In an era where knowledge is power, individuals, organisations and industries are constantly seeking better ways to learn, share, and evolve. This is of critical importance to the housing industry in the UK as we explore innovative technologies, delivery models and ways of working to unlock a step change in the supply of quality, affordable homes.
In England, there are currently 1.33 million households are on housing waiting lists, and 127,890 households live in temporary accommodation, including over 165,000 children. To meet these challenges requires collaboration and collective learning across the housing delivery ecosystem. One of the most effective platforms for fostering collective learning is the Community of Practice (CoP). This is an academic term, but its roots are deeply practical, born from real-world observations of how people naturally learn from each other.
The Building Better: Community of Practice (BB: CoP) is open to professionals across the social and affordable housing delivery ecosystem including Registered Providers, local authorities, central government, MMC suppliers and others who want to take an active role in systemic transformation. It draws from the tried and tested Community of Practice approach to drive progress step by step.
The Origins of Communities of Practice
The concept of Communities of Practice was introduced by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in the early 1990s. In their seminal work on ‘Situated Learning,’ Lave and Wenger observed that learning often occurs not in formal classrooms, but in social contexts — particularly among practitioners sharing a common craft or profession. Later, Wenger expanded on the idea in his book ‘Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity’ (1998), defining Communities of Practice as self-organising groups that form around a shared domain of interest. Whether of formal or informal origin these communities form and evolve, driven by a shared desire to learn and improve practice through regular interaction.
How the Building Better: Community of Practice came about
Housing Festival was set up in 2018 as a ‘think and do tank’ working to find innovative and scalable solutions to the UK housing crisis, implemented and refined in the real-
world. They are champions of MMC and as such have benefited from a collaborative and supportive working relationship with Building Better for many years. Building Better was also set up in 2018 and has made great strides in encouraging the use of MMC through ongoing collaboration, aggregation and resources. It was born out of the National Housing Federation’s Greenhouse innovation.
Housing Festival and Building Better have now announced that they are joining forces to form Building Better: A Community of Practice (BB: CoP) to increase momentum in their shared mission to drive systemic change in the social and affordable housing sector through innovation and collaboration.
This Community of Practice is a community that meets regularly and evaluates progress over time. It fosters a culture of trust, respect and knowledge sharing, and provides contexts to work together to solve problems, unpack case studies, conduct research and more. The community may also publish research, create documents, benchmark practices, and help each other through difficult times or to take advantage of opportunities.
Why Communities of Practice Matter
Communities of Practice are more than just groups of people talking shop — they are engines of learning and innovation. As housing professionals with a desire to unlock a step-change in the creation of genuinely affordable and high-quality homes, tapping into the collective intelligence of the new Building Better CoP may be one of the most effective things we can do.
