Tag: Placemaking

Categories
Report

How Shall We Live? New Settlements, New Imperatives, New Models

The Human Nature Places Foundation has convened a group of experts and practitioners to explore ‘How Shall We Live?’

“Our aim is to reconsider the role of large new settlements — including New Towns — in a modern, sustainable economy and society. We do so with the understanding that the second quarter of the twentyfirst century presents an entirely new constellation of environmental, social, and economic imperatives. Against this backdrop, we propose strategies, plans, infrastructures and designs that respond thoughtfully and ambitiously with the long future in mind.”

The report explores two questions:

  1. What problems are new settlements actually designed to solve?
  2. How might we rethink the role of new settlements as tools for tackling some of the most profound, deep-seated challenges facing British society, the economy, and our relationship with the natural world?

Contents:

Place Missions & New Imperatives
How Shall We Live?
A Pattern Language of Place
Wild at Heart: A New Landscape of Living
It Takes a Village: A Network of Commons
Genius Loci
Connectivity, Active & Sustainable Travel
Darwin’s Sandwalk & The Better Everyday
Growing a Place
A Place to Start Out in Life & a Place to Stay
Radically Affordable, Radically Better
Disruptive Delivery: Think Slow, Act Fast and… Mend Things
The Whole Place: Remarkable Outcomes

Author: The Human Nature Places Foundation

Publication date: April 2025

Find out more: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7326216852156604417/

To request a copy of the report, contact

in**@hu****************.com











.

Categories
Guidance

Homes of the future are needed today

What does a low-carbon, sustainable home look like?

Current technology, and measures aimed at preparing for the impacts of climate change, can help new and existing homes to become low-carbon and ultra-efficient as well as adapted to flooding, heat and water scarcity.

This infographic from the Climate Change Committee’s 2019 report entitled UK housing: Fit for the future? is as relevant now as it was then.

Download infographic

Author: Climate Change Committee

Further information: https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/uk-housing-fit-for-the-future/

 

Categories
Guidance

Green Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide

This guide is part of Natural England’s Green Infrastructure Framework. It provides evidence-based practical guidance on how to plan and design good green infrastructure. 

The Green Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide complements the National Model Design Code and National Design Guide and can be used to help planners and designers develop local design guides and codes with multifunctional green infrastructure at the heart. It will also be useful to landscape architects, urban designers, parks and greenspace managers and neighbourhood planning bodies.

The guide shows:

  • How to apply the Green Infrastructure Framework, including a summary of the green infrastructure principles and standards.
  • How to design green infrastructure features as ‘building blocks’ of a larger connected network.
  • How to combine green infrastructure features in different ‘area types’ to create multifunctional and connected networks at different scales and in different area types. Includes guidance for applying the Green Infrastructure Framework’s standards to urban areas, streets, urban fringe, rural areas, parks and greenspaces, commercial, business and industrial sites, schools and colleges, healthcare facilities, and linear infrastructure such as roads, railways and waterways.
  • How to develop landscape-led green infrastructure with a focus on landscape character and local distinctiveness.
  • Signposts relevant case studies that illustrate the green infrastructure principles and sources of further information.

Author: Natural England

Publication date: 2023

DOWNLOAD

Further information:

Natural England: Green Infrastructure Planning & Design Guide

 

Categories
Report

New Neighbourhoods in Cambridge

This report evaluates housing schemes in Cambridge and the role of the Cambridgeshire Quality Panel in maintaining quality. It aims to determine if the high standards seen in Cambridge can be replicated elsewhere in the UK.

The report highlights the success of Cambridgeshire in delivering high-quality new neighbourhoods through strategic planning, innovative design, and collaborative efforts. Given the support of the local community, the lessons learned from Cambridge can be applied to other areas in the UK to improve housing quality and meet growth targets. The involvement of the Quality Panel, adherence to the Quality Charter, and early planning are critical components for replicating Cambridgeshire’s achievements.

Author: Stephen Platt

Publication date: June 2024

DOWNLOAD

Further information:

Categories
Article Guidance Report

Building Social Cities: Learning From What Works

It is fifteen years since Professor Sir Peter Hall and Dr Nicholas Falk drew on study tours run by the Town & Country Planning Association (TCPA) to Dutch and German urban extensions to recommend what needed to change in the UK. David Rudlin and Nicholas went on to apply lessons from cities such as Amersfoort and Freiburg to win the 2014 Wolfson Economics Prize. They showed how a city like Oxford could double its population by applying garden city principles without depending on government subsidy. With a Labour Government committed to boosting economic growth and building affordable and sustainable homes, the URBED Trust has compiled articles from Town and Country Planning on practical solutions. Please read and ask yourself and your colleagues Why not now?

