As the UK continues to address the need for and means to achieving major housing growth and as we all face up to the challenges of climate change, the design of new homes and neighbourhoods and their sustainability have never been more important. There is a huge amount of challenge and difficulty in UK growth areas in meeting the scale of housing numbers whilst consistently ensuring developments and places of quality.
The RTPI Urban Design Network has recognised these challenges and has established an Interest Group to explore the issues. The Group wants to identify, through exemplars and debate:
- Key stress points
- Good and bad practice
- Key factors in successful responses
The Group would like to develop a Quality & Density Good Practice Note, with the format to include a series of case studies covering at least four scenarios: superdensity, infill, suburban and new settlements or rural. We have been seeking 2 or 3 case studies per scenario, covering what has been successful, whilst also recognising what has been problematic. The case studies linked below have been submitted by UDN members and the content appraised to allow the significant lessons illustrated by each to shine through.
Several of the case studies have been assessed against the Building for Life criteria - the national standard for well-designed homes and neighbourhoods promoted by CABE and the Home Builders Federation. Building for Life assessments score the design quality of planned or completed housing developments against the 20 Building for Life criteria. Anyone can do an informal assessment but formal assessments can only be carried out by an accredited Building for Life assessor.
Please note: we still need more Member submissions both to cover the intended range and to ensure representative coverage of the UK. Do you have a case that you would like to submit for consideration? Please send details of the scheme in a format comparable to the examples illustrated to urban.design@rtpi.org.uk.
If you have comments on the examples that you see presented here, helping to identify the factors that can guide to good practice or suggesting other exemplars that ought to be included, please do submit your thoughts. This will help us to build a set of useful and widely read Case Studies.
Case Studies for you to browse:
Drum Project, Scotland - suburban, medium density
Gun Wharf, Portsmouth - city centre, high density
Horsebridge, Whitstable - historic urban, high density
Hungate, York - historic urban, high density
Lawfords Wharf, Camden - urban, high density
Nordica, Tower Hamlets - urban infill, high density
Putney Wharf - urban, high density
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