Dr Dhruv Sookhoo, Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Urbanism at Manchester School of Architecture, is co-curating an exhibition at the Farrell Centre, to explore how architectural practices and their clients use housing standardisation to achieve quality, affordable housing in the North East of England.
The exhibition will feature a series of co-produced case studies of current housing projects that reveal how house types and related design guidance are developed and adapted during the design process to meet mandatory national standards and their local interpretations, promote good practice standards, and respond to local housing markets and preferences.
Dhruv is a member of the MSA’s Built Heritage Research Group, MSA’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership Lead at Manchester School of Architecture, and leads MSA’s Dwelling and Urbanism Urban Laboratory. This working exhibition is part of an ongoing research project with Professor Sam Jacoby and his team at the Royal College of Art, which is developing new understanding about how English housing associations create and implement approaches to design governance across their housing programmes.
“Housing and its quality are widely recognised as fundamental to our wellbeing and social welfare, yet there is surprisingly little agreement on how housing quality should be defined or measured. Our international study shows that housing outcomes vary considerably because they are shaped not only by housing systems but also by social and cultural expectations and economic conditions, producing context-specific housing realities and experiences. For example, over half of new affordable homes in England fail to meet the Nationally Described Space Standard. By comparing national housing approaches and examining the lived experience of homes, the project provides insights into design governance as well as patterns of housing standardisation and variation. The exhibition at the Farrell Centre connects these global findings to local housing ambitions and invites discussion about what housing quality should mean in practice.” - Professor Sam Jacoby, Royal College of Art
Collaborating with housing associations and their architects through the North East project will develop new insight into how skilled practitioners in the region deliver housing quality, complementing existing understanding of how design governance occurs in housing associations based in London and the South East of England. Understanding existing successful approaches to delivering better quality housing in the North East is timely as devolution deals through the North East Combined Authority and Tees Valley Combined Authority provide fresh momentum for the development of affordable housing at scale, and national government consults on the continued promotion of design codes for housing quality through the planning system.
The exhibition will evolve throughout the year to capture a developing understanding of how housing standardisation and design governance occurs in the North East, and its role in defining, promoting and securing better quality housing. A series of public talks by architects and other housing practitioners, and public engagement events delivered in collaboration with the Farrell Centre, will support the interpretation of emerging themes, findings and recommendations for practitioner and community audiences.
This collaborative approach to research and engagement is consistent with the role of the urban room, as a place of exchange and debate between practitioners, academics and communities about the future of their towns, cities and regions. The eventual outcome of our practice-led research project, and its intended practice recommendations for delivering housing quality through housing standardisation and design governance, will be informed by the practical insights and experience of participating architectural practices, housing associations and developers, local authorities and policymakers working across the region.
The North East exhibition builds on, and will be exhibited alongside, Housing Standardisation: Who Designs Our Homes and How Do We Live?, a fascinating AHRC funded international study which explores how regulatory approaches, housing markets, and cultural norms shape housing quality and the lived experiences of residents in England, Chile, China, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland.
Find out more about the exhibition
The exhibition and events series are jointly funded by Research Impact Development Scheme (RCA) and AHEAD (Manchester Met). Contributors include Blake Hopkinson Architecture + Design, Gentoo Group, IDPartnership, JDDK Architects, Karbon Homes, MawsonKerr Architects, P+HS Architects and Thirteen Housing Group.