The Cultural Value of Architecture: A critical review with specific reference to UK homes and neighbourhoods

Our proposal is to create for the first time a critical review of the existing research on the cultural value of architecture in the UK focusing on the architecture of the home and of the neighbourhood. 'Architecture' is not limited here to the activities of those with Royal Institute of British Architects chartered status. We refer here to architecture as 'design research' or 'research practice' characterised by the rigorous use of such methods as mapping, consultation, visioning, design, masterplanning and building.

Whilst there is much evidence for value of architectural input in hospitals and schools, the value of architectural input in homes and neighbourhoods remains unclear partly because of the difficulty in setting up controlled test environments in these contexts. Other methods for establishing value need to be developed with some urgency as the architecture of home and neighbourbood has a key role to play in addressing important societal challenges such as the ageing population and energy use.

The critical review will provide a framework for evaluating architecture in homes and neighbourhoods that will help policy makers and practitioners to steer the future of the profession. It will focus on three interconnected components or aspects of value:

1. Wellbeing
2. Neighbourhood Cohesion
3. Identity Belonging and Heritage

As we are concerned with the aspects of architecture that cut across socio economic categories we will focus on ways of promoting wellbeing to groups rather than individuals.

An important strength of this project is the Advisory Group, including key figures from both industry and academia informing our debate with knowledge from a wide spectrum of viewpoints. The project is supported by the Royal Institute of British Architects and will provide evidence for their review The Value and Impact of Architecture.

Sitting controversially within the portfolio of the Culture and Creative Industries Ministry the value of Architecture is currently subject to debate. Indeed the government has recently appointed Sir Terry Farrell to lead a study on public policy, design and the built environment. This critical review will be used, via a briefing paper, as evidence in Sir Farrell's enquiry, in this way influencing policy on the development of the profession.

Architecture's inability to evidence its own value can in part be put down to a lack of formal Research and Development culture within the profession. The critical review will influence architectural practice by evidencing and promoting the value of architecture. Initially in the form of a database the critical review will provide the foundation for a series of publication, most notably the Cultural Value of Architecture Report aimed at architects, clients and policy makers. It will draw together other reviews of this subject and provide an important benchmark for future research practice in the area of home and neighbourhood.

The critical review will have an important impact on the development of architectural research methodologies which have remained hidden up until now, largely because practitioners rarely articulate what they do in terms of research. Architecture is not just about building, architects are adept at articulating and developing design proposals based on the spatial configuration and visualisation of complex sets of information (quantitative and qualitative). The project will give greater exposure to the methodologies of architecture through the wider Cultural Value project. It will also provide opportunities for the development of new blended methodologies developed through interdisciplinary interaction.

If it can be shown conclusively that by improving the quality of the environment in homes and communities we can improve wellbeing the impact could be wide reaching in scope and would have the potential to improve the quality of our built environment. In writing the project we have identified four different audiences for our research: policy makers, practitioners, the wider public as well as the academic audience discussed above.

1. Policy Makers

The future of architecture is currently subject to much debate in the UK. The critical review will contribute to two specific enquiries. The government has recently appointed Sir Terry Farrell to lead a study on public policy, design and the built environment. Sir Farrell's office is supportive of our application as they understand that the critical review will provide importance evidence for the enquiry which will be taking place over the coming year. The critical review therefore has the potential for very wide impact on the built environment.

The critical review will also contribute to the Royal Institute of British Architect's report The Value and Impact of Architecture prepared in response to the RIBA strategic plan, Leading Architecture 2012 - 16 due to be delivered at the end of 2014. Our findings are therefore likely to influence the future direction of the profession.

2. Practice

Early indicators from the RIBA Study of Information Practices in the Built Environment Sector (of which the PI is a member) suggest that although architectural practitioners are aware that peer reviewed academic research is the most rigorous information available it is the information that they are least likely to use. The review report will provide a framework of cultural value that brings together and 'translates' a whole repertoire of inter-disciplinary indicators and measures of cultural value in a manner that architects can readily use in improving the quality of their work and the way that the quality of their work to non-architects.

In gaining a greater understanding of the meaning and importance of architectural research for the development of their businesses, it is hoped that there will be a greater degree of engagement with Research and Development from within architectural practice. The evidence presented in the critical review should persuade some architectural practitioners of the benefits of Knowledge Exchange with academia as it seems likely that most of the cutting edge practice based research on homes and communities has strong academic input. This work builds on the AHRC Home Improvements KE CE project the PI is currently preparing a 'user friendly' RIBA Practice Research Guide (published October 2013) to enable practitioners to access new sources of funding and information in developing their research.

3. Public

Whilst the web pages and the twitter feed will be available to a wide audience we want to create another more accessible event to test out some of the ideas emerging from the critical review.The cultural value of architecture is of course bound up with public perceptions of the field. It is anticipated that public consultation, participatory techniques, visioning and post occupancy evaluation are methodologies that are likely to be on the agenda. It is therefore only fitting to stage a consultation, a debate and an exhibition in the School of Architecture Live Lab (due to open shortly in a disused shop in Sheffield city centre), the public engagement arm of our Building Resilience research centre. The public consultation will take the form of a Live Project. These are six week projects that take place annually with MArch students http://www.liveprojects.org/ The material gathered from this and the critical review, will be used by the students to create a guide to the value of architecture in creating homes and neighbourhoods directed at young people (paid for from University Widening Participation fund) raising awareness of the issues at stake.