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CHAPTER FOUR: DRIVERS AND BARRIERS TO GOOD DESIGN

This chapter of the report examines what constitutes good design and explores the key drivers and barriers to the design process.

WHAT IS GOOD DESIGN?

Good design is a combination of a good project budget and a client who has a good idea of what they're looking for and is willing to be advised by their architect as to what would be a good solution to whatever they're needing, whether it's a new office or whatever the building is.

Landscape Architect

The above comment highlights some of the factors that facilitate good design: project budget, knowledgeable client and a challenging and experienced architect, flexible to the needs of the client and the environment. These are some of the factors that undoubtedly aid good design, but what is good design and who decides that it is good? The building design professionals found this question particularly difficult to answer. Several felt good design was purely subjective, although words such as traditional, good proportions, fits into its surroundings and the wow factor, appeared to be synonymous with good design.

I think good design stays good design. It should stay good design. It's people's attitudes that change. When I started in the sixties the design at that time was appropriate for the time. Nowadays you look back on the sixties designs and you think 'God why did I do that? That's what the style was then. There's nothing wrong with the design as such. It's just people's perception of good and bad design.

Architect

People pay for good design most certainly. The word 'good' is a problem because not everybody thinks it's good. Design is an interesting thing. It's the most debatable thing.

Planning Officer

You just recognise good design when you see it. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it is. It's to do with proportion, materials, shape, space etc. That all combines to produce the end product.

Architect

If it doesn't work its bad design. If it's a housing scheme and it's not liveable in or not pleasant to live in. If it creates an extremely poor quality of life then its bad design in my opinion.

Landscape Architect

DRIVERS AND BARRIERS TO GOOD DESIGN

Drivers of and barriers to good design are inextricably linked. Good project budgets will on the whole facilitate good design, whereas a lack of funding will have the opposite effect. In this next section of the report we will look at these key drivers and barriers to the design process.

PROJECT FUNDING

The size of a project's budget undoubtedly influences the standard and quality of design. All the professionals interviewed in the second qualitative stage recognised this, although according to the findings from the telephone survey they did not feel it was as important as the need to understand the importance of good design or changes required to the planning system. Thirteen percent spontaneously mentioned that for the quality of design to improve in Scotland architects and designers need to be better funded, with higher levels of investment.

Currently, distribution of National Lottery grants through the Scottish Arts Council fund individual architects and designers to develop excellence and creativity throughout Scotland. Although this is happening, many architects feel funding is going to larger scale developments, such as the one-off prestige project rather than publicly funded initiatives such as schools and hospitals, where procurement models such as PFI and PPP were seen as mechanisms that undermined good design by squeezing project budgets.

Most importantly, was the recognition that in most cases, the design was not an end in itself but is often a by-product of construction. For developments that will be sold through the market, the design is squeezed between the initial purchase prices for the land, the cost of gaining planning consent, construction costs and the selling price that can be achieved for the properties.

But there's no point scoring for good design. It's all about price…The trouble is most designs have cost somebody somewhere. That's the problem with it. You've got to have somebody who's prepared to either put their own hands in their pockets or their company not make much profit or even make a loss, to actually get it to work.

Planning Officer

To an extent it will be the cost of development and the elements of economy as to whether people can pay the sort of money that pays for good design or for high quality design.

Architect

ARCHITECTURE AWARDS AND COMPETITIONS

Two-thirds (65%) of building design professionals say that design awards are important in improving the quality of design and a further 56% say that design competitions are important. Although these factors are important to building design professionals, they are not as important in improving the quality of design as some other factors, such as education in design, as table 4.1 illustrates. Furthermore, only 1% of those surveyed spontaneously mentioned that they would like to see more competitions and improvements to the current competition system.

There is a feeling from the follow-up depth interviews that if there were more architecture and design competitions in Scotland the standard of design would inevitably rise, because of the element of competition. There are of course a number of Scottish Architecture competitions in existence, such as the Best Building in Scotland RIAS Award and the Scottish Design Awards, however there is a feeling that these only recognise the prestigious one-off designs.

We do not encourage competition amongst architecture. I think the fault lies really with the architects. The architects don't criticise each other very much. There is no real competition going on.

