Marketizing the governance of design: design review in England

Figures & data

Figure 1. (a) integrated consideration of planning and design; (b) separated planning/zoning and design review. Source: adapted from Carmona et al. (2010).

Table 1. Range of design review organizations operating across England in 2015.

Design review provider		Operation	Example
Focus	Sector
National panel	Third	Not-for-profit organization with no geographic remit	Design Council CABE
Regional/sub-regional panel	Public	Regional or sub-regional panel operating within the confines of its administrative area	Urban Design London, Design Surgeries, or Hertfordshire Design Review Panel (run by Building Futures, a consortium of nine Hertfordshire local authorities led by the County Council)
	Public entrepreneurial	Entrepreneurial public sector trading design services to others in its region	Place Services of Essex County Council, formally part of the county’s core services, but now an independent profit centre wholly owned by the council and able to sell its services, including design review, inside (to the district authorities) and outside of Essex
	Third	Not-for-profit organization with a regional or sub-regional geographic remit	MADE West Midlands, providing design review (and other design services) throughout the West Midlands, or the Cornwall Design Review Panel
	Private panel for hire	Private provision of a roving panel for hire on commercial terms (so far regionally based)	The Design Review Panel, with clients that include local authorities and developers in Devon and Somerset
Local panel	Public	Local authority panel operating within the confines of its administrative area	London Borough of Lewisham Design Review Panel, or Torbay Council, Design Review Panel
	Third	Not-for-profit organization with a local (usually town or city) geographic remit	Beam, providing design review (and other design services) to Wakefield, or the Greenwich Design Review Panel run by Design Council CABE for Royal Greenwich
	Private sub-contractor	Public sector organization operating within the confines of its administrative area but with the panel management subcontracted to a private or not-for-profit organization	Haringey Quality Review Panel, managed by private consultancy, Frame Projects, for the London Borough of Haringey, or the London Legacy Development Corporation Quality Review Panel managed by Fortismere Associates
	Private	Private panel organized, funded and managed by a private company to review schemes within a defined site or area	Lewisham Gateway Panel funded by MUSE Developments Ltd following a requirement within the terms of the planning permission (part of the Section 106 agreement) to review schemes
Specialist panel	Public	Public providers focused on particular types of project, e.g., transport or infrastructure	Home Office, Quality Panel, with a focus on buildings for the Police; Hackney Housing (the Hackney Housing Authority) with a focus on its own social housing projects; Transport for London, Design Review Group, with a specialist focus on roads/public realm schemes in London
	Private sub-contractor	Public or pseudo-public sector organization focused on particular types of project, e.g., transport or infrastructure but with the panel management subcontracted to a private or not-for-profit organization	HS2 Independent Design Panel, with a focus on the infrastructure and impacts of High Speed Rail 2, managed by private consultancy, Frame Projects, for HS2 Ltd
	Private	Private panel within and exclusively serving a private company	Barratt Homes’ design review panel reviews all its schemes as part of an internal quality initiative designed to drive up quality across the company’s developments

Figure 2. Percentage of authorities regularly using design review.

Figure 3. Attitudes to design and design review amongst London’s Boroughs.

Figure 4. Types of design review panel in London.

Table 2. Design review in practice.

Panel type	Example panel	Example scheme
Internally managed free	London Borough of Merton, Design Review Panel	Haslemere Industrial estate. A single review led to a re-worked scheme with a significantly reduced building envelope, increased internal space standards, improved canal-side public space, and better articulated building blocks
Internally managed charged for	London Borough of Wandsworth, Design Review Panel	Redevelopment of the former Battersea Police Station. A single review led to the preparation of a detailed energy strategy, revisions to the important interface between the old and the new buildings, improvements to the public realm aspects of the scheme to ensure a better transition between the street and the new block and to improve accessibility, and tweaks to the south-west elevation.
Externally managed private	London Borough of Haringey, Quality Review Panel (managed by Frame Projects)	Land at Plevna Crescent. Two reviews led to the reduction of one pavilion, the re-orientation of the blocks to allow views through the development, and modulation of the blocks in response to the topography.
Externally managed not-for-profit	Thames Tideway Tunnel, Design Review Panel (managed by Design Council CABE)	Victoria Embankment Foreshore. A single review led to the rationalization of access routes across the site and to a de-cluttering of the ramp area, the kiosks were consolidated into three rather than four structures, and the green landscape elements were revised on maintenance grounds.

