A matter of relationships?
Siarlys Evans on TAN 12: Design
The Assembly’s draft Technical Advice Note 12
is the product of a wide-ranging consultation to replace the existing
Assembly technical advice note on Design.
We have travelled a long way in ten years. In 1992 the
planning guidance reduced “design considerations” to an annex
to PPG1. This amounted to little more than the statement that “the
appearance of proposed development and its relationship to its surroundings
are material considerations. Good design should be the aim of all... Planning
authorities should reject obviously poor design.”
With the replacement of PPGs in Wales by an all-in-one summary of planning
policy, the original (1997) design TAN offered little more than this.
The new TAN 12 is major change of emphasis, moving from the aspirational
to a more definitive discussion about what might be considered to be good
design and how this could be achieved. It begins by defining design more
in terms of practical advice that a dialectic, the prevailing theme being
that design is a matter of relationships.
The objectives of good design are listed in the spirit
of a “more holistic approach” to design issues, and a move away
from reliance on prescriptive standards. Design is dealt with as a process,
or, more accurately, the process of the development of design within the
context of the planning system, rightly affirming that the recognition
of good design is “ultimately in terms of social well-being.”
The successful design process involves collaboration
and requires ambitions of quality from all those responsible, including
users and managers of the environment. The TAN argues that “inviting
those who promote and finance development into the process can also ensure
their commitment to design quality... particular attention should be focused
on engaging the stakeholders in the design process.”
The TAN is part of a wider-ranging concern for improving
design standards in the built environment, which in Wales has culminated
in the Minister for the Environment’s Design Initiative, and the
debate over a design commission.
A recent RIBA publication describes the 1990s as “a
decade of reports”. In 1994 the Latham report focused on the simplification
of procedures and improving communications within and the management of
the building process. In 1998 Sir John Egan, chair of the Construction
Task Force, published his own ideas in Rethinking construction. More apposite
to the issue of design quality was the outcome of the 1999 Urban Task
Force, Towards an urban renaissance, which set out a vision for urban
regeneration based on “the principle of design excellence, social
well-being within a viable economic and legislative framework.” The
resonance between this statement and the content of the new TAN is self-evident.
At the same time the Development of an architecture
policy for Scotland report appeared. This was described as a first step
in an undertaking by Scottish government to develop a national policy
on architecture, the “first steps” being to raise awareness
of good design and to stimulate debate. Are these in fact vital steps,
without which the success of guidance documents will inevitably be restricted?
Should the National Assembly have taken a similar initiative?
From a different direction, the Construction Industry
Council announced at the end of last year that it was engaged in a research
programme leading to the development of performance indicators for design.
It has been suggested that architects greeted this idea
with “guarded enthusiasm.” It was nonetheless seen as promising
in that architects could now be ready “to measure and explain that
aspect of practice that they have most jealously guarded and mythologised
— design quality and the benefits it can bring.” According to
architect Sunand Prasad, the CIC’s proposal is to measure quality
not process. Performance indicators should address “the social and
cultural aspects of aesthetics, appropriateness to community, utility
value and technical performance, economy and sustainability.” Prasad
suggests that the greatest need is to develop a common, shared way of
talking about design quality. While TAN 12 does not attempt to establish
indicators, it does go some way to establishing a common language for
appraisal and dialogue.
The English Council for Architecture and the Built Environment
report, The value of design, highlights the role of central and local
government in delivering good urban design beyond the regulatory planning
process. Local planning authorities have a crucial part to play in urban
design, and need to be proactive, positively setting a design agenda through
clear development plan policies. The TAN sets out the process for the
designer, stating that “...a route to successful design solutions
begins with the definition of objectives of design, followed by appraisal
of the local context... local plans with clear policies are an essential
part of this process,” particularly if all those involved in the
design process focus from the outset on meeting a series of “key
objectives of good design.”
The TAN’s sections on “designing in context”
and “delivering design solutions” are succinct and well-structured,
and are in part at least reminiscent of earlier design guides. The section
on local planning authority design policy and advice reflects the concerns
of CABE and makes it clear that taking account of the defining characteristics
of local areas and drafting design policies that reflect the objectives
of good design set out in the TAN are crucial. Below the level of the
unitary development plan, Supplementary Planning Guidance offers the opportunity
to be area-specific, site-specific, or topic-based. The present paucity
of documentation of this type inevitably raises questions about the capacity
of planning authorities to deliver what some might argue is one of the
most critical parts of the proposals in the TAN.
The TAN’s section on “design issues”
reads like a design primer. Given its status as a key document in Planning
policy Wales, its restatement of the principles of good design in the
discourse on design issues is probably timely. There have been some notable
successes with good design guides, the effect on school design of the
Building bulletins, being a case in point.
It remains to be seen to what extent the TAN will affect
the practices and procedures of planners, and the quality of design in
real life. The statutory undertakers, highways authority and the Environment
Agency have all too often displayed little regard for issues like “sense
of place” or “holistic design”, and if the built environment
is to be improved they need to be committed to the objective of ensuring
that the “whole or parts of an urban (and rural) area are developed
in a comprehensive and connected way”, and that this ambition requires
more than a regulatory approach.
There are two key statements in the TAN that are critical
if design quality in the Welsh built environment is to improve:
“...a high level of design skills is more vital than ever in a society which is striving for efficient use of resources. The need to adapt buildings and spaces for new uses; the need to keep pace with technological change and ensure its application in a way that enhances the environment and the need to find long term maintenance solutions, all point to the importance of maintaining and improving design skills.”
and
“The National Assembly is committed to the establishment of a design commission.”
It is to be hoped that in its final form the layout, graphic design quality, and choice of illustrations will be of the highest. It is recognised that Denmark, a small country of some five million people, has a general awareness of good design. This grew in part out of a craft tradition at the turn of the last century, but in large measure arose from a long culture of good product design. It is unthinkable that a key document on good environmental design is not an example of the best in graphic design and communication.
References
Eric Loe, The value of architecture, RIBA, 2000
Kiaron Long, “The full measure” Building design, 1 December
2000