Scrutiny
We can act as a design champion or guardian on a project, advise on design review strategy, or chair design review panels. We can also undertake post-occupancy evaluation, listening to the resident and management perspective.
Scrutiny is about how quality is governed, and what people and procedures are needed to monitor and retain a golden thread of design quality through the project process. It cannot be overstated how vital this thread is, including in ensuring compliance with regulation and policy. However, it is easily lost through missed or poorly managed processes between concept and completion. Listening to residents once they’ve moved in is a key part of scrutiny, enabling refinement to design quality and standards for later projects.
Design Review/Champion
Who is this for?
You are a landowner or institution leading a major project. You would value an external champion for design quality for the project, or an occasional design review or critical friend role.
What’s included?
We listen to you to understand your aspiration for design quality on the project
We establish the various forums at which the emerging design will be reviewed (e.g. DRPs) and ensure that our advice makes sense alongside these other forums
We set out a design review remit and timetable to work with your planning programme
We undertake periodic design reviews of the scheme
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Post-Occupancy Review
Who is this for?
You are a public sector landowner leading a housing development programme. You have completed a number of projects (or the first phase of a multi-phase regeneration project) and you wish to understand the quality of those schemes from a design and resident perspective. You will feed the findings back into your design standards and project briefs as well as your procurement process.
What’s included?
We work with you to understand your aspirations for the post-occupancy review, and we set out a workplan and timetable for that review
If the project is large, we work with a social research collaborator to undertake resident surveys
We can also run resident workshops to understand the views of a group, and allow that group to listen to each other when feeding back
We visit the site and work through a checklist of design quality indicators
We report back to you on successes and challenges, highlighting what actions you can take to enhance your built output for your next scheme or phase
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