Table 3. Advantages of contracting out and remaining in-house²⁰ .

The benefits of contracting out (as reported by those delivering and currently benefiting from such arrangements)

The advantages of remaining in-house (as reported by those delivering and currently benefiting from such arrangements)

A ready-made network of credible expertise: The ability to tap into a ready-made network of credible individuals (the panellists) at a relatively small cost: ‘Putting panels together, thinking about what sort of expertise would be best, and then helping them to find people that they can get on with as well’. A hassle free, specialized and professional service: A complete and professional service covering everything from compiling the panel to ordering the coffees on the day: ‘We don’t even have to tell them what time things are on and ensure they know where to park, it’s all covered’. A detached (clearly independent) view: A view that avoids those who are already involved day to day in negotiating on schemes having to also organize their review: ‘I think, having it externally managed, makes it slightly more likely that everybody will step back and look at it with fresh eyes, completely objectively’. A financially neutral model: A model through which providers fund the service entirely through the fees received directly from developers: ‘With the volume of stuff coming in and the workload it’s very difficult for the planners to keep on top of generating invoices to developers, so we’re not financially involved at all now’. An experienced provider: The ability to quickly and effectively set up a credible panel by drawing on the experience of the provider with all the necessary systems already in place.

A better integrated service: Ensuring that design review is fully integrated with other pre-application and post-application processes: ‘You’re so intertwined with the pre-application process that if you take it outside, you’re losing a lot and having to double up in terms of conversations with different people’. Ease of organization: Being closer to the planning process allows for a smoother process of timetabling and organizing reviews: ‘It’s much easier to arrange it internally because we can work very closely with developers and their team’. A known quantity: Members already know and work with officers, and feel confident in that relationship: ‘Members, I think, are reassured by the fact that they are in tune with the process’ Greater perceived flexibility: Through not being tied to a contract: ‘If you employ a consultant to manage the panel, then it can be quite rigid, and you only get x, y and z because they’re doing work which is charged for by the hour, or whatever, like a bin emptying contract’. Less costly: Fees vary and whilst the charges of in-house panels are often comparable with external providers, they are typically at the lower end of the range: ‘Our logic was that they paid double if they went externally and it had to be self-sustainable for us in order to be able to resource it, it was a bit of a no-brainer really’. Easier to procure: Procuring external services can be a bureaucratic and time-consuming process: ‘If it’s not a unique provider position, then frankly, life’s too short’. Potential for a surplus of staff time: Because staff are employed internally, any surplus of time paid for but not spent on panel business can be fed into other design support activities: ‘You get that interface, that person who maybe is in the local authority day-to-day, making those connections with the case officers’.

Table 4. The multiple potential benefits of design review as seen by stakeholders²¹ .

