The Rise of Build to Rent in the UK

Build to Rent (BTR) is a form of residential tenure which first emerged in the United States, where it is known as Multifamily Housing. While it has been a mature asset in the United States for over a decade, it is relatively new to the UK and Ireland. The Rise of Build to Rent in the UK examines how this type of housing can play a key role in streamlining design and construction activity in a forward-facing manner which embraces climate change resilience and digital methods for delivery and management within the circular economy. The book examines the background of traditional UK home-owning and renting from which this new sector emerged, and charts BTR’s momentum swing in 2016 and on-going expansion to the present day, describing the potential of the BTR model in terms of both economic and climate sustainability and evaluating the key ingredients to success. The Rise of Build to Rent in the UK concludes with five highly illustrated UK case studies which evaluate the practical deliverability of real world BTR projects. This book will be of interest to BTR operators and investors, constructors, housing associations, municipal authorities and students of architecture and urban planning.

Brendan Kilpatrick jointly leads PRP’s London studio. The architectural team specialises in the design and delivery of all forms of housing in the UK across both affordable and private tenures, including Build to Rent, from bespoke infill projects to large estate and urban regeneration masterplans. The studio also encompasses specialist, interdisciplinary teams covering urban design, landscape architecture and sustainability, working collaboratively with the architectural teams and making PRP uniquely equipped to coordinate and deliver complex regeneration projects from inception to completion.

Brendan’s expertise spans all forms of housing, with an emphasis on housing-led urban and estate regeneration schemes where mixed-tenure, mixed-density residential buildings and nonhousing elements need to be integrated into sustainable neighbourhoods. His team has a reputation for both designing and delivering high-quality, cost-effective housing solutions which match client budgets whilst achieving the practice’s high standards of design quality.

Brendan co-authored a recent book describing in detail best practice in the regeneration of existing UK housing estates and entitled Estate Regeneration: Learning from the Past, Housing Communities of the Future. Brendan has also written a non-architectural, partbiographical novel, Elephant on Main Street, which was published in 2019.