Home is more than simply shelter. It is not just the place where we live but has a huge influence on how we live. It can shape our health and wellbeing, as well as our work and prosperity. It also impacts on the quality of our environment and the strength of our communities. Housing touches every part of life in Scotland, from childhood to old age.

Present Voices, Future Lives was a travelling exhibition that toured the length and breadth of Scotland between October – December 2019, visiting 12 locations (cities, islands, towns and islands) speaking to people, gathering their thoughts, ideas and aspirations for how housing should look and feel by 2040.

The open tender was to design a travelling exhibition that engaged with communities across Scotland to hear their views, to help inform the Scottish Government’s final vision and route map for housing over the next 20 years.

The exhibition was commissioned by The Scottish Government and Architecture & Design Scotland in the summer of 2019. The travelling exhibition was curated and designed collaboratively by Collective Architecture, Edinburgh University’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA), Peak15 Design, and filmmaker Chris Leslie, photographer Craig Stewart and Sandy Halliday.

By listening to voices from across the country and across generations, we are contributing towards building a picture of a housing system that can evolve and adapt to the challenges that tomorrow brings, from an ageing population to the climate emergency. We encouraged conversations about the future, through understanding how communities live now and their aspirations for how and what our homes and communities should look and feel like in 2040. Accompanying the exhibition were facilitated workshop sessions within schools and place specific films and interviews with residents, all designed to hear from a range of voices.

The tour has now concluded and the Housing towards 2040 (Ht2040) consultation will be closed on 28 Feb 2010. The views and feedbacks collected during the tour will be used to help the preparation of the final Ht2040 vision and route map that is aimed to be published in summer 2020.