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

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

Culture change in the UK construction industry: an anthropological perspective
I Tellam

Are people willing to share living space? Household preferences in Finland
E Ruokamo, E Kylkilahti, M Lettenmeier & A Toppinen

Towards urban LCA: examining densification alternatives for a residential neighbourhood
M Moisio, E Salmio, T Kaasalainen, S Huuhka, A Räsänen, J Lahdensivu, M Leppänen & P Kuula

A population-level framework to estimate unequal exposure to indoor heat and air pollution
R Cole, C H Simpson, L Ferguson, P Symonds, J Taylor, C Heaviside, P Murage, H L Macintyre, S Hajat, A Mavrogianni & M Davies

Finnish glazed balconies: residents’ experience, wellbeing and use
L Jegard, R Castaño-Rosa, S Kilpeläinen & S Pelsmakers

Modelling Nigerian residential dwellings: bottom-up approach and scenario analysis
C C Nwagwu, S Akin & E G Hertwich

Mapping municipal land policies: applications of flexible zoning for densification
V Götze, J-D Gerber & M Jehling

Energy sufficiency and recognition justice: a study of household consumption
A Guilbert

Linking housing, socio-demographic, environmental and mental health data at scale
P Symonds, C H Simpson, G Petrou, L Ferguson, A Mavrogianni & M Davies

Measuring health inequities due to housing characteristics
K Govertsen & M Kane

Provide or prevent? Exploring sufficiency imaginaries within Danish systems of provision
L K Aagaard & T H Christensen

Imagining sufficiency through collective changes as satisfiers
O Moynat & M Sahakian

US urban land-use reform: a strategy for energy sufficiency
Z M Subin, J Lombardi, R Muralidharan, J Korn, J Malik, T Pullen, M Wei & T Hong

Mapping supply chains for energy retrofit
F Wade & Y Han

Operationalising building-related energy sufficiency measures in SMEs
I Fouiteh, J D Cabrera Santelices, A Susini & M K Patel

Promoting neighbourhood sharing: infrastructures of convenience and community
A Huber, H Heinrichs & M Jaeger-Erben

New insights into thermal comfort sufficiency in dwellings
G van Moeseke, D de Grave, A Anciaux, J Sobczak & G Wallenborn

‘Rightsize’: a housing design game for spatial and energy sufficiency
P Graham, P Nourian, E Warwick & M Gath-Morad

Implementing housing policies for a sufficient lifestyle
M Bagheri, L Roth, L Siebke, C Rohde & H-J Linke

The jobs of climate adaptation
T Denham, L Rickards & O Ajulo

Structural barriers to sufficiency: the contribution of research on elites
M Koch, K Emilsson, J Lee & H Johansson

Life-cycle GHG emissions of standard houses in Thailand
B Viriyaroj, M Kuittinen & S H Gheewala

IAQ and environmental health literacy: lived experiences of vulnerable people
C Smith, A Drinkwater, M Modlich, D van der Horst & R Doherty

Living smaller: acceptance, effects and structural factors in the EU
M Lehner, J L Richter, H Kreinin, P Mamut, E Vadovics, J Henman, O Mont & D Fuchs

Disrupting the imaginaries of urban action to deliver just adaptation [editorial]
V Castán-Broto, M Olazabal & G Ziervogel

Building energy use in COVID-19 lockdowns: did much change?
F Hollick, D Humphrey, T Oreszczyn, C Elwell & G Huebner

Evaluating past and future building operational emissions: improved method
S Huuhka, M Moisio & M Arnould

Normative future visioning: a critical pedagogy for transformative adaptation
T Comelli, M Pelling, M Hope, J Ensor, M E Filippi, E Y Menteşe & J McCloskey

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

See all

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