Benefits for society	Benefits for designers	Benefits for developers	Benefits for authorities
Better design:	Empowering the role of the designer:	Speeding up planning:	Helping to fill design skills gaps:
Put simply, design review promotes good quality developments that help create better places and avoids the cost of poor design • Making good better: Many interviewees were far from effusive about design review and often took issue with the recommendations of panels. They nevertheless saw that the process of discussion and being challenged on design by a peer group helped them to refine their design solutions, and often to confront aspects of projects which had not been fully resolved; ‘that extra thinking made a good scheme into an excellent one’. • Sinking poor schemes: some applicants are very adept at ensuring that their proposals tick the necessary policy boxes even if the resulting project is inappropriate for a site. Design review ‘can give a completely different, non-policy view on how crap the scheme is as an extra weapon to make developers think again’. As one developer concluded: ‘The two biggest things I took away from the meeting is we shouldn’t go for the proposed concept design and we had to really think much more about context’. • Addressing recurrent design problems: In London the pressure for development is enormous, not least to maximize the potential of every site to meet housing need. The unique interdisciplinary	Overwhelmingly, design professionals reported that design review put them in a stronger position by bringing home to clients that design is important and that they are building bits of the city with long lasting impacts: • Standing up to the client: On very commercially aggressive schemes architects argue: ‘If there is a strong body beside you saying “no, no, no, no”, then you’re able, as an architect, to stand up to your client’. ‘That kind of solidity is completely essential’. • Standing up for the architect: Other times panels are able to spot that there is a very fine architect involved in a project who is being manipulated: ‘A good panel will spot a good architect and help create that room for them to design, by getting the client to back off a little’. • Supporting innovation: Panel comments are very valuable to support innovation in design against more conservative tastes or when buildings are located in an historic setting: ‘it encourages innovation, it encourages people to think outside the box and just be a bit different’. A more intelligent design process: Within the professional sphere, opportunities for peer group feedback are often thin on the ground. A structured means to provide such feedback seems to help raise the game of designers.	Applicants continually reported that achieving the greatest quantum of development in the shortest possible time was their prime objective. A good design review often assisted this. • Streamlining formal planning: Schemes that received a positive design review generally had an easier and quicker ride through planning: ‘When they come in for planning they sail through the planning process’. • Reduces refusals: The early intervention of design review (if recommendations are taken on board) is also helping to reduce the development delays and confrontation caused by planning refusals: ‘If the panel really don’t like it, applications are going back to the drawing board and are not coming forward in the same way for us to then refuse’. Greater certainty in the development process: Applicants were also strongly focused on reducing the risk associated with their development, and design review was seen as having an important role in this regard. • Early warnings: Design review can reduce the developer’s risk, particularly if conducted early, by showing what is feasible on a site: ‘It can give an early warning that what they’re trying to do on site is not going to happen’.	Whilst most felt that there was no substitute for Boroughs having their own dedicated in-house design capacity, the provision of design review was sometimes seen as the next best thing. • Acts as a patch to cover a lack of internal resources: Where a lack of resources means that internal design capacity is limited or absent, design review can help to fill the gap: ‘a lot of boroughs haven’t got the right design skills in-house, that’s obvious, you can really feel it’ • Bringing a broader perspective on design: Design review can bring a greater breadth and depth of experience than is ever likely to be available within a planning authority: ‘and can even challenge the design brief or the assumptions that lie behind a project’ Supporting internal design capacity (where it exists): Design has long been an area that many planning and highways authorities have struggled with and so supporting what resources exist internally with an external panel can help to strengthen the capabilities of the in-house team. • Working in tandem: Ideally design review acts as an extra layer in the development process and in tandem with an in-house design team: ‘where we are seeing design review, generally the councils can afford design officers within the planning department as well’. • A second opinion: Design
