Apartment buildings mixed in with houses is the overall solution to Ireland's housing shortage.

That is according to Dominic Stevens of JFOC Architects, who is one of the finalists of a new exhibition on housing.

'Housing Unlocked' is showcasing eight innovate solutions to housing.

The exhibition, at The Science Gallery in Dublin, is a partnership between The Housing Agency and The Irish Architecture Foundation.

Repurposing vacant banks, converting churches to homes and modular construction are just some of the ideas on display.

An example of Home4Community by JFOC Architects. Picture by: housingunlocked.ie

Dominic told The Home Show they have tried to mesh the Irish need for 'a house' with an apartment.

"People in Ireland really want to live in houses... for whatever reason it's in our psyche," he said.

"Density of housing always seems to mean apartments to people; so we wanted to do a pilot project that shows how how you can get good, dense housing schemes made up of houses with own front doors that offer all the benefits of suburban Ireland, while having the densities that you might encounter more in the centre of the city."

Giving Dublin's Portobello as an example, he said: "We've combined those two things: we have a density that allows for lots of local services, a very walkable area that you don't have to get into your car.

"Yet there's big green spaces and everybody has a garden."

'Two spaces per three houses'

The trade off in such a plan will see smaller gardens.

"The gardens are smaller than would be set out in a lot of development plans, but they actually comply with the development plan in Dún Laoghaire.

"They're not hugely smaller, everyone has a garden, and car parking is one thing in housing developments that takes up vast amounts of space.

"You can do all kinds of things if you start excluding cars altogether; but we decided that wasn't practical either.

"There's a quantum across the scheme of two spaces per three houses, which would suggest a certain amount of car-sharing.

"But the gardens are located in a way that if you want not to fill your garden with a car you can - so it's putting that choice into the hands of the owner."

'Two and three storeys'

He said Ireland is quite unique when it comes to apartments.

"Strangely people think apartments are small; Irish apartment guidelines - the sizes of our apartments - are larger than almost every other European country by quite a degree."

However he said height should not be an issue.

"We've produced something that's medium to high density, and it's all two and three storeys.

An example of Home4Community by JFOC Architects. Picture by: housingunlocked.ie

"Density means lots of people, and lots of people means... cafés, shops, friends, neighbours - kind of a thriving place.

"What our proposal sets out is that there's different ways of doing density; and you can do what traditionally in architecture has been called low-rise high-density as an alternative to apartment buildings being the only solution.

"Despite that our solution is all based around houses - we did that in a way as a provocation - because everybody wants a house.

"Small apartment buildings, and apartment buildings mixed in with houses, is definitely holistically the overall solution," he added.

Housing Unlocked is running at The Science Gallery Dublin from Friday October 14th until January 21st 2023 with free admission