24 October 2008
Design, place making and the Stirling Prize
What is good design? For me it is what is preferred by the majority of people rather than the elite minority. There are some new home developers including my own company who do give significant attention to design. Architecture isn’t just about the buildings, important as they are, it’s about sustainability, about creating places that people will enjoy and it’s very much concerned with creating sustainable communities that will stand the test of time.
We are delighted that our Cambridge development, Accordia, has just won the UK’s premier architectural prize, the RIBA Stirling Prize. This is of course testament to the design skills of the architects that we employed, but it is also an award for our vision in developing the brief and having the dedication to implement it. Accordia is a community that will prevail and the elite minority, the judges, awarded the prize because they could see the quality of the place making concept that we conceived and worked up with the architects would work well and be attractive to the majority. We see the award of the Stirling Prize, to a housing project for the very first time, as a historic success that brings long overdue recognition of what we have been achieving for a number of years in many other places.
As a society we have many concerns about our living environments and Accordia addresses many of these concerns. I have mentioned place making already but this term should also include the long-term management. If this is not taken into account communities will not look good within a few years of them being built. Place making also has to be inclusive and accommodate the interests of all the residents. In particular children as well as youths are often forgotten in the process. We must not forget that children also have a democratic right to space. Accordia achieves this brilliantly.
Design and layout has got to be taken into account in creating sustainable communities with the range of housing sizes and tenures that is needed to ensure social sustainability. So we need to accommodate one and two person households, families and the elderly, and both those who can afford to buy and those who cannot. Mixed-tenure housing and the way in which housing is integrated is very important in creating sustainable communities. We don’t want the segregation between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ that created so many problems in the past.
Communities need schools, as well as community and recreational facilities. As well as creating these facilities we also need to ensure places in themselves are attractive. Landscaping is important – people enjoy living in green environments that bring people together to create a sense of community. Fundamentally they are nicer places to live.
Our society is becoming increasingly concerned with the energy efficiency agenda so homes must be more energy and water efficient and use eco-friendly building materials. Wherever we can we need to include eco parks, as well as parks where people can play. Moving on from Accordia, the new play environment at Great Notley in Braintree, another of our new community projects has dramatically increased the amount of people who are visiting and enjoying the country park which was created as part of the development.
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