Design practice and volume production in speculative housebuilding

The design of new residential development in the UK is castigated routinely in both the technical and broadsheet press, and has in the past few years become the focus of governmental policy initiatives intended to improve the overall standard of design in new housebuilding. Remarkably, however, there has been very little empirical research into the process of housing design in the private sector, and hence even academic commentaries have had to extrapolate from a hitherto very limited number of research studies. Moreover, the private sector housebuilding industry has undergone significant change in the last two decades, with considerable concentration and hence domination of production by large firms. With the private housebuilding sector responsible for over 80% of new production in the 1990s, it is timely to revisit the design practices of large speculative housebuilding firms, in order to better understand current practices and the system of constraints and opportunities in which these practices are situated. Furthermore, it is necessary to place design practice in the context of construction technology, for design criticism all too often abstracts from the technology of building practice and innovation. Therefore, this study examines, by means of a nationally representative questionnaire survey of housebuilding firms, the dominant design practices currently utilized in the industry. The focus is the extent to which volume housebuilding firms (defined as those producing in excess of 1000 units per annum) utilize standard designs, and the interrelationship between such designs and the construction technology employed. In-depth interviews with a representative sample of senior personnel from leading housebuilding companies complement the national survey, and provide insights into the system of constraints and opportunities which the housebuilding industry faces. At the heart of current debates is the conflict between the alleged prominence of the criterion of buildability in private sector housebuilding, at the expense of individuality in design, regard for the overall design context and the requirements of the housing consumer. Each of these issues is investigated in the context of the prevailing practice in the private sector housebuidling industry in the UK in the 1990s.