In this episode, as part of the Future Homes Standard Essentials series, Chris Gaze chats with Steph Okey from the design and planning team at L&Q, and Richard Partington from Studio Partington Architects.

We divide the conversation into four broad areas:

• site layout, including placemaking
• home layout
• building physics
• the lived experience of the home

Find out more about L&Q here.

Find out more about Studio Partington here.

Welcome to the Future Homes podcast where we look closely at the ideas, policies and practical challenges shaping how homes are being designed, built and delivered in the UK today.

My name is Chris Gaze.

This episode is part of our Future Home Standard Essentials series and is entitled Evolving the Design.

Or as I like to call it, beware of the consequences!

I am delighted to be joined by Steph Okey from the design and planning team of Housing Association L&Q and Richard Partington from Studio Park Architects.

For this conversation I thought we'd look at four broad areas, site layouts, and that includes placemaking, home layouts, building physics and the lived experience of the home.

But goodness knows where the conversation will really go.

Anyway, I'm going to start off with the site and I thought I'd ask you, Steph, what impact do you see the Future Home Standard and other new regulations and planning changes etc having on what developments are going to look like in the future?

Yeah, that's a really interesting question.

I think morally we are all moving in the right direction and it is going to lead to much better homes being built.

I think from ha's perspective, viability is really difficult at the moment and I think also there's so many technical challenges.

We're finding that there's so many regulations that either conflict or they misalign with, like planning, for example.

And so I think it's trying to navigate how you achieve compliance with all these different requirements when they don't seem to always work together.

And do you think the way the places will look, will our communities look different and not just our houses?

I mean, I want to talk about houses a minute, but I mean, you know, will street layouts look the same or are they going to start changing,.

Start changing slightly more in a positive way?

Again, we're seeing landscape led approaches coming through, you know, much higher quality materials being used.

So we are already seeing that change and I think we've got much more to come.

I think in terms of some street scenes, the densities and the types of houses that we're building are going different.

Again, we're looking more dense schemes, so things like terraced homes, muses and maisonettes.

So we are starting to see a change in terms of the house types as well as the street.

So that inevitably will change the streetscapes that we're seeing more and more.

Think things like PV looking at, you know, how we articulate the homes, but keeping form factor down, I think that's probably one of the biggest challenges from a design perspective that we're really struggling with.

And I think that a lot of local planning authorities are kind of struggling with that as well.

Now, how can we create articulated homes that look aesthetically pleasing but are not just a blank box?

And I think that is a challenge that we still don't fully have an answer for.

But again, you know, brick detailing is coming back and I love a good bit of brick detailing.

Looking at windows, again, thinking of overheating and how we orientate our windows, whether they used to be vertically but now maybe we move towards horizontally so that we're ensuring you've got daylight, sunlight, but actually we're not then overheating as well.

So, yeah, I think there's lots of different things that will help kind of shape the way homes and places are going to look.

Okay, great.

And I'm sure Richard likes a good bit of brick detailing as well.

Richard, what do you see as being issues with regards to what our places and sites are going to look like?

I mean, I think, Chris, there's a sort of bigger question of land availability and can we really deliver the homes we need on the land that's available?

And so that is kind of coming through the planning system.

There's a bit of tension between what's perceived to be value, that's to say detached home, and what is sort of logical in terms of energy, land availability, efficiency and sort of just efficiency in site planning as well.

You know, getting really compact.

Development tends to be denser and more like sort of historic inner town and city court.

So I think that still hasn't worked its way through the system yet.

But there are obvious things like orientation of window design that Steph's picked up on that are definitely going to have an impact.

We've had portrait windows, shaped windows for some time now, haven't we, in a lot of homes and designs and imagining that going to landscape is quite hard to see how that will look.

So, Richard, let me ask you about the homes then.

So if we actually start looking about the homes and the way that they're going to work internally, what are the sorts of issues that you are seeing and having to tackle when you're talking to clients now, let alone for the future?

The main thing is just planning for extra equipment.

You know, a home with a heat pump is going to have water storage.

A smaller home will have in some kind of surfaces cupboard.

It will have a cylinder, it might have a buffer tank, you might have underfloor heating.

You've got a lot more stuff that's supporting that technology.

And the temptation is to take away useful Storage space, which actually isn't doing a householder any favors, really.

We need to plan for the additional equipment and plan for good storage.

And then there are things that just kind of modern living are creating more demands on storage space in any way.

So thinking about the ground floor plan, particularly in accommodating all of those things.

Okay.

