The Housing Design Awards are now into their seventh decade. Through this peerless record they represent a history of housebuilding in this country, chronicling changes in how homes are planned, designed and produced.
The partnership promoting the Awards also reflects shifts of emphasis in how new homes are funded. This year the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) joins the Royal Institute of British Architects, NHBC and the Royal Town Planning Institute as a powerful new vehicle to deliver Communities and Local Government's drive for quality new homes. HCA's involvement helps to broaden the Awards' focus to address those bigger planning issues of infrastructure, employment, amenity and environment.
Shockwaves from last year's international banking crisis have affected developments everywhere. HCA is providing much needed support to the industry, for example a funding programme will reinvigorate and kick-start the best stalled projects in England. Schemes shown in the Housing Design Awards ‘Exhibition of Excellence’ could well be among those that deserve such help.
Small flats targeted at the rental investor have been hardest hit by these conditions, but apartment living can be very attractive when designed well and this year we have great examples in both the Project and Completed Award categories. These schemes illustrate the emerging consensus on how to design apartments that people would want to live in over the longer term. Our Completed Award winner, Angel Waterside is a scheme which maximises the number of apartments with more than one aspect by using multiple cores. The design makes it a challenge to tell the social rented flats apart from the market sale ones.
It is notable that this year’s Completed Award winners all include homes designed for families. Whilst the winning schemes all go the extra mile, whether through their eco-credentials, their use of modern methods of construction, or a strong focus on design quality, it is the back to basics provision of good family homes, spaces and neighbourhoods that have given them the edge and provided what people want.
This year also sees the first year when entries have been asked to score themselves against Building for Life, a Government endorsed design criteria that helps planners and developers deliver quality. A key part of this is assessing whether there is fair provision of both private and public amenity, which has always been at the heart of the Housing Design Awards.
Layout and quality of private and public space is reflected in this year's Overall Winner, South Gate in Totnes. This scheme demonstrates the benefits of when an ambitious local authority takes the lead; assembling a site, organising a design competition where the brief was to maximise low cost homes for local residents, and then managing a process where the intricate vision of the winning design made it to site intact. Judges noted how South Hams recognised the limits of the private sector to fund everything, and worked supportively to achieve joint goals.
This is a valid message as we celebrate the best buildings and designs of the past year. They remind us what is possible, and demonstrate how true partnership can still deliver our ambitions for quality homes and environments to live in.