Designing Better Buildings

Design is widely recognised as the key to improving the quality of the built environment. This well-illustrated book comprises 15 chapters written by leading practitioners, clients, academics and other experts, and presents the latest thinking on what design quality is and how to achieve it. For design practitioners and their clients alike, the book provides evidence to justify greater focus on, and investment in, design. It summarises the benefits that arise from good design - such as, civic pride in the urban environment, the stimulation of urban regeneration, corporate identity, occupant productivity and health in offices, improved learning outcomes in schools, better patient recovery rates in hospitals, as well as reduced environmental impact. And it illustrates these benefits through case study examples. Eight chapters focus on case studies of exemplary buildings in particular sectors - offices, schools, housing, and hospitals - and explain why and how they came to be designed, and the design qualities they exhibit. Jon Rouse of CABE offers ten case studies where organisations have deliberately invested in their buildings to demonstrate their belief in good design, as well as to raise their profile and improve staff recruitment and retention. Richard Feilden of Feilden Clegg Bradley presents some exemplary schools and identifies the key factors they share. Terry Wyatt of Hoare Lea & Partners describes the design of three office buildings where concerns for staff comfort, productivity and well-being were used to decide where and what to build. Dickon Robinson of the Peabody Trust uses three affordable-housing projects to show how a bespoke design-led approach extracts the full potential of a site and contributes to a lasting legacy of attractive housing. Paul Wheeler of DEGW discusses the development of the Housing Quality Indicators. Matthew Carmona of University College London examines six urban design projects and identifies the principles that appear to correlate with good urban design. Bryan Lawson of Sheffield University and Susan Francis of the Medical Architecture Research Unit both address medical buildings - Lawson presents two case studies that show hospital patients favour new wards and recover quicker in them, while Francis identifies the qualities necessary to create therapeutic environments. Four chapters address the processes necessary to achieve design quality. Tony Pollington of the Construction Clients' Confederation discusses the introduction of the Construction Clients Charter - which commits those clients who sign it to continuous improvement in the procurement of buildings. Peter Trebilcock of AMEC presents three case studies about the management of design that illustrate the need for close co-operation between all parties in the construction process, and an appreciation of each others roles and interests. Adrian Leaman & Bill Bordass of Building Use Studies draw on the findings of post-occupancy evaluations of buildings to recommend design strategies for achieving flexible and adaptable buildings that accommodate changing requirements and are robust in use. Giles Oliver of Penoyre & Prasad identifies what support design needs to establish a common language for valuing design within the built environment. Finally three chapters discuss the issue of whether and how design quality can be measured. Sunand Prasad of Penoyre & Prasad introduces the ethical and philosophical issues surrounding the measurement of quality. Michael Dickson of Buro Happold describes the recently-launched Design Quality Indicators, setting out the attributes and their grouping under three headings of functionality, impact and build quality. And Jennifer Whyte, David Gann and James Barlow of the Science Policy Research Unit, responsible for the development of the Indicators, describe antecedents in other sectors and how the Indicators were constructed and then piloted on five building projects. The book is intended for construction industry practitioners, particularly among architectural, engineering, planning, surveying and project management practices, as well as clients responsible for commissioning buildings and civil engineering projects. It will be an essential text book for many university courses in the built environment, including architecture, engineering, construction, planning and urban design. Jon Rouse of CABE; Richard Feilden of Feilden Clegg Bradley; Terry Wyatt of Hoare Lea & Partners; Dickon Robinson of the Peabody Trust; Paul Wheeler of DEGW; Matthew Carmona of University College Lond

Table of Contents:
Preface Design as a value generator Part One: The perspective of clients 2 Clients and quality 3 Learning more from what we build 4 Client's perspective on the value 5 The long-term costs of owning and using buildings Part Two: Case studies of added value 6 Measuring value or only cost: the need for new valuation methods 7 Measuring and improving functionality and performance, 8 Design quality in new schools 9 Assessing benefits in the health sector 10 Making special places for health care 11 Adding value through better urban design Part Three: Delivering better buildings 12 Design quality needs conscious values 13 Flexibility and adaptability 14 Managing design and construction Part Four: Measuring quality and value 15 Inclusive maps 16 Achieving quality in building design by intention 17 Building indicators of design quality 18 Housing quality indicators in practice Index

About the Author :
Sebastian Macmillan trained as an architect at Liverpool University, before writing his Ph.D. at the Royal College of Art. He is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and ran an architectural practice for ten years. In 1984 he set up Eclipse, a consultancy specialising in research on the design and management of the built environment. He has written many publications for the government's Energy Efficiency Best Practice programme and, more recently, for the Construction Best Practice Programme. He has a part-time appointment at Cambridge University's Martin Centre where he is responsible for coordinating the Centre's research programme.

Review :
'This book deals with very important issues and comes out at the right time, when spending needs to be justified and best value is measured in increasingly sophisticated ways.' - Urban Design, 2004