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Urban Design
English Partnerships and urban design
English Partnerships has always emphasised the importance of design and quality and we seek to put the latest thinking into practice in our projects and those of our partners.
English Partnerships ensure that all projects we are involved in deliver high quality design by setting minimum quality standards. Many of our projects and programmes go beyond these to deliver exemplars. Through programmes such as Millennium Communities and competitions such as Design for Manufacture and Carbon Challenge, English Partnerships has the opportunity to influence the industry to raise standards in design, sustainability and place making.
A practical understanding of how good design impacts on regeneration and development is key to the success of the Government’s aim to improve design standards. Guidance works best with the practical experience, opportunities and constraints provided by actual projects.
English Partnerships is unique in that we are able not only to develop guidance but also, through our own development and regeneration work, to test, demonstrate and communicate what we have learned.
Urban Design Compendium
Our Urban Design Compendium publications and website provide guidance on good urban design –the principles of urban design, how they can be applied and the processes which lead to successful places.
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Urban Design Compendium website includes over 150 case studies which demonstrate how the principles and processes work in practice. These include additional images, information and links to those in the publications. |
Urban Design Compendium
English Partnerships published the Urban Design Compendium in 2000 in partnership with The Housing Corporation. This set out the key principles of urban design along with guidance and case studies explaining how these could be applied in practice.
Since publication more than 25,000 copies have been distributed worldwide and it is being translated into Chinese, Korean and Serbian.
Urban Design Compendium 2: Delivering Quality Places
English Partnerships published The Urban Design Compendium 2: Delivering Quality Places in 2007 in partnership with The Housing Corporation. This builds on the guidance in the original compendium by looking at the key steps that need to be taken in the delivery process to support design quality. Case studies demonstrate how specific barriers have been overcome to enable successful delivery of quality places.
The Urban Design Compendiums are available to download from our Publications page.
Design codes
English Partnerships has employed design codes on a number of its large projects. Codes establish clear guidance on how the design principles can be delivered at the scale of the neighbourhood and each block. Our experiences of using codes informed the Communities and Local Government (CLG) point programme, which concluded in 2006, and their subsequent publication ‘Design Codes: A Practice Guide’.
A summary of English Partnerships experience using design codes can be downloaded from Publications page.
The value of urban design
An understanding is required of the costs and benefits of good design. The extra costs tend to be short term, whereas the benefits (which usually outweigh them), tend to be generated in the medium to long term. We work with our partners, encouraging them to take a long term view and develop an understanding of the benefits that high quality design can bring to a project over time.
English Partnerships together with The Prince’s Foundation and Savills undertook a study to measure and value new approaches to residentially led mixed use growth. A summary of the report Valuing Sustainable Urbanism can be downloaded from The Prince’s Foundation’s website.
Inclusive design
Inclusive design is a way of ensuring that the built environment is accessible and appealing to everyone regardless of age, ability of circumstance. Inclusive design is an important theme for English Partnerships. We have adopted the principles of an Inclusive Design policy and we are now testing its practical implications through its application to two of our projects. The conclusions from this work will inform and assist with the development of a mechanism for our projects and programmes to ensure inclusive design throughout our regeneration and development programme.
