The developer Chris Brown of Igloo recently wrote that the holistic value of building quality communities is of huge importance – yet it is surprisingly under-researched given the £50bn or so invested in it every year in the UK.

One of the reasons for pushing social value has to be the chance to improve the quality of housing. This is certainly the mission of the “design value” workstream at the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (Cache) which I lead, working with colleagues from the RTPI and Glasgow University together with a remarkable group of industry advisors.

We loosely define design value as the amalgam of social, environmental and economic value (people, planet and profit). Our most recent project includes a study of design value in extremely average housing estates across the UK (Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, northern England and south Oxfordshire but not London).

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