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Monday, 14 February 2005 | senay
The Housing Design Awards
Call For Entries, Deadline April 1, 2005
Housing Design Awards
co/ Design for Homes
The Building Centre
26 Store Street
London WC1E 7BT
The Housing Design Awards are promoted by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in partnership with the National House-Building Council, the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Royal Town Planning Institute.
They are presented annually for projects or completed schemes of four or more dwellings which reflect the highest standards in housing design.
Categories
Entries should be sent in now for projects or completed schemes in England consisting of a minimum of four dwellings. Schemes may include either new build or conversion and improvement, or a combination of both.
Developments may consist of houses, bungalows, maisonettes, or flats, or any combination of these. Schemes including non-residential uses may be entered, provided housing constitutes the main element.
Although some shared domestic facilities are allowed, for example, in housing for the elderly or disabled, or in shared flats for student accommodation, schemes such as nursing homes would not be eligible.
Projects
To be eligible, projects must have detailed planning permission, but not yet be complete and occupied.
Completed schemes
Schemes completed and occupied since January 2003 may be submitted for a completed scheme award. Previous project award winners will be automatically shortlisted, and the entry fee waived.
Judging
Judging is carried out by a panel consisting of representatives of each of the four promoters and the Housing Corporation for the Affordable Housing award. They are looking for the very best in housing design and planning, and consider a wide range of factors:
-Relationship to surroundings and neighbourhood
-Response to site constraints and opportunities
-Layout, grouping and landscaping
-Planning of roads and footpaths
-Handling of garages and car parking
-Attention to safety, security and accessibility
-External appearance and internal planning
-Sustainability in construction and maintenance
-Finishes, detailing and workmanship
Exhibition
The Awards will be announced at a lunch time ceremony in the Banqueting House in London's Whitehall, and an exhibition of 60 or so selected entries, including the winners, will be staged over the following 2 months at the RIBA. A touring version of the exhibition will then visit towns and cities throughout England over the following 9 months.
Images and details of every entry submitted will also be displayed on the Awards website from June.
National Award
As last year, there will be a National Award for the most outstanding Award winner among completed schemes. This Award will be made for the scheme which, in the opinion of the assessors, most successfully fulfills the range of criteria employed in judging.
Special Awards
Completed schemes will also be considered for additional recognition in each of the following categories:
-for the best development by a major housebuilder.
-for the best development by a medium housebuilder.
-for the best development by a small housebuilder.
-for the best example of affordable housing, a special award chosen by the
Housing Corporation.
Schemes with dwellings in more than one category will be considered for each of these.
Closing deadline for entries 01 April 2005
Entry Form
About the Awards
In 1947 Aneurin Bevan, then Minister for Health with responsibility for housing, announced that his Ministry would be giving annual awards for public housing design and layout. After consultation with the RIBA, awards committees were set up for each of the then four English regions, presenting one medal each for an urban and a rural scheme, except for London where the medals were for one new scheme, and one reconstruction.
The initial scheme ran until 1955, and during this period awards reflected the increasing importance of the urban reconstruction and New Towns programmes, including the first high rise developments, like The Lawns, Harlow, by Frederick Gibberd (1952).
In 1960, the scheme was reconstituted as the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (later DoE) Good Design in Housing Awards, sponsored jointly with the RIBA. The new scheme covered both private and public sector housing, reflecting the emergence of imaginative speculative developments like the Span estate at Southrow, Blackheath, by Eric Lyons (1963).
The next ten years showed a significant shift of emphasis away from public sector high density high rise and private sector low density low rise to compact housing schemes in both sectors, pioneered by Darbourne and Darke's Lillington Gardens, in Westminster (1969).
In 1981 the NHBC joined the DoE and the RIBA as sponsors, to create the Housing Design Awards. The Awards became a biennial event, and the public and private sector categories were abolished, reflecting their increasing convergence, as in the private village development at Bledlow, Buckinghamshire, by Aldington and Craig (1978).
Eight years later, the RTPI joined the Awards Committee as a fourth sponsor, and a new system of Project Awards was instituted, running in tandem with the awards for completed schemes. In 1997 the two were merged as an annual event, with an exhibition of some 60 selected entries drawn from both categories which now has the facility to visit cities across England in a touring version.
The last ten years have seen a significant shift towards diversity in housing, away from the rigid categories employed in earlier years. Mainstream housing today needs to cater for a very broad range of needs, as exemplified by the small group of homes for people with mental or physical disabilities at Castle Lane in the heart of Westminster by CGHP Architects (1993).
Mix of tenure between sale, rent and shared ownership is now increasingly the norm, and public/private sector partnerships are commonplace. The traditional social housing providers have branched out into innovative cost-rent schemes, like Cartwright Pickard's Murray Grove housing (2000); while housebuilders have shown a new interest in high density urban regeneration, like the Mile End Road development by Proctor Matthews (2002).
These changes, and others, such as a fresh approach to urban extensions on greenfield sites, have been consistently signalled over the last few years by Project Award winners. Whatever the shape of housing in years to come, the Awards will continue to point the way forward for high quality housing design.
http://www.designforhomes.org/hda/
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