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Social Value of the Built Environment

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 perspective
Edward Ng


Latest Peer-Reviewed Journal Content

Journal Content

Beyond the building: governance challenges in social housing retrofit
H Charles

Heat stress in social housing districts: tree cover–built form interaction
C Lopez-Ordoñez, E Garcia-Nevado, H Coch & M Morganti

An observational analysis of shade-related pedestrian activity
M Levenson, D Pearlmutter & O Aleksandrowicz

Learning to sail a building: a people-first approach to retrofit
B Bordass, R Pender, K Steele & A Graham

Market transformations: gas conversion as a blueprint for net zero retrofit
A Gillich

Resistance against zero-emission neighbourhood infrastructuring: key lessons from Norway
T Berker & R Woods

Megatrends and weak signals shaping future real estate
S Toivonen

A strategic niche management framework to scale deep energy retrofits
T H King & M Jemtrud

Generative AI: reconfiguring supervision and doctoral research
P Boyd & D Harding

Exploring interactions between shading and view using visual difference prediction
S Wasilewski & M Andersen

How urban green infrastructure contributes to carbon neutrality [briefing note]
R Hautamäki, L Kulmala, M Ariluoma & L Järvi

Implementing and operating net zero buildings in South Africa
R Terblanche, C May & J Steward

Quantifying inter-dwelling air exchanges during fan pressurisation tests
D Glew, F Thomas, D Miles-Shenton & J Parker

Western Asian and Northern African residential building stocks: archetype analysis
S Akin, A Eghbali, C Nwagwu & E Hertwich

Lanes, clusters, sightlines: modelling patient flow in medical clinics
K Sailer, M Utley, R Pachilova, A T Z Fouad, X Li, H Jayaram & P J Foster

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

See all

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