Architect

I would imagine that architects, planners are here to try and create better places which means encouraging better buildings within those places. It's up to architects. If we go in to do a design competition for a particular site you want to encourage the widest range of solutions so that you can select or somebody can select what is considered to be the best design solution.

Architect

COHERENCE WITHIN THE BUILDING DESIGN PROFESSIONS

Three-quarters (74%) of those surveyed feel it is important to have information on the role of other professions working in the built environment. Many of the professionals in the follow-up interviews expressed a lack of coherence across the professions with each profession working within their part of the design process, rather than working to shared goals. Many architects feel that only they, structural engineers, landscape architects and planners are really involved in the design process and that civil engineers and quantity surveyors are more peripheral. This reflects the findings from the telephone survey, where both civil and structural engineers screened themselves out of the survey because they did not feel that their role influenced the design of buildings or public spaces. As mentioned in the methodology section, 10 interviews were finally achieved with structural engineers, although no follow-up interviews were achieved with this group.

I think engineers are involved to a lesser extent than an architect, but they can be very important because if something has been designed and it needs a structural engineer's input because there's something different about it. Engineers can be very important. I think they can assist the designer at the end of the day. Quantity surveyors, they tend to just be involved in the cost if you like.

Architect

THE PLANNING SYSTEM

One of the key objectives in the Executives policy is: 'to ensure that the planning and building standards systems and their associated processes both promote and facilitate design quality in development'. According to building design professionals interviewed in both the telephone and follow-up interviews this is currently not happening. The planning system undoubtedly plays an important role in protecting and shaping our environment. The quality and location of developments is important in making our towns, cities and countryside attractive and functional places to live, whilst preserving our sense of national identity. The planning system has to balance often conflicting demands to make sure land is used and developed according to a number of interests. The planning system is seen to be more of a hindrance to good design than anything else, with the process being described as slow and severely understaffed.

Although awareness of the Scottish Planning Policy ( SPP1): The Planning System is high (76% aware), many of the architects interviewed feel that the current planning process restricts their ability to carry out their job. The following verbatim comments illustrate some of the sentiments the building design professions have towards the current planning system.

If you ask me what is the biggest problem with things at the moment, it's the planning system being so slow and so cumbersome with so many people to consult and the apparent weight that seems to get put on things…They need to find a way of de-cluttering the thing somehow to allow things to go through more quickly.

Architect

One of the things was maybe you should have some architects/planners in the department and not just town planners who know virtually nothing about architecture. We're the architects. We design the buildings. You're the planners. You don't design the buildings. You look at the building in its relationship to the surrounding environment in terms of density and height and all that sort of stuff. Leave the detailing to people who are qualified to do it or get people within your department who can comment intelligently about these things.

Architect

The planning process is an agency for involving the communities, both in the planning process, in notification of planning and then getting feedback. That process doesn't work and that's one of the fundamental problems that I pick up from all my colleagues and is the nature of the planning process and is in extreme need for a revamp.

Architect

I think planners could exercise more control or more persuasiveness in encouraging architects and developers to produce high quality design. I think they have the power to do that.

Landscape Architect

We have a lot of problems with the planners. I think the planners are having to deal with more and more issues. I think I would say that the planning system is struggling in many areas to cope with the volume of workload. I certainly think that either the planners need to be relieved of certain duties or they need to be significantly better staffed. I think clients would be open to paying a higher fee to get their applications processed much more quickly.

Architect

Of course, not all architects hold this negative view of the planning system as the following comment highlights.

My own experience as a generalisation tends to be the opposite, that there are many clients whose instructions are they want the most basic simple cheapest possible building. You put it into the planners and they say 'no, that's not good enough. We want to see something that's a bit higher standard'. The client will only spend the money on it if the planners force them to.

Architect

SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF DESIGN IN SCOTLAND

Table 4.2 illustrates the professions' most popular suggestions on how to improve the quality of design in Scotland.

Interestingly, one in five surveyed felt that the public should be made more aware of architecture and design and another 17% felt they should be an increased understanding of the issues involved in good design. This theme will be explored in more detail later in this report. Another popular suggestion which we have already examined in this section was to make changes to the planning system. The current planning system is seen to be more of a hindrance to good design than anything else.

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