www.buildingsandcities.org/journal-content/special-issues/social-value-si.html
Social Value of the Built Environment
How is social value created, defined and measured in both placemaking (urban design, architecture and real estate) and construction (procurement and labour) processes?
Social value has an important role to play in the delivery of the SDGs. A rebalancing of value to include social and environmental value, as well as economic and commercial value, is needed to ensure the shaping of communities and places will have wellbeing outcomes. This special issue explores current and potential approaches to defining, delivering, monitoring and evaluating social value in the built environment, its benefits and consequences and its relation to other existing policy mechanisms.
Guest editors: Flora Samuel and Kelly Watson
The concept of social value has gained significant prominence in recent years in some countries, yet remains misunderstood. There is a recognised need for it to be better defined, interpreted and embedded in planning, design and operation. This will entail measurement and assessment. Social value is increasingly being considered alongside issues of quality of life and wellbeing, to both the individual and the community, but it remains challenging to reconcile social value in a meaningful way with the present value management approaches that dominate the construction and real estate industries.
This special issue brings together a series of contributions to current thinking and critical discussion on social value, including empirical research from across the UK, Europe and Australia. How can planners, clients, designers create and evaluate social value at different scales? How can local stakeholders (communities) be involved and empowered? How can the intended outcomes be assured? Collectively, the papers in this special issue point to new practices for the planning, design, construction and operation of projects. A series of gaps are also identified in social value research, most notably a discussion of social value in the context of real estate, valuation and 'environmental, social and corporate governance' (ESG).
Table of contents
Social value of the built environment [editorial]
F. Samuel & K. Watson
Politics of social value in the
built environment
M.S. Çıdık
Added
value and numerical measurement of social value: a critical enquiry
A. Raiden & A. King
Improving social value through
facilities management: Swedish housing companies
D. Troje
Assessing social value in housing
design: contributions of the capability approach
J.-C. Dissart & L. Ricaurte
Wellbeing fostered by design: a
framework for evaluating indoor environment performance
J. Croffi, D. Kroll, V. Soebarto,
H. Barrie & K. McDougall
The social value of public spaces
in mixed-use high-rise buildings
H. Barrie, K. McDougall, K. Miller
& D. Faulkner
Social values and social
infrastructures: a multi-perspective approach to place
A. Legeby & C. Pech
Assessing the social values of
historic shopping arcades: building biographies
A. Skoura & A. Madden
Feedback on the special issue
Social value: an architect's perspectiveEdward Ng
Latest Peer-Reviewed Journal Content
Analysing cold-climate urban heat islands using personal weather station data
J Taylor, C H Simpson, J Vanhatalo, H Sohail, O Brousse, & C Heaviside
Are simple models for natural ventilation suitable for shelter design?
A Conzatti, D Fosas de Pando, B Chater & D Coley
Impact of roofing materials on school temperatures in tropical Africa
E F Amankwaa, B M Roberts, P Mensah & K V Gough
Acceptability of sufficiency consumption policies by Finnish households
E Nuorivaara & S Ahvenharju
Key factors for revitalising heritage buildings through adaptive reuse
É Savoie, J P Sapinski & A-M Laroche
Cooler streets for a cycleable city: assessing policy alignment
C Tang & J Bush
Understanding the embodied carbon credentials of modern methods of construction
R O'Hegarty, A McCarthy, J O'Hagan, T Thanapornpakornsin, S Raffoul & O Kinnane
The changing typology of urban apartment buildings in Aurinkolahti
S Meriläinen & A Tervo
Embodied climate impacts in urban development: a neighbourhood case study
S Sjökvist, N Francart, M Balouktsi & H Birgisdottir
Environmental effects of urban wind energy harvesting: a review
I Tsionas, M laguno-Munitxa & A Stephan
Office environment and employee differences by company health management certification
S Arata, M Sugiuchi, T Ikaga, Y Shiraishi, T Hayashi, S Ando & S Kawakubo
Spatiotemporal evaluation of embodied carbon in urban residential development
I Talvitie, A Amiri & S Junnila
Energy sufficiency in buildings and cities: current research, future directions [editorial]
M Sahakian, T Fawcett & S Darby
Sufficiency, consumption patterns and limits: a survey of French households
J Bouillet & C Grandclément
Health inequalities and indoor environments: research challenges and priorities [editorial]
M Ucci & A Mavrogianni
Operationalising energy sufficiency for low-carbon built environments in urbanising India
A B Lall & G Sethi
Promoting practices of sufficiency: reprogramming resource-intensive material arrangements
T H Christensen, L K Aagaard, A K Juvik, C Samson & K Gram-Hanssen
Structural barriers to sufficiency: the contribution of research on elites
M Koch, K Emilsson, J Lee & H Johansson
Disrupting the imaginaries of urban action to deliver just adaptation [editorial]
V Castán-Broto, M Olazabal & G Ziervogel
Nature for resilience reconfigured: global- to-local translation of frames in Africa
K Rochell, H Bulkeley & H Runhaar
How hegemonic discourses of sustainability influence urban climate action
V Castán Broto, L Westman & P Huang
Fabric first: is it still the right approach?
N Eyre, T Fawcett, M Topouzi, G Killip, T Oreszczyn, K Jenkinson & J Rosenow
Social value of the built environment [editorial]
F Samuel & K Watson
Understanding demolition [editorial]
S Huuhka
Data politics in the built environment [editorial]
A Karvonen & T Hargreaves
Latest Commentaries
Self-Organised Knowledge Space as a Living Lab
While Living Labs are often framed as structured, institutionalised spaces for innovation, Sadia Sharmin (Habitat Forum Berlin) reinterprets the concept through the lens of grassroots urban practices. She argues that self-organised knowledge spaces can function as Living Labs by fostering situated learning, collective agency, and community resilience. The example of a Living Lab in Bangladesh provides a model pathway to civic participation and spatial justice.
Climate Mitigation & Carbon Budgets: Research Challenges
Thomas Lützkendorf (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) explains how the research community has helped to change the climate change policy landscape for the construction and real estate sectors, particularly for mitigating GHG emissions. Evidence can be used to influence policy pathways and carbon budgets, and to develop detailed carbon strategies and implementation. A key challenge is to create a stronger connection between the requirements for individual buildings and the national reduction pathways for the built environment.