Author: UCL Department of Geography and Bartlett School of Planning – Arinola Akinyemi, Olga Di Gregorio, Jim Hudson, Francesca Leccis, Sara Özoǧul, Hannah Rich, Bengi Sullu
Publication date: December 2019
Category: Report
Phase 1
This report provides an overview of the findings, observations and recommendations resulting from Phase 1 of the Good Homes Alliance (GHA) monitoring programme. Phase 1 is based on post-construction testing of a series of new-build residential projects, across a range of construction types.
This project was funded by DCLG, EST and NHBC Foundation.
Phase 2
This document focuses on the key results of the Phase 2 Post-Occupation Evaluation and compares the findings of the in-use performance data from the houses in terms of energy and water consumption and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), the performance of installed building services, and occupant behaviour/ perceptions.
This project was funded by DCLG, EST and NHBC Foundation.
Case studies
The following projects were used as case studies for the research:
Old Apple Store, Stawell
Derwenthorpe
One Brighton
Categories
Preventing Overheating
High temperatures in homes are known to cause real problems for occupants. These range from discomfort and mild health effects, to serious health effects. Elderly people and other vulnerable groups are most at risk from these effects, and with an aging population, greater urbanisation and climate change predicted, the risk of overheating needs to be addressed.
Author: Good Homes Alliance
Publication date: February 2014
The scheme is part of a highly sustainable Masterplan for the regeneration of the New England Quarter adjacent to Brighton Rail Station. Completed in 2009 to BREEAM Excellent standard, One Brighton is an outstanding example of a contemporary urban, green apartment building. Sustainability was integrated throughout the design by following the ‘One Planet Living®’ model developed by BioRegional, together with WWF International.
This report considers a retrofit adaptation strategy to reduce the risk of overheating in a contemporary apartment block, One Brighton. The project is unique in the TSB Design for Future Climate Portfolio in two respects. Firstly, it is the only study, which is considering pure retrofit as opposed to new-build or more large-scale refurbishment of a building. Secondly, it builds upon the work of the TSB Building Performance Evaluation (BPE) Programme already undertaken for the development.
Author: Good Homes Alliance
Publication date: 2014
Photo credits: FCBStudios
The APPG inquiry found there were far reaching benefits from developing good quality housing for older people, including a reduction in health and social care costs, as well as the freeing up of family housing and has made a series of recommendations to create movement in the housing market, improve the health of older people and create new housing options for younger people and families. These include:
- A Cabinet Office Task Force should bring together the Departments of Health and for Communities and Local Government to take forward the nationwide drive to build the homes needed by an ageing population
- The Department for Communities and Local Government should encourage and incentivise the private sector and registered social landlords to meet the rising demand of those seeking to move to elegant, functional, sustainable and manageable homes for later life
- The Department of Health should tailor its £300m Health, Care and Support Housing Fund to ensure more schemes are designed to HAPPI principles
- Private sector and registered social landlords, with government support, should develop a HAPPI kite mark to raise HAPPI’s market profile
- Working alongside local authorities, the Homes and Communities Agency should lead in championing HAPPI to ensure that a clear targeted strategy for housing older people forms part of every local plan and that, where necessary, appropriate sites are brought forward specifically to fill any identified shortfall in market provision
- Planners should recognise the special nature of high-quality retirement housing in their requirements for affordable housing and for Community Infrastructure Levy charges
- Local housing and social care departments should give strategic priority to assessing and investing in older people’s housing; and maintain accessible housing registers
Author: Housing our Ageing Population Panel for Innovation
Publication date: 2012
Categories
LowCarb4Real
Drawing on detailed academic studies at Stamford Brook along with GHA member experience, the GHA disseminated and implement this learning by providing education and technical support to GHA Developer members and others.
The LowCarb4Real project, funded through the UrbanBuzz programme (project No. 388), lies in the UrbanBuzz target area “Energy efficiency and sustainable housing: harnessing academic understanding”. As is recognised in the Urban Buzz programme, the contribution made to sustainable communities by reducing carbon emissions from housing is considerable.
