Building for Life Explained

Published by Guy Woodward @ calfordseaden for calfordseaden LLP in Housing and also in Central Government, Communities

James Amos, calfordseaden's in-house planning consultant, explains the criteria for a Building for Life Assessment. The twenty questions which form the Building for Life Assessment are intended to stimulate all parties involved in housing development to produce better designs.

The process is intended to be qualitative where the system it replaces - the Scheme Development Standards - was fundamentally quantitative. It replaces a box-ticking exercise with one which should ultimately change development culture towards considered solutions and high level design in terms of 'attractiveness, functionality and sustainability.' The sponsors, CABE and the Home Builders Federation, are confident that using the Assessment effectively will bring about:

• Improvements to well-being and quality of life;
• Benefits to public health;
• Increasing property values;
• Reductions in crime levels.

The twenty questions can guide development briefs, establish a format for planning approvals and allow a comparative review of the design. Building for Life is also embodied within the Housing Quality Indicator (HQI) process and a pass mark of 12 (in certain cases 10) is the base level requirement. A score of 14 may result in a silver Building for Life award and 16 can lead to a gold award.

calfordseaden provide assessments at feasibility stage and completion, required by the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) as a part of the HQI review. We also undertake an intermediate review as recommended by HCA during the detail design stage. As a part of our assessment, we always supplement the basic score with a commentary aimed at identifying areas of design that need development and those elements which are strong and should be retained - the regime assessments can thereby enable an incremental improvement in design quality, which is capable of being tracked and reviewed.

calfordseaden have various scheme's featured on the Building for Life website: www.buildingforlife.org

For more information please contact James Amos (T: 01689 888222 / E: jamos@calfordseaden.co.uk)
www.calfordseaden.co.uk