This document is a compilation of nine papers orginally published by the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) and reproduced in this report with their permission. Each article has links to other relevant material.

The new introduction provides a valuable summary and the final article, written by Richard Simmons in 2024, looks at how lessons from these articles could be combined with other opportunities to deliver growth and new homes faster.

Contents:

  • Funding large-scale new settlements
  • Urban policy and new economic powerhouses
  • Achieving smarter growth in London and the South East
  • Planning for posterity
  • Location, location, location – funding investment in local infrastructure
  • Sharing the uplift in land values (executive summary)
  • Planning rapid transit for urban recovery
  • Harnessing towns and cities for better growth
  • Why not here?
  • Six steps for accelerating delivery by Dr Richard Simmons

 

Authors: Nicholas Falk, Richard Simmons.

Publication date: July 2024

DOWNLOAD

Further information: https://urbedtrust.com/

 

Categories
Report

Tackling Inequality in Housing Design Quality

While disadvantaged communities routinely put up with poorly designed housing development, it is not a given. Through presenting twenty stories which illustrate ten routes to success from across England, this study demonstrates that if the will is there, we can routinely deliver well designed new housing developments in even the most challenging locations. The economic, social, environmental and health benefits that flow from this will be substantial.

In too many disadvantaged areas, poor quality housing development is the norm.  The private market works less well in such places, with lower land prices leading, proportionally, to lower investment in all aspects of the design and delivery of new homes and neighbourhoods.  This happens to the point where all quality is squeezed out of private and associated affordable housing or housebuilding simply becomes unviable.  Too often it is perpetuated by the disengagement of the public sector from housebuilding and from the governance of design quality.

Authors: Matthew Carmona, Jingyi Zhu and Wendy Clarke, UCL & Place Alliance.

Publication date: February 2025

DOWNLOAD

Further information: https://placealliance.org.uk/from-inequality-to-quality/

Categories
Guidance

National Design Guide

The national design guide sets out the characteristics of well-designed places and demonstrates what good design means in practice.

It forms part of the government’s collection of planning practice guidance and should be read alongside the separate planning practice guidance on design process and tools.

Author: Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government

Publication date: October 2019

DOWNLOAD

Categories
Report

Distinctively Local

This report focuses on new suburban and rural housing, including urban extensions, suburban infill and completely new settlements. It aims to inform and inspire those who may be planning, designing, delivering or hoping to inhabit new developments, including the latest generation of garden towns and villages. It includes guidance and case studies showing how to create genuinely distinctive and popular places. In doing so we hope it will help foster a positive perception of new development that can in turn help smooth the path for boosting housing supply.

This report is the product of collaboration between four architectural practices, specialising in the design and delivery of residential and mixed-use neighbourhoods:

Author: HTA Design, Pollard Thomas Edwards (PTE), PRP, Proctor & Matthews Architects.

Publication date: May 2019

DOWNLOAD

Further information: http://distinctively-local.co.uk/

Categories
Report

Place Value and the Ladder of Place Quality

The types of places we inhabit have a profound impact on health, society, the economy and the environment. This report distils 271 empirical research studies to uncover the truth about the qualities of the built environment that are good for us and deliver place value.

The Ladder of Place Quality is a simple tool for decision-makers to use when considering: are we making a great place?

Author: Place Alliance

Publication date: March 2019

DOWNLOAD

Categories
Book

The Housing Design Handbook: A guide to good practice

Everyone deserves a decent and affordable home, a truth (almost) universally acknowledged. But housing in the UK has been in a state of crisis for decades, with too few homes built, too often of dubious quality, and costing too much to buy, rent or inhabit. It doesn’t have to be like this. Bringing together a wealth of experience from a wide range of housing experts, this completely revised edition of The Housing Design Handbook provides an authoritative, comprehensive and systematic guide to best practice in what is perhaps the most contentious and complex field of architectural design.

This book sets out design principles for all the essential components of successful housing design – including placemaking, typologies and density, internal and external space, privacy, security, tenure, and community engagement – illustrated with case studies of schemes by architecture practices working across the UK and continental Europe.

Written by David Levitt and Jo McCafferty – two recognised authorities in the field – and with contributions from more than twenty other leading practitioners, The Housing Design Handbook is an essential reference for professionals and students in architecture and design as well as for government bodies, housing associations and other agencies involved in housing.

Read a teaser for the book here.

Author: David Levitt, Jo McCafferty

Publication date: October 2018

BUY THE BOOK