Culture Change
DDQ is grounded in the early analysis of housing in South Yorkshire that suggested that the poor overall quality of housing on offer was a contributory factor to low housing demand and a less successful economic performance.
More recent research has suggested that, notwithstanding the new monies put into the HMR areas of low housing demand, recent built homes are still failing to meet the 'Building for Life' standards.
In order to address this DDQ have been working to instigate a culture change within South Yorkshire. To do this, DDQ have organised a number of large-scale training events. A key example of this has been the Design South Yorkshire 100.
DSY 100
The Design South Yorkshire 100 programme was a 6-month initiative, which aimed to develop urban design knowledge, skills and leadership in 100 individuals from the four local authorities in South Yorkshire.
The programme was supported by CABE, the Learning and Skills Council and ESF funding and was accredited CPD by the Chartered Institute of Housing.
Six workshops were run from September '07-March '08. The topics included:
- Week 1: High quality design – what is it?
- Week 2: Successful neighbourhood regeneration
- Week 3: Creating distinctive and sustainable places
- Week 4: Sensitive design solutions for difficult sites
- Week 5: Sustainable construction and development
A product of the DSY100 has been the creation of quarterly forums, in which local authorities share best practise. With each forum 4 representatives from a local authority will speak about their roles and the give advice on how to achieve high design quality. On April 1st Rotherham Council hosted a forum titled 'Working Towards Sustainable Neighbourhoods'. David Levitt, co-founder and partner of Levitt and Bernstein, and Director of Design for Homes, was the keynote speaker. Barnsley Metropolitan District Council, hosted the following forum at The Core. Titled 'The Joy of the Streets', this forum was hosted by Andrew Cameron, Director of Urban Design WSP.
Next autumn will see the start of the new series for training under the Design South Yorkshire banner. The training programme is currently been developed and is likely to comprise study visits, opportunities to develop links and share best practise with practitioners from the private and public sectors, and member development training. The programme is likely to be modular giving participants the chance to choose from gaining expertise in the latest innovations in housing design, sustainable technologies, changes in national policy/strategy and best practice regionally, nationally and internationally.
