DIY Cotton Wreath

Put simply: if we build less, we emit less carbon.. Low embodied carbon and the future of sustainable design.

learning developed through construction.designing with the community.

building with local materials.. Aside from the self-evident importance of composing buildings that are good for people, the economy and the planet, there is a practical benefit in defining and charting quantitively the social value our built environment can provide.. Design to Value.The multifaceted concept of social value, including social sustainability in architecture, is something Bryden Wood project teams aim to consider at every stage; the most value to the end user and community, the most sustainable solution, the optimum solution for the problem statement.Each project is unique in what will make up its social value, and where emphasis should be placed for the greatest benefit to the wellbeing of the users, the outcome of the project and to individuals’ lives.. Often in our projects, our view on social value in architecture considers not only the use and outcome of the building, but also aspects beyond the initial value of a new built environment.

We look at what makes up that environment, how it’s constructed, and its ability to be reused and adapted over time.We consider the whole lifecycle of the scheme and always aim to maximise social value in construction.. Our Design to Value approach to projects allows us to consider social value in every aspect of the new asset.

We analyse and understand the requirements of every project to investigate how the components of the building meet the correct criteria, be that its location, the process it needs to provide for, or the wellbeing of the users.

We maximise the value of the asset by balancing a wide range of criteria.. Design to Value may lead to a solution that is very different to the one initially conceived, but it will be a solution that is fully thought through, appropriate and complete; a built asset that delivers value across the piece.RIBA has recently published the Social Value Toolkit for Architecture, developed in partnership between the University of Reading and the London-based Research Practice Leads, as an attempt to establish a common methodology for measuring the monetisation of social value through calculating the social return on investment.

This is intended as a starting point for use by practitioners in the industry to understand and embed social value in architectural practice.A central recommendation is an attempt to increase the prevalence of post-occupancy evaluations conducted by architects, to enable mapping of intangible impacts such as social value.

The current, alarming, lack of collection by architects of real-life data on the impact of their schemes suggests that this societal feedback loop is not necessarily being designed into future schemes..Within a wider context, the construction industry itself is fundamental to the implementation of these social values.