Case studies
Information about how to achieve good performance on sustainable housing projects was then collected and a number of detailed case studies including:
Lincoln Grove, Bladon
Lincoln Grove is a development of 9 x 2 and 3 bed homes near Woodstock, 9 miles from Oxford, constructed in 2007. The homes were awarded EcoHomes excellent, scoring 77 credits, the same as BedZED. The homes have been subsequently re-assessed under the Code for Sustainable Homes and achieved level 3.
Download Thermal Bridging Report
One Brighton
One Brighton at Blocks E & F, New England Quarter, is a mixed-use scheme sitting within a mixed-use neighbourhood developed in a joint venture by Crest Nicholson and BioRegional Quintain.
Download Thermal Bridging Report
Old Apple Store, Stawell
The Old Apple Store is a development of 5 new family homes, with one existing unit retained and completely refurbished. The site nestles within the site of the old apple store in the picturesque village of Stawell in Somerset.
Download Thermal Bridging Report
Final report
Author: Good Homes Alliance
Publication date: November 2011
This report presents results and recommendations following research into examples of good practice in ventilation and indoor air quality for new homes. The aim is to inform and support the work of teams involved in procuring, designing and building low energy homes, by providing clear information highlighting good practice in ventilation and indoor air quality.
Author: Good Homes Alliance
Publication date: November 2011
Existing research suggests that consumers are right to be worried. A lack of space has been shown to impact on the basic lifestyle needs that many people take for granted, such as having enough space to store possessions or even to entertain friends. In more extreme cases, lack of adequate space for a household has also been shown to have significant impacts on health, educational attainment and family relationships.
Consumers buying or renting newly built homes in the UK are likely to get less space than their European neighbours. In the rest of Western Europe new homes being built are bigger, even in countries with similar population densities to our own.
Using publicly available documents submitted for planning applications, RIBA assessed the internal floor area of privately developed homes on a sample of sites currently being built by England’s 8 largest volume housebuilders. They compared their findings to the Greater London Authority’s space standards to benchmark good practice.
Author: RIBA
Publication date: September 2011
The authors make the following recommendations for design of housing for older people:
- New retirement homes should have generous internal space standards, with potential for three habitable rooms and designed to accommodate flexible layouts.
- Care is taken in the design of homes and shared spaces, with the placement, size and detail of windows, and to ensure plenty of natural light, and to allow daylight into circulation spaces.
- Building layouts maximise natural light and ventilation by avoiding internal corridors and single-aspect flats, and apartments have balconies, patios, or terraces with enough space for tables and chairs as well as plants
- In the implementation of measures to ensure adaptability, homes are designed to be ‘care ready’ so that new and emerging technologies, such as telecare and community equipment, can be readily installed.
- Building layouts promote circulation areas as shared spaces that offer connections to the wider context, encouraging interaction, supporting interdependence and avoiding an ‘institutional feel’, including the imaginative use of shared balcony access to front doors and thresholds, promoting natural surveillance and providing for ‘defensible space’.
- In all but the smallest developments (or those very close to existing community facilities), multi-purpose space is available for residents to meet, with facilities designed to support an appropriate range of activities – perhaps serving the wider neighbourhood as a community ‘hub’, as well as guest rooms for visiting friends and families.
- In giving thought to the public realm, design measures ensure that homes engage positively with the street, and that the natural environment is nurtured through new trees and hedges and the preservation of mature planting, and providing wildlife habitats as well as colour, shade and shelter.
- Homes are energy-efficient and well insulated, but also well ventilated and able to avoid overheating by, for example, passive solar design, the use of native deciduous planting supplemented by external blinds or shutters, easily operated awnings over balconies, green roofs and cooling chimneys.
- Adequate storage is available outside the home together with provision for cycles and mobility aids, and that storage inside the home meets the needs of the occupier.
- Shared external surfaces, such as ‘home zones’, that give priority to pedestrians rather than cars, and which are proving successful in other countries, become more common, with due regard to the kinds of navigation difficulties that some visually impaired people may experience in such environments.
Author: Housing our Ageing Population Panel for Innovation
Publication date: 2009
Successful housing growth cannot be achieved in isolation, and it is vital that partners are able to work together towards common goals, sharing a common understanding of the kind of communities we wish to create. This charter will equip key stakeholders with a clear and shared language, enabling closer working in the creation of sustainable and successful developments.
Author: Cambrideshire Horizons
Publication date: May 2008
