operative; and new housing, community facilities and landscape improvements for the Patmore Co-operative in Wandsworth.

In collaboration with ASH’s Head of Research, Dr. Simon Elmer, Dening has produced a number of book-length reports on ASH’s alternatives to demolition. Saving St Raphael’s Estate: The Alternative to Demolition (2022), is the most recent. Earlier publications include The Costs of Estate Regeneration: A Report by Architects for Social Housing (2018) and Central Hill: A Case Study in Estate Regeneration (2018). These reports combine a high level of research into the social, policy and economic contexts for the UK’s estate regeneration programme, together with proposals for new social-rent homes and improvements to those estates.

ASH’s report, The Truth about Grenfell (2017), was used by residents and their lawyers in the Grenfell fire inquiry, and Dening was subsequently an expert interviewee in the documentary about the fire: ‘What Went Wrong: Countdown to Disaster. 1. Grenfell Tower Fire’, for Channel 5. The work of Dening and ASH was also the subject of the feature-length documentary Concrete Soldiers, by Woolfe Vision.

Following a residency in Vancouver, Canada, in 2019, and in collaboration with Elmer, Dening published For a Socialist Architecture: Under Capitalism (2021). This book outlines ASH’s principles and practices, specifically exploring the social, environmental, economic and political contexts for architecture. Building on her practical experience, the practices and principles outlined in this book form the backbone of her teaching and research, questioning the nature of architectural practice and, specifically, the role of the architect within urban regeneration processes.

Dening’s private architectural practice focusses on residential work, typically the adaptive reuse, retrofitting and extension of existing buildings in constrained and complex inner-city sites. With Sam Causer Studio, Dening was shortlisted for the Peabody Small Projects Panel in 2014. Over the past 20 years she has designed and managed the construction of over 20 building projects, including the RIBA award-winning Lauriston School with Meadowcroft Griffin Architects.

From 2014-2018, Dening was on the board of directors for S.P.I.D Theatre. In 2018, as part of the Progress 1000 awards, she was named one of London’s 30 most influential architects by the Evening Standard. In 2019, she was included in Who’s Who. And in 2021 she was appointed to the Design Council (UK) as a Design Council ‘Expert’.

Dening’s work has been exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery, London (2019); the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2017); City Hall, London (2016 and 2017), and Peer Gallery, London (2015). Dening has lectured at numerous UK institutions, including the Architectural Association, the Bartlett School of Architecture, London Metropolitan University, Westminster University, Leeds University, Cambridge University, Sheffield University, Birkbeck University, the Royal Academy and the Welcome Trust. In addition, she has lectured internationally at Brno University, the University of Braunschweig, the University of Seville, the University of Waterloo, Canada; 221A Vancouver, and the Architectural League of New York.