Semi-detached housing is often mocked as quaint and outmoded, yet it accounts for over 10% of London’s homes and has remained enormously popular in the capital’s suburban areas. What has made this unfashionable form of housing so enduringly successful? And does it have a brighter future than is generally assumed? 

Andrew Beharrell, former Senior Partner architects Pollard Thomas Edwards, talks about the origins of this endlessly adaptable housing type and how its shortcoming might be tackled in the context of the often fierce debate about the form and scale of development in outer London areas. 

And you can read Andrew's "Semi-Heaven" essays here.