The Scottish Government

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Section 5: Review Framework

5.1 This section describes the framework within which the review has been undertaken, including the:

• Definition of architecture and design adopted for the review
  What is meant by 'impact'
  Broad range and definition of potential economic, social and environmental impact indicators
• Range and definition of possible causal factors
  Approach to the analysis.

Architecture and design

5.2 The Scottish Executive in A Policy on Architecture for Scotland (2001a) ¹⁶ confirms the Executive's:

Commitment to the promotion of good architecture and good building design and its actions to encourage improvements in the quality of our buildings

5.3 In the context of this review, this is taken to mean the quality of buildings and the environment in which these buildings exist, both urban and rural.

5.4 Multiple definitions exist. The most simple might be Cowan's definition of urban design as the art of making places (Cowan, 2000) ¹⁷.

5.5 In Designing Places the Scottish Executive (2001b) ¹⁸ defines urban design as:

The collaborative process of shaping the setting for life in cities, towns, villages and rural areas...

5.6 The Centre for Architecture and the Built Environment ( CABE, 2001) ¹⁹ suggest that the most significant is the Department of the Environment's 1997 definition:

"… urban design should be taken to mean the relationship between different buildings; the relationship between buildings and the streets, squares, parks and waterways and other spaces which make up the public domain ; the nature and quality of the public domain itself; the relationship of one part of a village, town or city with other parts; and the patterns of movement and activity which are thereby established: in short, the complex relationships between all the elements of built and unbuilt space"

5.7 Accepting these definitions includes the following in the definition of architecture and design for this review, in both urban and rural contexts, which includes:

• Design of individual buildings
• Design of the spaces between and surrounding buildings
• The way buildings relate to each other
• The way buildings relate to the external environment around them
• The relationship between different areas
• How people use, move around and between buildings and spaces

Impact

5.8 In this context, impact might most simply be described as the difference made by architecture and design. Within this, the review attempts to consider:

• Both positive and negative impacts, where they are identified.
• Hard, quantitative measurements of impact, where a clear, quantifiable, causal relationship has been established between an input and an impact.
• Soft, less easily quantifiable impacts around, for example, personal or community-development. These can often be a contributing, rather than directly causal factor in achieving a hard impact.
• Direct impacts such as where the building of a new office building for example, is likely to have a direct impact on job creation for individuals.
• Indirect impacts: for example where the creation of a park might have a direct impact on leisure participation for individuals and an indirect impact on their health and well-being.
• Both short and longer-term impacts.

Impact for whom?

5.9 There are many stakeholders on whom architecture and design have an impact, with diverse needs, wants, interests and desired outcomes. These stakeholders, whose interests may be private, public or community focused range from property owners, investors, funders and managers; the architecture and design sector both in practice and in education; regulatory and planning authorities to amenity groups, local communities and individuals.

5.10 For the purposes of this study, the brief required a consideration of the impact of architecture and design on those who live in the area or attend / participate in activities in the building. This means we are concerned with the individual end-users, those people who use a building or space for a particular purpose or who engage with a building or space in the course of their daily life.

Type of impact

5.11 The overall purpose of this review is to illustrate social, economic and environmental impact of architecture and design, both positive and negative, to inform new design with a view to improving people's quality of life.

5.12 The Scottish Executive (2001b) ²⁰ believes that good design is recognised as:

A practical means of achieving a wide range of social, economic and environmental goals, making places that will be successful and sustainable.

5.13 For the Scottish Executive, quality of life is enshrined within the concept of sustainability, which is further defined as:

The measure of the likely impact of development on the social, economic and environmental conditions of people in the future and other places

5.14 So how does architecture and design affect the economic, social and environmental conditions of people?

5.15 The table below illustrates the broad categories of potential economic, social and environmental impacts identified for the purposes of this review. It must be stressed that this was intended simply as a starting point, designed to give some initial structure to the review, but not to pre-judge the findings.

Causations

5.16 If the review is to inform new design with a view to improving people's quality of life, the findings will only be meaningful if the factors contributing to these impacts are identified as specifically as possible.

5.17 At the outset, a range of causal factors believed to contribute to the social, economic and environmental impact of architecture and design was determined. The casual factors were developed from CABE's definitions of what is meant by a well-designed building or a well-designed place ²¹, and are supplemented by the Construction Industry Council's Design Quality Indicators ²².

5.18 The causal factors identified as contributing to well-designed buildings or places, while identified separately, clearly overlap. For clarity of analysis and reporting we have however, kept them separate. At all points we are attempting to clearly distinguish between the causal factors associated with an individual building and those arising from urban design - the public domain and the relationship within the public domain and between the public domain and individual buildings.

5.19 The categorisation and broad range of potential causal factors identified for the Review Framework is outlined in the table below:

What is meant by a well-designed building?

5.20

What is meant by a well-designed place?

5.21

Review Approach

5.22 The review adopted the best-evidence synthesis approach (Slavin, 1986) ²³ to enable a combination of narrative review of qualitative and case-study evidence with quantitative evidence. The aim was to provide enough information to give confidence in the commentary and to enable the reader to reach independent conclusions.

5.23 To minimise the potential for subjectivity the review adopted the coding system used in a review by the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment ²⁴, which categorises the quality of the evidence according to its robustness:

Conclusive: consensus conclusions from top experts in the field; or objective evidence based on findings of more than one empirical study, reaching a clear and firm conclusion

Strong: Conclusions of a top expert in the field; supported by multiple citations; or some systematic objective evidence, especially a robust empirical study (quantitative or qualitative)

Suggestive: Assertions from someone from standing in the field; or a collation of anecdotal evidence; or conclusions based on only a single empirical study of limited validity or restricted application

5.24 This review has focused on empirical findings and excludes anecdotal evidence.

Structure and content of the literature review

5.25

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