And, Steph, I know you've also been talking quite a bit about changes to part M and how that's impacting your layout.

So on top of the sorts of things that Richard's talking about, what are the other things that you're seeing?

Yeah, so you're right.

In terms of the accessibility standards are becoming more discussed and again, morally is the right thing for us to all do.

London has seen M42 for some time now, whereas it's just in recent times coming to Greater Manchester.

And, Steph, can I just ask you a quick question?

M42 means what for the lay people listening?

Sorry.

Yeah.

So it's Category two, so it's an accessible dwelling.

So you get three categories, Category one, two and three.

One is your kind of standard house layout that has minimal interventions, and then you've got category two, which is accessible and adaptable, and then you've got three, which is basically wheelchair housing.

So Category two is that kind of middle ground where we'll see improvements to circulation space to allow for those who are maybe like ambulant, disabled or kind of aging population.

There are various nuances that it addresses and like I say, it is absolutely the right thing, but one thing it does do is that it pushes from a space plan perspective, it increases room sizes, so your downstairs toilet on a traditional house will be much bigger than what it used to be.

And again, it's a good thing, but it just eats away at the home.

And then when you bring in hot water cylinders, MVHRs, you know, all these things are eaten away.

At L and Q, we build to nationally described space standards, so we already build a good standard of living accommodation, but even with that, we're seeing a real squeeze where it's the ground floor that really suffers.

So kind of living in kitchen areas are really being compromised and we obviously don't want to overinflate our homes, or obviously that would cost a lot more money and viability is already difficult.

So it is a real challenge trying to get all these components and compliance with accessibility standards in the homes that we're building.

And you mentioned mvhr, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery.

Is that something that you're going to be using a lot in the future?

And what's your thinking behind that?

Yeah, we've already been using it for a number of years now and we see the massive benefits.

I think one of the difficulties with MVHR is an education piece for people to understand what it does.

There's obviously huge issues with damper mould in housing generally, but especially in social housing.

So MVHR is a great way of combating that.

However, when residents don't understand what MVHR does, they will tend to switch it off.

It's either noisy or they assume it will be very expensive to run, which isn't the case.

And obviously then you're relying on background or purge ventilation, which isn't adequate for a lot of the homes that we're building now.

So education is a big one also.

Supply chain and internal maintenance and training for our internal teams is also key.

So this is why we're slowly building up to incorporate an MVHR across all of our homes so that we can be ready and prepared so that we can maintain them properly.

Yeah, so that's another chunk out of your cupboard which is starting to look a bit more like a plant room.

And presumably lots of thought about where the, where the duct runs go, because there's a lot more ductwork in the home as well.

No, exactly.

And this is it.

The homes that we're designing now are probably the most complex that we've ever had in the sector.

And so we need to allow a lot more design time up front to be able to get across some of these challenges.

Like you say, you know, ductworks on MVHR can cause quite significant issues when you've got minimal ceiling voids, you don't want to increase your eaves height on low rise housing, for example.

So to get everything to fit and not clash and not collide is a challenge.

And the more we confirm that design up at the early stage, the more certainty we have moving forward.

And I think that aligns very nicely with the Building Safety act and the Building Safety Regulator.

So all of our HRBs, our high risk buildings that we see in London, we're already doing that upfront technical conversation and we're bringing that to low rise housing because it is just naturally a good process to do to, to de risk projects moving forward.

Okay.

And Richard, as I hear, Steph, list all of these things, all these considerations.

I mean, does it mean that, you know, some of the old house types that we may have been building in the past are not going to be able to be, you know, have a couple of simple additions that we're really looking at a lot of redesigning from scratch, Chris?

I'm not sure everywhere that's the case.

I think house types can evolve to include some of these things.

But I do think there's a case for if you are starting to think afresh, coordinating services, structure, finishes, all of the things that Steph's talking about, competing for space and things like a ceiling void or in a service zone, actually playing that really logically from the outset and standardizing it and rationalizing it.

The danger with trying to retrofit them into existing designs is you tend to end up with quite a lot of inefficiencies and then things that don't work on site that then create ad hoc changes that then don't deliver what you're expecting.

Get noisy ductwork, you get fans of filters that aren't accessible, you get ventilation units that are noisy.

So there is a real case, and I think Steph is speaking from the experience of a really large organization, but saying, this didn't work here, let's go back and work out how to do it better.

Kind of feels like the whole of UK Housing PLC needs to be doing that as well.

So, Steph, we've actually started to talk a little bit about some of the building physics issues and talking about, particularly about ventilation.

