Responding to new demands for design quality

Built environment and architecture commission are responding to new demands for design quality.

The House of Commons Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) has once again expressed its concern about the design quality of affordable housing, based on experience when prefabrication was last used on a large scale in the 1960s.

It has now added to that similar concerns about the standard of design in many schemes financed by private finance initiative (PFI).

The committee, led by Andrew Bennett MP who represents Denton and Reddish in Greater Manchester, quotes in its latest report an inquiry by the United Kingdom's Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment which looked at the quality of the first batch of housing association designs using off-site manufacturing.

CABE, successor to the former Royal Fine Arts Commission, was not impressed.

"Although some were satisfactory, none of the schemes reviewed exhibited outstanding design quality." said its report.

"Performance standards likewise were generally not exceptional.

There are substantial risks for all those involved in take-up and hence reduce the potential for improvements to be developed.

"There is still not enough information available about the more complex Modern Methods of Construction systems.

This is lacking in terms of cost, general technical limitations, and the effect of integrating them into construction." Giving the background to this inquiry, the ODPM committee referred to the competition organised by the regeneration agency English Partnerships to demonstrate that it is possible to build a good quality home for a construction cost of GBP 60,000.

As reported by CIOB International News at the time, the first of these designs was shown to Prime Minister Tony Blair when he visited the Government's Sustainable Communities summit meeting in Manchester.

Expressing their misgivings about the project the committee said: "The Government's initiative to create a model GBP 60,000 house may secure low cost housing.

However, while price is very important, it should not be at the cost of creating poorly designed homes that will not last, leading to the need for redevelopment within a very short time, and so fail to create sustainable neighbourhoods." The committee, which has been examining the role of CABE in the realm of architecture and the built environment, said that the Commission should be given a clear role in vetting these schemes, insisting that homes of sufficiently high quality must be achieved within the target cost.

Following this through, it pointed out that the design quality of the new housing being planned for the growth areas in the South East of England will be crucial to the long-term success of the affordable house-building program.

"With the Government's urgency to boost housing development and the use of offsite manufacturing, there is a danger that design quality will suffer.

CABE should be monitoring very carefully the design quality of the new housing, particularly those built using offsite manufacturing." Welcoming this assertion, CABE's immediate response was to say that through its Building for Life campaign and the associated enabling program, it is already helping to raising design quality as part of the Sustainable Communities initiative.

Evidence of this was given by the recent Building for Life Standard awards which included Zone 1 of Park Central in Birmingham, the Maurer Court development within the Greenwich Millennium Village, and the Oakridge redevelopment at Basingstoke.

Each of these was rated Gold Standard.

On that occasion John Sorrell who last December succeeded Sir Stuart Lipton as chairman of CABE, said: "Only 17 per cent of the schemes assessed in CABE's housing audit last year were judged to be well designed.

The Building for Life Standard award proves that there are some house-builders doing exceptional work across the country.

But we still have a long way to go.

Most local authorities and house-builders need to raise their game and learn from these winning schemes." Growing demand for design reviews The ODPM committee described CABE's review of the designs of new buildings as its most high profile activity.

Matt Bell, director of policy and communications at CABE, told CIOB International News that the demand for these design reviews is growing at an exponential rate.

Asked how CABE would cope with this upsurge, he said that decisions on which schemes merit design review would be guided by strategic criteria aimed at raising design quality, and that the work of its team of 200 or so enablers whose services are provided free of charge would be an essential element in the campaign to raise standards.

Last year, CABE reviewed a total of 480 planning applications out of some 16,500 categorised by ODPM as 'major'.

At the hearings in the House of Commons, concerns were raised with the ODPM committee about the process whereby CABE develops its views on design because of an alleged lack of transparency and thoroughness and the composition of the panel reviewing the schemes.

Last year an audit of conflicts of interest took design review as one of its main subjects for examination.

The auditors said: "It is essential that CABE is able to demonstrate publicly the openness and integrity of the design review process.

As such, the independence of the position of chair of the design review committee should not be held by a person with significant commercial interests which potentially impact on that person's ability to objectively fulfil their responsibilities in this key role." The auditors made a total of 28 recommendations to safeguard the Commission against such conflicts of interest.

Mr Bell said that 23 of these have already been adopted, and the remaining five will be in place within a few weeks.

Such a reform is timely, as CABE has also been asked to become involved in reviews of designs produced by the private finance initiative (PFI).

This is needed, according to the committee, because the PFI funding mechanism does not give sufficient weight to the design of public facilities.

"The Government needs to review PFI to consider how design can be better incorporated into the procurement process.

The fundamental role of CABE in overseeing design quality at a national level should be recognised and it should be involved in the procurement process from the outset.".

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