What do you think when you drive past a new-build housing estate? Are you admiring the iconic designs of the new abodes or, more likely, are you thinking about how bland it all looks?
The elephant in the room when it comes to the UK’s housebuilding targets is that architects are now rarely involved in designing our homes, and it shows. According to data published by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 2018, only six percent of UK homes are designed by architects.
A fact that RIBA highlighted again towards the end of last year, when the government proposed reforms to the National Planning and Policy Framework (NPPF).
Independent think tank, the Centre for Cities, has warned that without radical planning reforms, the government will miss their manifesto target to build the promised 1.5 million homes before the end of this parliament.
Responding to the government’s proposed NPPF reforms, RIBA President Miyiwa Oki described some reforms as “promising” but also mentioned potential pitfalls.
Oki highlighted that mandating “a greater proportion of homes for social rent and a mixture of tenures and types… must be accompanied by an adequate supply of housing for older and disabled people to meet the increasing demand”.
He stressed that reforms such as measures to unlock brownfield land would only really have an impact if “backed by adequate support and resources”. He stressed that if the government “commits to supporting local planning, encourages cross-boundary cooperation, and releases grey belt land while also prioritising brownfield sites, it can unlock the system’s full potential – but it must get it right”.
The proposed changes include mandatory national and local housing targets, direct funding support for local authorities facing higher targets, a loosening of green belt development rules and encouraging grey belt development.
Grey belt is essentially green belt land of poor quality – Labour have given examples such as “poor-quality scrubland, mothballed on the outskirts of town” like a disused petrol station in Tottenham which is currently designated as green belt.
Hitting 1.5 million homes in the timeframe suggested is a tall order alone, but what can be done about the uninspiring designs of many of the UK’s homes? Currently, 77% of architects are working on the design of private homes – essentially designing for the few rather than the many. One organisation is working on changing this, by placing private-sector architects into public sector roles.
Public Practice assists in placing talented architects, urban designers and planners in planning departments in London and the South East. Working for a year at a time in place-based roles, they dedicate 10% of their time to research. The goal is to bring vision back to overstretched planning departments, so that creativity is prioritised over fire-fighting.
Of course, this only addresses one small slice of the problem, but it does show that there are people in our sector who care about making a difference. Without further planning reforms which make design a higher priority, most housebuilders will put profits over people. They will begrudgingly add parking areas and a handful of trees, but design is not top of their list.
The challenge is in how you legislate for good design? It’s subjective, so anything the planning department deems acceptable can be built. And planners are under-resourced, with people waiting 12 to 18 weeks for a decision now, when it used to be 6 to 8 weeks.
It would be great to think that we could combine the government’s housebuilding push with a push for designs that bring joy rather than monotony. But I fear that would be being overly optimistic.
What do you think? What would need to change for the UK to start designing and building more homes we can be proud of?
In the meantime, if you need any assistance with the structural elements of an upcoming project, please do get in touch.