perspective of design review enables scrutiny ‘not just of the aesthetics, but of liveability, quality of place, quality of the accommodation, and the way it sits within the area’. In particular it helps to avoid the repeated problems associated with poor quality intensification. A local culture change: As well as improving individual episodes of design, design review can lead to a culture change (locally) following which the achievement of design quality moves from the exception to an expectation: • Leads to the appointment of better architects: Design reviews signal that high standards of design are the expectation, influencing the choice of architect: ‘We knew that this was coming, and it was fine, we were prepared for that and that was one of the reasons that we instructed ★★★★, they’re a really expensive architecture practice’. • Reinforces a sense of place: by setting an ambition and delivering exemplar projects that planners can point to: ‘Frankly, we’ve dragged the quality of the whole area up and we’re giving it a sense of identity, rather than a bland, same old anywhere place’. • Sets a minimum standard: by demonstrating that poor quality design will be rejected: ‘People should be thinking that judgements are rigorous, robust, fair, helpful and necessary to ensure good design quality, and that they won’t get away with anything less’.	• An objective dispassionate view: ‘When you’re not the designer of a project, you have much more objectivity, you have distance that allows you to see other things and, as we’re all different, it’s interesting to have a different perspective’. • Helping designers to think differently: Panel members bring different experiences to a panel ‘helping people to think about solutions that they might otherwise be closed to or not naturally come to themselves’. Learning opportunities for all involved: All professionals involved in design review (including panel members) report how valuable the process is, as an opportunity to share best practice and to learn from each other. • Professional development: The process provides invaluable professional development, learning and sharing experience for panel members, presenters, applicants and officers: ‘I’ve invited junior officers in our team to come along, just as observers, and they enjoy it too, you do learn a lot’. ‘It’s made me a better planner, and now I’m pre-empting stuff that the panel would ask, which is good for the applicant and it makes them up their game’. • Benchmarking: it is good for benchmarking, particularly for public realm schemes where otherwise ‘there’s no external check for a Borough spending public funds’. • Councillor training: Where they are invited to observe the process, design review ‘provides knowledge and informal training for councillors’.	• Empowering good developers: Design review can empower developers to strive for better design: ‘I’ve had developers who’ve come back to me and say, “that was really helpful because it’s helped me realise that I need different architects”’. • Raising values: Many were convinced that better design carries a premium in the market, and this was seen as a potential benefit for many developers: ‘Schemes in this area are not commanding high values just because of the location, it’s because people are excited by the places that are being created because they look good, both inside and out’. Endorsement of challenging projects: Perhaps the greatest benefit to developers was the boost that a strong endorsement from a design review panel could give to their projects. • Endorsing controversial schemes: A strong endorsement from design review can help to give momentum through the planning process, and help to give confidence to planners around key decisions: ‘Can give clients confidence, and the planning officers confidence, to take more radical decisions than they would have otherwise been comfortable in taking’. • Pushing the limits: A design-based approach can help to demonstrate where the limits on height and density might successfully be pushed (and where not): ‘It can result in us getting endorsement for a scheme where we may be battling with a rather ill-informed planning process’.	review can reinforce advice given by case officers: ‘there are schemes that the development team don’t listen to you at all. You might be saying “it’s too dense, it’s ugly, or it doesn’t work with the existing site context” and they just don’t hear you and they want a second opinion and you can say ‘right, go to design review and get lambasted’. • Raising aspirations: Design review supports internal urban design teams giving them the confidence to push for something better: ‘It gives officers a bit more confidence and backbone about what line they should take’ Giving the committee/planners confidence: Where it exists, design review has become an indispensable part of the process, with planners and planning committees increasingly relying on its advice. • Managing expectations: Design review can help to manage developer expectations about what the planning process will permit, making the process easier before it ever gets to committee: ‘It can encourage developers to do the right thing even if it carries a cost, because it helps them to get the necessary permissions’. • Helps to clarify committee decision-making: The panel report can help to cut through disagreements on design, either on committee or between officers and councillors: ‘We can point to the review and say: “our panel, who are here to advise on design have said its outstanding design”. That’s it’.
A more collaborative process: By providing an independent third-party view, design review helps to avoid confrontation between parties, including between: Boroughs and developers, TfL and the Boroughs, between councillors and their planners, and ultimately between the public and all other parties: • A wider discussion: Design review brings in ‘other opinions that help to give some structure to the discussion’ and enhances communication and understanding in a neutral setting. • A less confrontational process: Because it is more difficult to argue with a detached and impartial view: ‘With certain developers, where it’s been quite a difficult negotiation, it’s really helped to get that additional peer-group support’.		• Helping the planners: A positive endorsement at design review can help the planners to make the case for development at committee: ‘as planners, it’s quite convenient to say ‘well, the independent panel has said this is good’.	• Gives the committee confidence: Helps to give committee members the confidence to approve contemporary schemes: ‘The planning committee seem to really appreciate the design review and if design review likes a scheme, then the planning committee likes a scheme’.

Carmona, M., S. Tiesdell, T. Heath, and T. Oc. 2010. Public Places urban Spaces, The Dimensions of Urban Design. 2nd ed. Oxford. Architectural Press

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