Place Quality Research

About our research

 

Place Alliance has been working with its partners to deliver a programme focused on generating a knowledge-based line of research about the quality of the built environment and its delivery. Our aim is to better inform the debate with rigorous empirical (but also digestible) evidence and to encourage its use in practice. The intention is that for this to be an ongoing study programme that monitors the capacity of the country to deliver high quality urban environments, and tracks how this changes over time.

2022 - APPEALING DESIGN

The research in this 2022 report aimed to examine whether the national change of policy on design has had an impact on the conduct of Section 78 Planning Appeals in England. On the evidence presented in Appealing Design, it is time for all local planning authorities to demand better.

2021 - THE DESIGN DEFICIT

A follow up to our 2017 Design Skills Research looking at urban design skills and approaches within England’s local planning authorities, and how they have changed in 5 years time.

2020 - HOME COMFORTS DURING THE COVID-19 LOCKDOWN

A survey of 2,500 households aimed at understanding how well or how poorly the design of our homes and their immediate neighbourhoods supported us during the coronavirus lockdown.

2019 - NATIONAL HOUSING AUDIT

A 2019 Audit based on a design audit of 142 housing developments across England.

2019 - COUNCILLORS ATTITUDES TOWARDS HOUSING DESIGN

Findings of a 2018 national survey of Councillors attitudes to housing design.

2019 - PLACE VALUE & THE LADDER OF PLACE QUALITY

A guide for decision making about the built environment, supported by the Design Network.

2017 - DESIGN REVIEW IN LONDON

360-degree analysis of the diversity of design review practices across London, and the benefits that flow from the high-quality provision.  

2017 - DESIGN SKILLS IN LOCAL AUTHORITIES

A national survey of urban design skills / resources within local planning authorities and how they have changed over the last five years.

Work with Us

 

The Place Alliance has its origins in a cross-sector collaborative alliance for place quality. Our supporters are engaged in the full range of processes involved in shaping places.  These encompass processes that are: 

  • Both strategic and local in nature; public and private 
  • Top-down and bottom-up and both professionally and community driven 
  • Directly and indirectly shaping places (for instance through both projects and policies) 
  • Concerned with the environmental, social and economic wellbeing of places and people 
  • Involving a wide and varied range of professionals and communities. 

By working constructively and collaboratively as allies, we aim over the long-term to establish a culture whereby place quality, in a holistic sense, becomes a continuous and ever-present agenda in all new development, regeneration and urban management processes.  Individuals and organisations are always welcome to work with us and we partner with others in most of what we do.  Working together we are far stronger than working either in isolation or within our disciplinary or interest group silos. 

Contact

Prof Matthew Carmona – Chair

Valentina Giordano – Chief Executive

To discuss how we might work together please email placealliance@ucl.ac.uk Â