Low operational carbon..

While there is a growing variety of measures used to assess the environmental impact of projects (such as embodied carbon and operational energy), and economic value is frequently used as the central justification of projects, there is no agreed metric for assessing social value in architecture and in the impact of projects.. Social value in the UK: establishing benefits of good design.The social impact of developments on communities and the way they are designed are gaining traction as key metrics in UK government policy.

Although not specifically intended to apply to the design of buildings and places, the Social Value Act (Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012) requires those who commission services to consider how wider social, economic, and environmental benefits can be secured, indicating an increased recognition of the importance of social value in the UK.RIBA has recently published the Social Value Toolkit for Architecture, developed in partnership between the University of Reading and the London-based Research Practice Leads, as an attempt to establish a common methodology for measuring the monetisation of social value through calculating the social return on investment.This is intended as a starting point for use by practitioners in the industry to understand and embed social value in architectural practice.

A central recommendation is an attempt to increase the prevalence of post-occupancy evaluations conducted by architects, to enable mapping of intangible impacts such as social value.The current, alarming, lack of collection by architects of real-life data on the impact of their schemes suggests that this societal feedback loop is not necessarily being designed into future schemes..

Within a wider context, the construction industry itself is fundamental to the implementation of these social values.

It is central to the delivery of places in which people live, work and socialise, in addition to the connections between these places and communities.PETP program was instrumental in demonstrating the value of this thinking.

It was also the programme which first proposed the use of construction Platforms.This idea has now been adopted by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) and is a central focus of the Construction Innovation Hub.. We are both proud and pleased to be part of the gathering momentum around these approaches.

The potential of design to transform lives within the prison system and way beyond, is inspiring..If you'd like to continue to learn about our Design to Value approach and Modern Methods of Construction, sign up for our monthly newsletter here:.