The Design Companion for Planning and Placemaking

TfL and UDL

• Publisher: RIBA Publishing
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000701487
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

This book is an essential primer to help those involved in planning secure higher standards of building, open space and neighbourhood design and the delivery of better places. The UK Government's policy for design in the planning system is contained in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), with expanded guidance being provided in the Planning Practice Guidance (PPG). This book expands on these and provides up to date explanations, examples, top tips and practical advice to help the reader understand and apply national design policies and guidance. The book is structured in an easy to use fashion, with general principles and concepts described in Part 1, and Part 2 explaining how these can be applied to particular development types, such as housing, public space or tall buildings.

Part One
How Planning and Design Fit Together

Good design is indivisible from good planning. That sentiment, included in national planning policy for many years, is at the heart of this part of the book. We explain how planning legislation, policies and processes influence how design is dealt with. We discuss who gets involved, when and how, and we explain the basic principles through which design and planning, together, can create good places that meet political objectives.

CHAPTERS IN PART 1

1 What is design and how does it relate to planning?

2 The characteristics of well-designed places

3 Aspects of development form

4 Legislation, planning and decision-making

5 Who is involved

6 Processes related to design

7 Understanding plans and drawings

1
What is design and how does it relate to planning?

In the context of planning, design is the process of devising the physical form of development.

The planning system in the UK is concerned with land use – deciding which uses should go in which location, and the relationships between these uses. Government attitudes to how planning should control or influence land use have varied over the years. Planning is also concerned with the physical form of development, which plays an important part in determining if a place is successful, and whether national priorities are achieved. It is this physical side of planning that forms the subject for this book.

The planning system seeks to influence a development’s layout, height, massing and appearance, among other things. It seeks not just to manage land use, but to support the creation – in other words the design – of successful places. High standards of design are a core planning principle of the NPPF, further explained in the online PPG. The NPPF should be taken into account in policymaking and decision-making.

The NPPF and Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) can be found side by side on the government’s website: www.gov.uk

What are the NPPF and PPG?

Together they set out what the planning system should do. The NPPF is the highest-level planning policy, to which all other policies should generally conform. The PPG explains how to apply the NPPF. This book refers to NPPF wording, explaining what it requires in terms of design. It complements ideas and information in the PPG, but does not refer to this sister text explicitly.

The design of places is an important part of planning at every scale. The design of individual buildings (including their disposition and detailed treatment) determines how well they work, how they fit into their surroundings and how attractive they are. This is managed through planning applications and the application of planning policies.

Context is the key. Successful development is planned and designed through processes that involve a deep understanding of a place and what makes it unique.

Planning and Design: Three Factors

Development planning and design involves:

• Public policy objectives
• Place characteristics that help to meet these objectives
• Development forms that help to create these characteristics

Public policy objectives

Political objectives vary with changes in government, public opinion and circumstances. In the work of regional, city or local government administrations, they can include the following:

• Improving public health and wellbeing
• Stimulating and sustaining economic growth
• Resource efficiency, including reducing carbon emissions
• Resilience to climate change and other changes
• Environmental stewardship, including protection of habitats
• Social inclusion and the creation of a fair society
• Building housing and increasing public appetite for (and acceptance of) development

  

  Figure 1.1 Planning contributes to the design of places at every scale. Here much thought and care has gone into creating a new high-density quarter within a town centre.
  

• Creating strong communities with local identity, pride and cohesion
• Safety and crime prevention

Achieving these objectives requires many types of political action. Planning, including its impact on the design of buildings and places, can contribute to all of them. That is why it is appropriate that planning operates through the political system – with elected politicians, from the secretary of state down to ward and parish councillors, directly involved in planning decisions.

Place characteristics

Since the age of Vitruvius (first century BC), the three most important characteristics of sucsessful development have been identified as durability, fitness for purpose and beauty.

The NPPF states: ‘Planning policies and decisions should aim to ensure that developments: will function well and add to the overall quality of the area, not just for the short term but over the lifetime of the development … are visually attractive as a result of good architecture and appropriate landscaping’.¹

Achieving that aim (and the political objectives described above) will depend on eight characteristics of successful places (discussed in more detail within Chapter 2):

• Having a complementary mix of uses and activities
• Being fit for purpose, accommodating uses well
• Encouraging easy movement
• Creating high-quality public space
• Being able to adapt to changing needs and circumstances
• Being efficient in the way land and other resources are used
• Having an appearance that is appealing and appreciated
• Having a distinctive, positive identity and sense of place

The rest of Paragraph 58 of the NPPF, after referring to Vitruvius’s three qualities, sets out these characteristics. Development, it states, should ‘establish a strong sense of place, using streetscapes and buildings to create attractive and comfortable places to live, work and visit; optimise the potential of the site to accommodate development, create and sustain an appropriate mix of uses (including incorporation of green and other public space as part of developments) and support local facilities and transport networks; respond to local identity and history, and reflect the identity of local surroundings and materials, while not preventing or discouraging appropriate innovation; create safe and accessible environments where crime and disorder, and the fear of crime, do not undermine quality of life or community cohesion; and be visually attractive as a result of good architecture and appropriate landscaping.’

The wording used in the NPPF combines political objectives (such as crime prevention) and place characteristics which can help to deliver the objectives (such as high-quality public space). This can be a little confusing, but the policy provides a clear requirement for good design and supports planners’ efforts to create successful places.

Development form

Planning applications specify the form of the proposed development; local planning policies seek to influence it; and the viability, deliverability and acceptability of schemes depend on it. Chapter 3 will look at the following aspects of development form in more detail:

• Layout
• Scale
• Density
• Materials
• Detail

At what stage in the process these matters should be decided is a difficult question. Developers might want to leave them open until they know that their scheme is acceptable in principle. Communities, planners and politicians might struggle to consider the principles if they do not know what the scheme will look and feel like. Clear planning policies and design guidance can set out the parameters of what will be acceptable, while conditions accompanying any permission can seek to ensure that details drawn up in the future will be appropriate. Working through the different processes involved, and understanding the motivations behind the actions of different players, will help to achieve better outcomes. We look at how the design and planning processes dovetail, and who gets involved when, in Chapter 6.

Planning and Design at Various Scales

Political objectives, place characteristics and development form relate to one another at a variety of scales. At the large scale, such as planning and designing a whole settlement or significant neighbourhood, the focus will be on creating a new place that will work well and mature successfully. This is likely to entail looking at the distribution and intensity of uses, the shape and richness of the movement network, the three-dimensional structure of neighbourhoods, and the attributes (both positive and negative) of the site and surrounding area. Matters at this scale are managed through statutory plans, masterplans and infrastructure strategies.

When working at a relatively large scale, we need to consider what the broad patterns of use should be, what the essentials of the movement pattern are, what principles for providing public and private space are appropriate, how change will be accommodated (respecting factors such as local distinctiveness), and how resources can be used most efficiently.

Successful design at this larger scale should ensure that development supports political objectives such as creating a buoyant local economy and a place that flourishes socially; meeting environmental goals; and integrating new development into the natural, built and historic environment.

Figure 1.2 Development can provide new high-quality public space.

At the medium scale, schemes might include one or two new urban blocks, with perhaps a new street and other public space, as shown in Figure 1.2. Such schemes often focus on one land use, such as housing, but where appropriate they should include ancillary uses to serve the new residents, such as a local shop, community centre or school. The focus at this scale is on creating a place that works as an enti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Contributors
• Preface
• PART 1 HOW PLANNING AND DESIGN FIT TOGETHER
• PART 2 DESIGN SPECIFICS
• References
• Index
• Image credits