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Post-occupancy evaluation approaches still require a push towards social impact assessment rather than focusing on the performance of the built environment
proposition for designers, as the impact of design is often intangible, subjective and difficult to pin down. Post-occupancy evaluation (POE) approaches can help to tell this story, but still require a push towards social impact assessment rather than focusing on the performance of the built environment, even if this is from the perspective of the end user.
Recent research at the University of Manchester’s Urban Institute has sought to plug this gap in available methods to capture the impact of design. During my PhD research between 2012-2016, social return on investment (SROI) was trialled as a novel form of social post-occupancy evaluation, and showed that it is possible to qualify, quantify and monetise the impact of high quality built environments. An SROI case study of Maggie’s Nottingham was published in the RIBA’s ‘Building Knowledge: Pathways to POE’ report. This was followed by a project, called ‘Well Cities,’ to develop and validate a multi-item scale tool to measure the psychological wellbeing impacts of place. This can be added to a POE survey as an extra module and represents a cost-effective way for designers to gather some primary evidence about the impact of their designs. These methods are applicable at a range of scales in indoor environments, the public realm, and for blue-green infrastructure. Industry has also been capacity building in this area. We are working with a number of design clients to help them think through their approach to social value. This looks different depending on the client. For some, it is a strategic exercise to set a high-level approach that pulls together any activities currently underway, and embed a common set of practices into current process and policy. For others, the wish to demonstrate the impact of their work is leading to a case study approach to evaluating completed schemes retrospectively. Whichever way this journey is started, our aspiration is to help designers build social value into their existing project process so that it becomes
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an embedded aspect of their practice, and a demonstrable contribution within built environment schemes.
Core principles for designers looking to maximise their impact include: • Engaging with stakeholders and asking the difficult questions
• Promoting the value of engaging with end users and local communities as early as possible, promoting informed design that responds to evidenced needs
• Addressing social value risk and opportunity throughout the project
• Integrating social value objectives and targets into project processes.
Ultimately, designers have a unique opportunity to take a holistic perspective across the project lifecycle. For example, the connection between early stakeholder engagement, needs-informed design, post-project evaluation and social value is as yet unformed, but a significant opportunity.
The professional institutes are also recognising the need for designers to capture and evidence the social value contribution of their design work. RIBA is considering the idea of a social value overlay to its new ‘plan of work,’ which will drive increasing interest in social value across the full lifecycle of a project. This is tied to an initiative of the Architecture Research Practice Leads group, led by
Professor Flora Samuel at the University of Reading, to develop a social value toolkit. A group of designers, consultants and academics have been working together for the last 18 months to develop and pilot a simple and practical way for architects to capture and measure the social impact of their designs. The toolkit is due to be published by the RIBA practice committee in the new year, and draws on principles of SROI and post-occupancy.
This agenda is also growing within infrastructure engineering in the UK. The Design Task Force of the National Infrastructure Commission, as well as the regional commissions, are considering added value in the context of major infrastructure schemes, and the ICE has recently funded a social value research project being undertaken by ‘Useful Projects.’ It is clear that the level of activity and interest around social value has skyrocketed in the last 12 months. For designers, there is a real opportunity to take the lead on embedding social value considerations across the project process, drawing on the emerging thought leadership around monitoring and assessment, and ultimately delivering and demonstrating improved design outcomes in the built environment.
Dr Kelly Watson is senior consultant at Hatch Regeneris
ADF DECEMBER 2019
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