Current Projects

2024

Internal, Dark Matter Labs

Building a novel venture studio model for a new studio within Dark Matter Labs

2024

Dark Matter Labs for Laudes Foundation

12 month research project on long-termist stewardship entities for large scale new residential developments on the edges of villages, towns and cities as well as the possibilities for stewardship functions withing retrofit. Link to report.

2023

Dark Matter Labs for Laudes Foundation

Leading on mechanism design to demonstrate the self-owning housing concept. The si month project included smart contract protocols for community ownership, forward financing mortgages, sensors for seamless engagement with the houses, ritual design, AI chat bots.

2023

Dark Matter Labs for Civic Square

Supporting Civic Square on ideation for using a set of neighbourhood buildings to enhance anti-fragility in Ladywood, Birmingham including early design for long-term bond structures, imagining how outcome buying might work and support in ascertaining land value. Eventually led to Article and Report

2022

The Center for CLT Innovation (Vermont, USA)

Designer of a six-week cohort-based course for 100 people on Community Land Trusts and web3

2022

Christ Church College, Oxford Dorchester Homes

Contribution to feasibility and options report for a 1,450-home housing project on the fringe of Oxford. Collaboration with Mark Patchett (lead), the predominant stewardship consultant on Garden Communities projects with over 35 years of experience developing stewardship plans for large scale housing schemes across the UK.

2022

Oxford City Council

Site feasibility report for a council-owned car park in Oxford which included costed appraisals with ten modular housing providers. Follow on from HAP report.

2021-

People’s Land Bank

Governance and tokenomics design for a 2,200 home Garden Village in Oxfordshire. One of the 12 projects globally to be selected for the Regen Civics Incubator cohort 2022 and gain support and finance for designing tokenised land projects.

2021 - 2022

Cambridge City Council

Project Management, data-analysis, and GIS mapping for Transition by Design in partnership with Bioregional. High level study of existing private housing stock in Cambridge for Passivhaus retrofit. Identification of housing typologies and retrofit options. Homeowner-focused final communications through a set of guides.

2021 - 2022

Power to Change, UK Cohousing Network

Grant-funded three-month programme to design a cohort-based course on coaching for citizen leaders.

2021

Housing Advisers Programme (HAP), Local Government Association

Mapping and data analysis of Oxford’s unused garage sites.

2020

West Oxfordshire District Council

West Oxfordshire District Council (WODC) commissioned Charlie Fisher on behalf of Collaborative Housing to undertake a scoping report that explored options for delivery and stewardship approaches for a Community Land Trust (CLT) at the Oxfordshire Cotswolds Garden Village (now Salt Cross) including partnerships, finance, business modelling and mapping.

2019

Transition by Design (Unfunded)

Development modelling of large sites across Oxford to make the case for financing infrastructure at a large co-ordinated scale. Facilitated two workshops at Oxford Brookes University with Planning, Architecture and Urban Design students. Facilitated one workshop in Transition by Design’s urban room ‘Open House’.

2019

Center for CLT Innovation

A collection of twenty-six original essays, written by forty-two scholars and practitioners from a dozen countries, tracing the growth and diversification of the international community land trust movement. Contributed a piece on sub-regional hubs to the chapter on the English CLT movement.

2019

Transition by Design (unfunded)

A web-based research project to build public understanding of the claims of landowners and developers in Oxford as large sites were going through the planning process. This involved building a team of (anonymous) academics and professionals to undertake our own development appraisals and analyse planning documents.

2018-2019

CAF Venturesome

Early ideation, iterative comments, and final editing of a review into the CAF Venturesome CLT Fund with a research team from Sheffield Hallam led by Dr Tom Archer

2018 - 2020

Power to Change

Quarterly meetings with a multi-disciplinary panel of experts from across the UK to appraise the research project in Power to Change’s funding programme led by Dr Tom Archer (Sheffield Hallam University), Dr Tom Moore and Dr David Mullins (Brimingham University)

2017-2022

Collaborative Housing

Building a team and partnerships for the creation of a £5m equity fund for citizen-led housing projects in partnership with the Oxfordshire Growth Deal. Approval in July 2020. Long-term modelling June 2022 led by Oxford City Council.

