Glasshouse

Glasshouse is a student housing review platform that puts honest, crowd-sourced ratings on an interactive map of Bath so students can find a great home, not just a cheap one.

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Inspiration

Finding student housing in Bath is a leap of faith. You can see the price and the photos, but you have no way of knowing whether the landlord is responsive, whether the street floods every winter, or whether the nearest bus stop is actually usable. We wanted to build something that gave students the kind of honest, ground-level knowledge that currently only comes from knowing the right people, and make it available to everyone.

What it does

Glasshouse is a crowd-sourced student housing review platform built around an interactive satellite map of Bath. Students can leave detailed reviews of properties they have lived in, rating them across five categories: safety, transport links, supermarket access, noise level, and landlord quality. Every review is geocoded to its real address and pinned on the map. A smart sidebar lists properties sorted by distance to wherever you are currently looking on the map, so the list always reflects what you can see. Each property card can be expanded to show the full breakdown pros and cons, dates of residency, rent or purchase price, individual star ratings, and a personal comment.

How we built it

Built a full-stack web application using React (TypeScript) with Vite for a fast and modern frontend development experience. Integrated interactive mapping with React Leaflet and Esri satellite tiles to deliver a responsive, map-based UI. Used Supabase for real-time database management and user authentication, enabling secure and scalable user interactions. Developed a FastAPI (Python) backend to handle user creation and review submissions, including automatic postcode geocoding via the postcodes.io API to convert user input into map coordinates. Incorporated geographic boundary data using QGIS and Ordnance Survey Open Data, allowing accurate spatial visualisation and enhanced map functionality. Styled the application using Bootstrap and custom inline CSS for rapid UI development.

Challenges we ran into

Getting Leaflet to behave correctly inside a React component lifecycle was a consistent challenge, particularly around zoom controls duplicating on navigation, the map not resizing correctly when the sidebar opened and closed, and tiles not rendering on the right side of the screen after layout changes. We also had to carefully handle the Supabase client to avoid multiple instances being created across components, which caused subtle authentication bugs. Geocoding addresses at submission time added complexity around async form handling and error states.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of how polished the final map experience feels, the sidebar sorts itself in real time as you pan around the map, the property cards expand smoothly to reveal detailed information, and the whole interface responds naturally to interaction. We also built a complete full-stack application with real user authentication, a live database, and automatic geocoding in a very short amount of time. The product genuinely solves a real problem that every student in Bath faces.

What we learned

We learned a lot about the quirks of integrating Leaflet with React, particularly around component lifecycle and map state. We also got much more comfortable with Supabase, both its database and its auth system. More broadly, we learned how quickly scope can grow when you are building something real, and how important it is to get a working end-to-end flow early rather than perfecting individual components in isolation.

What's next for Glasshouse

We plan to enhance the platform by adding filters to the sidebar, allowing students to narrow results by bedroom count, price range, property type, and minimum rating. Displaying walking distance to the University of Bath campus on each property card would make the platform immediately more useful for incoming students. Looking ahead, we aim to introduce verified university email sign-up to ensure reviews remain trustworthy, alongside a mobile-optimised layout so the map experience works seamlessly on phones. In the longer term, we would expand the platform beyond Bath to support universities across the UK, making it a nationwide tool for student housing insights.

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