The Building Centre in London has extended its exhibition Small Scale Big Ideas until 5th June, giving visitors additional time to explore a programme that rethinks the notion of the “home” and argues that some of architecture's most significant innovations emerge from projects operating on a modest scale.

Originally scheduled to run throughout May, the exhibition brings together architects, engineers and makers whose work demonstrates how constraints of budget, footprint and resources can become drivers of creativity rather than limitations. Through models, drawings, installations and built case studies, the exhibition examines how smaller projects can address some of the construction industry's most pressing challenges, not least around domestic living.

Presented at the Building Centre's Store Street venue, Small Scale Big Ideas explores themes including housing density, material innovation, retrofit, sustainability and community-led development. Rather than focusing on landmark buildings, it highlights compact homes, self-build projects, live-work spaces and carefully adapted existing structures.

Participating practices include Gomes + Staub Architects, Harrison Stringfellow Architects, Kashdan Brown Architects, Resonant Architecture, Rodić Davidson Architects, Russian For Fish, Studio Bark, U-Build and Webb Yates Engineers.

Alongside the exhibition, a month-long talks programme has been examining how architects, engineers and developers are responding to growing pressures around housing, environmental performance and urban change. Topics include suburban densification, the use of natural and traditional building materials, community-led retrofit and regeneration, circular construction and the role of structural engineering in reducing environmental impact. The programme places particular emphasis on projects where architects take an active role throughout the development process, from site identification and design through to construction.

The Building Centre says the exhibition seeks to challenge assumptions that architectural significance is tied to scale, instead highlighting projects where every design decision is highly visible and directly tested through use:

“This is not an exhibition about architecture as spectacle. It is an invitation to think differently about the buildings we live in, the materials they are made from, and the communities they can sustain. Come and handle a brick made from excavated earth. Peer through a glass louvre engineered for privacy. Hold a timber block that is, quite literally, the building block of an entire house. These are not hypothetical futures: they are built, tested and inhabited ideas, and they are here to be experienced.”

Small Scale Big Ideas is open at the Building Centre, 26 Store Street, London WC1E 7BT, until 5th June.