I mean, what are the other changes that you are seeing in the world of the sort of building performance?

What do you have to think about with regards to fabric or heating or cooling?

What are the things that are sort of on your list at the moment?

Yeah, I mean, linking back to our discussion about how homes are changing in terms of their appearance.

So windows I mentioned about overheating and then daylight, sunlight.

So we are finding more now as we progress to higher standards that most of our buildings are suffering with overheating.

And I think the heat waves that we've just recently or experienced in the UK really puts that to the forefront of how big that impact can be if we get it wrong.

Now, I know in terms of the way buildings are modeled and assessed, the weather patterns are changing.

So we're getting more kind of complex and accurate weather patterns.

So hopefully that will start to address the overheating issues.

And approved document O is being reviewed as we speak.

So again, that will help.

But in this immediate short term, we are seeing schemes where we're having to put cooling, mechanical cooling in place in order to stop this overheating.

Now, from a housing association perspective, that's really the last resort we've got.

Obviously maintenance issues, residence bills will go up and then service Charges will go up.

And again, service charges is something that's massive in the industry at the moment.

And we're trying everything we can to try and reduce and mitigate that.

So some of these elements unfortunately are going to come at a cost and we desperately need to mitigate that so that the occupiers and our residents aren't seeing the kind of the price increases for an enhanced building.

Okay.

And Richard, I mean, the other enhancements potentially are around fabric.

I mean, are we seeing a lot of changes in the future home standards with regards to fabric or are we, or is it business as usual?

But actually if we moved over to a wider cavity across the industry, that would allow you a little bit of tolerance on other aspects.

So not having to meet the airtightness standard or relaxing on the window area or the window U value, there's a real reluctance to do that in some areas.

But we've been working for developers in low value areas like Northern Ireland with an extra wide cavity for 15, 20 years.

So I don't quite understand why it's such a problem.

It's always talked about as being a really difficult thing.

My feeling is that and all of this stuff now it's getting very difficult to demonstrate compliance and we're using all these kind of sophisticated tools to sort of really, really refine the design.

And we're in danger of just making ourselves very vulnerable to the slightest thing going wrong.

And we would do better really to have a bit more tolerance and a little bit more built in safety factor on some of the things, especially thermally.

I mean, structural engineers use massive safety factors in design.

We don't have them in thermal design at all.

That's true.

That's true.

Potentially increases to wall thicknesses.

You think?

I mean, because we talked about where space goes and what space is needed.

You don't see that as in practice is maybe not quite as critical as maybe we've thought.

Well, it depends on your point of view.

No.

Okay.

You see, a volume house builder would say, oh God, this is terrible.

I'm going to lose houses on the site, I'm going to lose density.

And then as a designer say, well, why don't you make a few more terraces or join a few up.

We can't do that because we'll lose the value.

So there's a bit of a circular conversation.

I mean, if you follow the European examples where higher densities are being achieved, probably less space allocated to highways, less space allocated to car parking, there are ways of compensating for that wider wall thickness if we need it.

But of course, people are also saying, don't really fancy having combustible insulation in my wall at all.

If you're looking for a local authority, for instance, would probably say, no, I want to have non combustible materials.

So we're autom going to wider cavities to meet that requirement.

Okay, what are the sorts of things that you see are important with regards to the lived experience, particularly where it might be beyond compliance and the sorts of things that we need to be thinking about.

I suppose if I start off with you, Steph, from your housing association perspective, are these going to be good places to live in, do you think?

And what do we need to think about to make sure they really are?

That's something that we think about on a daily basis here at lnq because we directly see the impacts of residents and how they use their homes.

So we've been using MVHR units for some time and one of the issues that we've seen on that journey is resident education.

They don't understand them so they switch them off.

And so we've come up to a process of having little QR codes that we'll install next to each of the new bits of technology and then that signposts the residents to like manuals and videos and demonstrations of how to use the technology.

So they've got that, that knowledge at their fingertips to help them.

We see on move in day when residents move into properties and they get demonstrations, they've got so much information thrown at them that they just can't retain it.

And so being clever with how you communicate how this bit kind of the technology works is key to them understanding the buildings will only be successful and efficient if they're used correctly.

So that is the critical bit for us.

The simpler the building, the easier it will be to run and to maintain.

Yes, suddenly you mentioned simple at the end there.

So have we got a handle on how we make these buildings intuitive, do you think, Steph?

Yeah, I'm not sure really.

I think, I mean, there's so much technology and there's kind of companies that will install systems that will fully manage almost kind of AI world.

