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FROM THE EDITOR
H
ousebuilding, and retrofi t, remain at the very centre of the political debate, as seen at the recent party conferences. The Government unveiled its plans for 12 new towns, although the new Housing Secretary Steve Reed, despite sporting a Trump-style ‘Build Baby Build’ hat, had to restrain the excitement to an announcement of only three actual sites. These are Tempsford, in Bedfordshire, Crews Hill near Enfi eld, and South Bank in Leeds, Kier Starmer confi rming that they would form part of the (otherwise increasingly impossible-seeming) 1.5 million homes by 2030.
But will architects be involved in these projects? I recently attended a UK Construction Week seminar ostensibly around fi xing the industry’s skills shortages, but which quickly evolved into an interrogation of the Government’s wider construction strategies. The always-trenchant Rico Wojtulewicz, head of policy at the National Federation of Builders, took direct aim at the previous Government’s ‘beauty’ focus for housebuilding, saying he was glad to see the back of it in Labour’s proposals, because of architects being unlikely to be involved.
Wojtulewicz asserted that NFB members use architects, because they want to achieve rigorously-designed homes with modern performance standards. However, recent RIBA fi gures showed that 94% of new homes in the UK are designed and built without architects; only 90,000 of the hoped-for 1.5 million.
He expressed his happiness on the Government ditching the Tories’ Building Beautiful initiative for housebuilding. This wasn’t because of the inherent subjectivity of determining what that ‘beauty’ looks like, but because it freezes out architects, not requiring them to be part of creating local design codes. Despite his role representing contractors, Wojtulewicz candidly said that leaving ‘beauty’ to be regulated and managed by housebuilders would not be likely to provide good design.
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But what form of requirement could be introduced to help ensure that architects can be reintroduced at the heart of housing schemes? I would suggest that a set of design codes for what constitutes ‘quality’ in housebuilding could potentially be arrived at, perhaps using the Code for Sustainable Homes as a template. The Code seems to be the one universally-missed (although still secretly still used) part of design regulation, and led to many good quality schemes across the UK with people now enjoying the fruits of lower bills and greater comfort.
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These schemes probably cost signifi cantly more than bog-standard volume housing, so a cost calibration within any guidance, setting out the impacts of a more in-depth, rigorous design approach, could help architects manage QS’ expectations. They’re the ultimate arbiters of ‘what good looks like’ in housebuilding.
James Parker, Editor
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