Valuing Design and Innovation in Built Heritage : Exploratory Conversations
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Strathclyde
Department Name: Geography
Abstract
This project seeks to investigate the value of design and innovation through a set of managed dialogues between three key sets of stakeholders who together influence the use and value of design in the context of built environment heritage. These conversations between academics, design SMEs and the national heritage agencies will provide opportunities to narrate accounts of how design focussed SMEs have been able or inhibited from engaging with innovation in relation to heritage, how those agencies which influence regulation and governance are engaging with design sector, and how together they understand the role and value of design in relation to heritage.
Our starting point is that while design is widely recognised in novel urban forms (buildings, public spaces etc) that meet future needs, it is less well recognised in conserving selected heritage that integrates with new and extended places. Still less attention has been given to opportunities for innovation to make the vast majority of the existing urban fabric smarter for the future. By bringing together those involved in valuing heritage and design into directed conversation, this project will not only highlight stories of success where design SMEs have been able to create value but also provide a deeper understanding of some of the constraints which hold back others from achieving such success.
Our starting point is that while design is widely recognised in novel urban forms (buildings, public spaces etc) that meet future needs, it is less well recognised in conserving selected heritage that integrates with new and extended places. Still less attention has been given to opportunities for innovation to make the vast majority of the existing urban fabric smarter for the future. By bringing together those involved in valuing heritage and design into directed conversation, this project will not only highlight stories of success where design SMEs have been able to create value but also provide a deeper understanding of some of the constraints which hold back others from achieving such success.
Planned Impact
Initially, the primary beneficiaries will be those partners directly involved in the project. For example, the SMEs involved will have the opportunity to become part of a cutting edge network, with access to the latest thinking in their area, as well as developing personal contacts and a wider understanding of the sector, which could help them to build research and development capacity. By exploring innovative and imaginative ways in which small design businesses are working in relation to built heritage, and by engaging a wider range of design businesses, we expect that a stronger understanding of how to support SMEs to contribute design to innovation.
Co-learning across organisations and facilitated learning between sectors and actors will encourage and identify new ways in which design and innovation can be encouraged and used in relation to built heritage. Historic Scotland details its benefits in the letter of support, recognising that a dialogue of this nature will add value to their work.
Research beneficiaries will also include policy-makers (particularly those with involvement in conservation and heritage, but also more widely in stimulating design in innovation within SMEs) at national and local scale. Outcomes in this area will be specifically fed back through the wider existing networks within Historic Scotland and through the Institute for Future Cities.
The academic impacts expected include enhanced understandings of how approaches to design and creativity present in other sectors can be used in relation to built heritage and built environment, and contributions to the research agenda of the AHRC in supporting more effective engagement between academics and businesses.
Co-learning across organisations and facilitated learning between sectors and actors will encourage and identify new ways in which design and innovation can be encouraged and used in relation to built heritage. Historic Scotland details its benefits in the letter of support, recognising that a dialogue of this nature will add value to their work.
Research beneficiaries will also include policy-makers (particularly those with involvement in conservation and heritage, but also more widely in stimulating design in innovation within SMEs) at national and local scale. Outcomes in this area will be specifically fed back through the wider existing networks within Historic Scotland and through the Institute for Future Cities.
The academic impacts expected include enhanced understandings of how approaches to design and creativity present in other sectors can be used in relation to built heritage and built environment, and contributions to the research agenda of the AHRC in supporting more effective engagement between academics and businesses.
| Description | 6. Emerging findings The conversations set out to identify areas of interest, worthy of further consideration, rather than any firm conclusions and the case studies, example of practice and the experience of those involved in the dialogue, highlighted two key elements which merit further consideration. 6.1 Towards a shared understanding of design and innovation in built heritage The concepts of design, innovation and built heritage are elusive. The lack of a shared understanding of the fundamental concepts of design and innovation pushed the project to rely on the assumption that a shared interest in built heritage would be sufficient to bring SMEs, design professionals and academics together. In fact, the project found a less cohesive sector than anticipated, highly differentiated in terms of business size and structures and, with a wide range of disciplines and associated understandings of design, innovation and value. Each time the project team met with additional contributors, the key definitions of design, innovation and built heritage were revisited and added to. A recurrent theme throughout discussions was that design has a crucial enabling role in allowing (designing in) or preventing (designing out) different voices and innovation and that any discussion of built heritage requires considerable care to frame the issues appropriately and in ways that are meaningful across a range of disciplinary, development and business perspectives. 6.2 Demonstrating value through design in innovation in relation to built heritage This project identified examples of design value at a range of levels (individual, business and community/society) and perspectives (efficiency, aesthetics, financial, social, cultural, and sustainable) that has much resonance with the value framework proposed for design innovation by den Ouden (2012) and the value types identified by Douglas-Wheeler (2014) for the Scottish Government. However, in common with the findings of other recent studies exploring the value of design and innovation in related contexts such as the built environment and culture (Institute of Design Innovation 2014), the team identified no easy answers to the problem of measurement. Indeed, demonstrating the value of design through built heritage was yet further complicated by the lack of common agreement on the value offered by heritage (neither den Ouden or Douglas-Wheeler identify specific 'heritage' values). In addition, innovations such as image mapping raise new possibilities for preserving aspects of built heritage in less tangible forms. The tensions perceived in the third workshop between the use and economic values of site development and the social and cultural values of site conservation suggest that this might be a fruitful area for more in-depth research that would help reveal how the value proposition is constructed, together with the potential for disruption. |
| Exploitation Route | 7. Taking forward the agenda The research team set out with the intention that the conversations could assist to draw together a designresearch agenda that acknowledged, first, the ever-growing extent and breadth of the built environment that might be regarded as having some heritage value, and second, with fiscal tightness in public finances, the struggle of public bodies currently responsible for the management of much of this heritage to find sustainable solutions that maintain heritage values alongside continuing economic benefits. In this tension, there is a growing acceptance that new ways of imagining heritage value and alternative ways of managing such value are required. This AHRC project has underlined that at present there is a strong focus on individual solutions to individual buildings and sites. In some circumstances this provides for the 'designing in' innovation to retain heritage and use values, but in other cases heritage values are being lost as economic pressures mount. In these circumstances, a key issue is about how other values and meaning are revealed, recognised and then incorporated into the discussions over heritage management. For the research team, the Bangour Hospital site discussion exemplified the challenges of how academic research in design and creative arts might help to ensure that past experience are expressed, captured and used to inform/imagine future building, whilst innovations in design and visualisation could assist in giving expression to psychological, social and cultural values to inform our experience and expression of value. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | http://resilientcommunities.weebly.com/built-heritage.html |
| Description | The research informed submission to an international European conference held to discuss 'Built heritage and place making' in Glasgow in May 2015. Following this along with the outcome of a EU FP7 project on GiS and heritage a submission for funding under EU H2020 is being drawn up with the aim to submit in 2016, collaborating with University of Manchester. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2015 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | Future of the City Centre |
| Amount | £33,900 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | AH/R006881/1 |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2018 |
| End | 02/2020 |