Project
Happy Homes Project
Project dates
2022-2024
Project lead
Gloria Vargas Palma
Collaborators
Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Reading and Cambridge University
Case study project
Alma Estate - Countryside and Enfield
Case study project
King Square - Islington Council
Website
The Happy Homes Toolkit Project (HHT) is a two-year research project that explores how homes can be designed to ensure long-term benefits to residents’ quality of life.
Through interviews and visits to residents’ homes, Pollard Thomas Edwards (PTE) is building a data bank, in collaboration with a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Reading and Cambridge University, to show how spaces stimulate positive emotions in those who inhabit them.
The HHT focuses feedback at the scale of the home and its immediate context. It will help designers to create homes based on direct evidence from residents and selected case studies, and will allow clients to understand and demonstrate the social value of the homes they deliver. In the long term, the toolkit will generate a significant database to explore patterns and new strategies for creating value through design.
At the end of the two year KTP in October we will launch an evaluation tool (beta version) that will offer users:
- A numerical/alphabetic score for the embodied social value of their completed housing development;
- A breakdown of scores for different elements of the development that will assist in its management, and offer lessons based on lived experience for future developments.
Following this, PTE will lead the development of a Revit plug-in to add information to architectural elements that will inform architects as they design about the likely social value influences of their design decisions, enabling the client, design team and planners to evaluate cost, policy and quality characteristics against evidenced social value metrics. These design decisions can then be analysed post occupation, improving the accuracy and value of the data set.
Social Value Design Research Associate Dr Gloria Vargas Palma is developing PTE’s Social Value Toolkit