2017-2022

The Logan Foundation

In October 2017, Transition by Design began work on a three-year grant-funded action research project called Homemaker Oxford. Driven‌ ‌by‌ ‌the‌ ‌dual‌ ‌issues‌ ‌of‌ ‌a‌ ‌rise‌ ‌in‌ ‌homelessness‌ ‌and‌ ‌the‌ ‌prevalence‌ ‌of‌ ‌empty‌ ‌and‌ ‌underused‌ ‌space‌ ‌in‌ ‌Oxford,‌ ‌we‌ ‌set‌ ‌out‌ ‌to‌ ‌explore‌ ‌how‌ ‌such‌ ‌spaces‌ ‌might‌ ‌be‌ ‌put‌ ‌to‌ ‌good‌ ‌use‌ ‌providing‌ ‌housing ‌for‌ ‌people without a home.‌ My role in the project included programme management, accounting, commissioning a mapping website of the project findings, and presenting on a course with Crisis called ‘How to build a House’.

2017-2018

Oxford City Council

In March 2017, Oxford City Council received £54,000 from the Community Housing Fund to support the promotion and delivery of more community-led housing. Oxford City Council commissioned the Collaborative Housing Hub to undertake a research project to explore how community housing could be delivered sustainably within Oxford City. The methods used for this study included a combination of desk research, a needs assessment, interviews, outreach events and financial assessment. I brokered the funding with Oxford City Council, assembled the research team across working areas, and led on the creation of five development typologies to make the case for where CLH would make savings and add value over other forms of delivery based on a number of metrics including monthly rent/mortgage costs.

2017 - 2019

Funder: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)

I was assigned by MHCLG as the Oxfordshire point of contact for authorities in 2016/17 Community Housing Fund and assembled partners to create the Thames Valley hub. I led on forming the business plan and financial case for applying for £150k of Government funding (MHCLG) and brough in over £100k of additional research funding in the first year.

2017

Power to Change

In developing its Community-led Housing (CLH) programme, Power to Change sought to target their funding at certain locations. This research, with Dr Tom Archer, aimed to assist Power to Change in this decision-making process, analysing both qualitative and quantitative data about CLH activity, and the local conditions in which this is developing. Charlie led on data selection, data analysis, GIS mapping and visualisation.

2017

Oxfordshire Community Land Trust

A bid to develop a former 19th century school into 26 zero-carbon community-led homes and community shop. I assisted the local community in making the site an Asset of Community Value, was part of the bidding team. The site had a negative land value but was sold in excess of £2m. It has still not been renovated to this day and is being used as a church hall.

2016 - 2018

Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (Funder)

Three-year research project. Developed a suite of group-development workshops called One Planet Affordable Living (OPAL) with the charity Bioregional. Primarily focused on putting a rocket under early-stage groups by building strong foundations around group dynamics, visioning, decision-making, stakeholder mapping and community organising. Developed new financial mechanisms around Mutual Home Ownership.

2016

Sankalpa Foundation

A bid to buy land from the University of Oxford for a 260-home zero carbon urban extension in Wolvercote in partnership with Oxford City Council, Bioregional, Sankalpa Foundation, and a range of citizen-led housing groups. A separate parallel bid was developed in partnership with a volume housebuilder. The land was valued at £15m but was sold for more than £22m, did not progress to sale completion in the six month window but took more than three years, and the site is still not complete 6 years later with only the high-end and multi-million pound homes having come to market.

2016

Ticket sales, Big Lottery Awards for All.

One of two organisers on a three-day event on the housing crisis with over 500 attendees

2015-2020

The National CLT Network (funded by Tudor Foundation and Oak Fondation)

Became a technical advisor to the CLT Fund in 2015 and completed the national accreditation programme (led by CCH) in 2018 to be the first accredited advisor. Assisted in setting up 11 Community Land Trusts, one cohousing group and one co-op.

2014

Ticket sales

One of two organisers on a three-day event on the housing crisis with over 300 attendees

2014

Harriet Harriss

Architecture Live Projects, (by Harriet Harriss (Editor), Lynnette Widder (Editor)), provides a persuasive, evidence-based advocacy for moving a particular kind of architectural learning, known as Live Projects, towards a holistic integration into current and future architectural curricula.

2013-

Oxford Cohousing

In 2013 started undertaking workshops and events with Transition by Design which began with co-facilitating initial design workshops with Oxford Cohousing.

2013 - 2020

Joined Oxfordshire CLT in 2013 as a Project Manager for their first project and later became an executive director co-running the organisation and attending monthly meetings for seven years.

2012-2013

Wikihouse Foundation

Development of a bird hide for a school in Oxford. Gained funding for materials and cut initial panels but school decided not to go ahead with the project. Contributions to Wikihouse Community on structural joint ideation and automation scripting within Rhino