As part of a self-initiated project exploring the residential-development potential of London’s backland sites, Russian For Fish developed a series of speculative home designs for a small plot off a main street in Forest Hill. Occupied by four garages sandwiched between two blocks of flats, the plot is one of thousands of such sites in the capital. With a rapidly growing housing shortage in the city, these overlooked infill locations present new opportunities for innovation. We developed design options for both a one- and two-storey CLT timber-clad home (the former including a basement and sunken garden) that made the most of the space and situation of the plot and offered a template for housing in dense urban areas in the future.