Housing at the RIBA
The RIBA engages in a number of activities to support design quality in housing, including through our Continuous Professional Development programme, our regional and national housing awards, and specific campaign and policy activities.
We maintain a dedicated advisory committee, the RIBA Housing Group, which provides an expert resource to support the RIBA's policies and action on housing issues. This group is made up of architects specialising in housing (of different kinds), as well as other key stakeholder organisations and industry experts.
RIBA Housing Group
The Housing Group has been recently refreshed, with a new chair, David Levitt (of Levitt Bernstein Architects) and a new staff lead, Zoe Smith (RIBA Policy Officer). A number of policy activities have been identified for the following period and work on implementing these has begun. The group regularly reviews the Institute's housing activities, provides guidance for future RIBA initiatives, and helps to provide the knowledge to allow the RIBA to respond to Government initiatives/consultations.
Current core activities
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We held a seminar with the Housing Corporation in November advocating best practice between architects and housing associations – a key area of focus for the RIBA's Housing Group. We intend to run further sessions in all regions, working together with our colleagues at the Homes and Communities Agency.
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We are currently coordinating a review of the standard form of agreement between architects and housing associations. We hope to rewrite the standard agreement to be launched later this year.
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We continue to lobby for the reintroduction of minimum space standards for all new housing. A CABE/RIBA briefing to MORI research carried out last year is soon to be released. The Housing Group aim to continue to develop the RIBA's policy position on space standards and to lobby for further action – for example with the HCA, housing developers, the Government and the GLA - throughout this year.
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We continue to lobby on Lifetime homes and the need for improvements to standards and guidance. We support the Lifetime Homes standard in principle, but have significant concerns about the way they are being applied and interpreted in practice.
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We are working closely with our industry partners and the government to seek potential ways to improve the energy efficiency of both new and existing building stock, especially hard-to-treat homes.
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We are exploring new economic models of housing development based on new tenure transfer models and other means of stimulating new housing development in the current economic climate.
For more information on the RIBA Housing Group and policy, please contact:
Zoe Smith, RIBA Policy Officer
E zoe.smith@inst.riba.org|
T 020 7307 3757