And I just think that's probably a step too far, certainly for housing association at the moment.

We would Never take the risk of looking at innovative technology just yet.

So I think for us, we try and keep the build as simple as we can, albeit we will have air sourcing pumps, mvhr, that's inevitable to meet future home standards.

So that's where that education piece for us really comes into its own, so that we can up knowledge and upskill our residents to help them understand how to live in those homes, because they're not as simple as they used to be.

Richard, where are you on this intuition?

Educate them.

I'm really struggling, Chris, because I see, you know when you follow the people who are getting fantastic efficiencies from their heat pumps and you think, God, this is just amazing.

And you read about what they're doing, optimizing the weather compensation curve, changing the flow temperatures, I'm thinking, well, that's great, hats off to you because that's fantastic.

But can we ask ordinary residents to do those things as well?

So it's going to be a combination of supporting people, giving them the knowledge, but also being reasonably sensible about what you can expect people to do, the level they can engage.

And I think it's pretty worrying.

There's amazingly clever stuff, but it's all being thought about at the moment in kind of very distinct and very kind of clearly wrapped parcels.

Getting all to talk to each other is something that we've struggled with in buildings.

Actually, even in our commercial buildings that we do, the controls, protocols and the management systems never keep pace with the potential of the technology.

And then you have a problem when something goes wrong of nobody being able to diagnose what it is.

So you're just going around, around a system saying, is it this thing that's failed?

Is it this thing that's underperforming?

So I think it will just take time for those things to get resolved.

So as an architect, do you find your steering people more towards passive solutions?

And I need to be careful about using the word passive, don't I?

As an architect?

We don't have control.

Chris, in the pub, I would definitely be saying to people, do you need all that tech?

Are there some simple things?

Because it really annoys me when people talk about they've got a fantastically efficient heat pump inside their tumble dryer and I think, well, can't you just go and hang your clothes out on a washing line outside?

There are a few things where we've kind of got drawn into these wonders of technology.

When some basic lifestyle changes, things would deliver some savings.

It's a balance.

Yes.

Yes, it is, yeah.

And we were talking about overheating a bit earlier and installing technical solutions within the dwelling for overheating.

But I mean, I guess there's also issues to do with the built form and shading and things like that.

Where are you seeing that going forward?

Well, Chris, it's where we build is the real difficulty.

So if you think about where we're really achieving high densities, especially urban centers, we're always building on the sort of industrial legacy.

So we're building where there used to be factories, under flight paths of airports, on the periphery of towns and cities, where it's not a good environment for opening windows.

For instance, if you think about in London, where development's been concentrated, it's in the east around city airport, it's in the north around the North Circular, Wimbledon, it's in the west under the Heathrow flight path.

You can't cure overheating by opening a window in those environments.

It just isn't possible.

So we're kind of making life difficult for ourselves in some respects, solving some problems and creating other ones.

I think cooling, intelligent cooling, is probably where we're heading in urban development.

So maybe we've got networks that are distributing low temperature heat and we're dumping heat into those networks in the summer and drawing heat out of them in the winter.

I don't know.

So we've called this podcast Evolving the Design and I've subtitled it Beware of the Consequences.

I mean, this is the time when I like to pretend that I actually have the power to grant wishes.

What's the one thing you would like folk to take away from this podcast that you think that's a nugget that they should hold onto in this really confusing and complicated world.

And I'll start with Richard to just.

Get into the kind of thinking when you're working on a project that the future home standard isn't the building regulations, it isn't a compliance stage in a linear process.

It's something that you have to think about right from the first studies of whether a site's viable, whether you can connect to infrastructure, whether you've got got the electrical supplier right through to the end when you're handing it home over.

Because you absolutely have to show the homeowner that you've built what you said you were going to do, and you've done everything you can to make sure it delivers.

So it's a kind of, you know, it feeds into every activity now in development and building.

Okay, and Steph, what's your one thing you'd like us to take away.

It's probably an obvious one coming from a social landlord, but but I think for me, I would like any designer, developer, contractor to put themselves in the shoes of that homeowner of who they're designing for, get them to really visualize how would they maintain sealed lights or MVHR units, How would they use all this technology to really visualize so they can understand the impacts that the homeowners and residents will see on a day to day.

And I think that will go some way to understanding the long term impacts and those life cycle implications that we are starting to see as homes become so much more complex.

Okay, great.

Well, thank you.

On that note, it's time for me to let you go.

So thank you Steph and Richard for joining us today.

Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Thanks Chris for having us.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Future Homes podcast and thanks once again to Steph and Richard.

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