Embargo: 00.01 Wednesday 23 November, 2011

Wanted - Social Designers to Plan Future Communities

A new profession of ‘social designers' is needed to create future sustainable communities, towns and cities according to a report published today (23 November 2011) by the Young Foundation. As government announces new plans to kick start house building in the UK, the report argues that new developments will continue to be undermined by expensive mistakes unless the knowledge and experience available within professional silos is brought together.

Design for Social Sustainability is based on an international review of new towns and communities and describes why some flourish and others fail. It finds that communities that do not work socially, at best fail to flourish, or at worst, spiral into decline. Critically, it finds that support services and interventions need to be designed in at the right time for communities to function well in the long term, and provides practical advice about understanding how communities function socially.

"The topic of this study, which might have seemed peripheral and academic has become central and urgent," said Sir Peter Hall. "New estates have been injected into older housing areas without adequate thought as to how the two would integrate. Housing policies, doubtless with the best intentions, have produced concentrations of people with multiple forms of deprivation... The lessons and the recommendations of this report are bound to have a salience that its authors can never have imagined."

The report concludes that knowledge about the social dimensions of creating successful new places is significantly outpaced by knowledge of the built environment; the Young Foundation believes that a new profession is needed to ensure architects and planners understand the social life of places.

The report comes as the Young Foundation announces the development of Social Life, a new independent social enterprise supporting innovation in place-making which will be launched in 2012.

Social Life will provide a new space for rethinking the practice and politics of creating new communities to meet the pressing challenges of urbanisation including climate change and ageing societies. Undertaking research and practical work with professionals and agencies on the ground, the new organisation would enable social designers to cross boundaries between the different professions involved in creating new places. It has already developed a partnership with A2 Dominion to work on the Bicester Eco Town and is discussing opportunities with Cisco to draw on its experience in technology, innovation and sustainability to develop a sustainable cities programme.

Social Life will work in the UK and internationally. The UN forecasts that today's urban population of 3.2 billion will rise to nearly 5 billion by 2030. In Europe, 32 new towns are currently being created across 11 countries. High profile examples of failed communities include the Heygate Estate built in 1974 in London's Elephant and Castle, currently under demolition that is estimated to cost over £43 million including the rehousing of residents. Others include the banlieues of Paris, Chicago's Cabrini Green, and Park Hill in Sheffield (being redeveloped at a cost of £146 million).

Design for Social Sustainability sets out a framework and online resource for built environment professionals and policymakers involved in planning, design, and creating communities and cities. The report argues that given the financial and social cost of failure - high rates of crime, unemployment, mental health issues, for example - planning for new communities needs to be much more integrated into wider social, economic and environmental policy and socially responsible investment strategies.

Saffron Woodcraft who co-authored the report and is involved in developing Social Life said: "Governments are under great pressure to meet housing demand and create communities that are environmentally sustainable and economically viable. Yet social sustainability - creating places that can flourish socially, be cohesive and inclusive, and adapt to changing needs and circumstances - is often overlooked.

Thinking about the social dimensions of community life isn't the focus for planners, architects and developers. The experience of professionals and practitioners who do understand how places are lived in, rather than constructed, is overlooked in the early stages of planning when there are opportunities to ‘design in' services and support that focus on social needs, not physical infrastructure.

In setting up Social Life, we hope to provide tomorrow's architects and planners with practical tools and a holistic set of skills able meet the challenges of designing cities and communities: understanding the lived experience of streets and neighbourhoods; understanding the role for social technologies; alongside skills in planning and architecture."

This report was commissioned jointly by the Homes and Communities Agency as part of Future Communities, which was established by the Young Foundation to explore practical ways in which new housing settlements can succeed as communities where people want to live and work.

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Notes to editors

• Please contact Alison Harvie at the Young Foundation on +44 (0)7909 912 444 or alison.harvie@youngfoundation.org
• Design for Social Sustainability by Saffron Woodcraft with Tricia Hackett and Lucia Caistor-Arendar will be available from Future Communities.
• The Young Foundation - through its predecessor organisations - has been directly involved in strengthening society and pushing up social growth for over fifty years: helping to create mass membership voluntary organisations like Which? and the University of the Third Age, growing new generations of community leaders through the schools for social entrepreneurs. The Open University remains perhaps the most successful example of a new organisation that helped to transform thousands of people's sense of their potential. The Young Foundation is involved in over fifty ventures and initiatives that range from neighbourhood websites to community schools, new models of healthcare to training community campaigners. www.youngfoundation.org
• The Future Communities consortium includes the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), LG Improvement & Development, Birmingham City Council, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, Aylesbury Vale District Council and Peabody Trust. International projects are also underway with the City of Malmö, Sweden, and with the Australian Centre for Social Innovation in Adelaide. www.futurecommunities.net.
• Social Life is a new venture from the Young Foundation working to accelerate innovation in place-making. A2 Dominion is developing an Exemplar community as part of the first phase of development at North West Bicester.