The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has welcomed the publication of the Government's strategy "World Class Places", placing improving quality of place as a priority.
The Institute made the following comments:
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The Institute strongly welcomes the Government's strategy to address the quality of our places and buildings, which brings together ongoing work and new initiatives from across Government in an integrated and wide-reaching strategy.
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In particular, the RIBA welcomes the announcement that the Government will applying a future design threshold to all new public building programmes, beginning with a new minimum design standard for all new schools delivered through the Building Schools for the Future programme. The RIBA looks forward to working with CABE and Partnership for Schools to work towards client design advisors being attached to every new school project.
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We are also pleased to see that the Government will embed quality of place objectives and targets in its departmental strategic objectives, and investigate attaching conditions to the disposal of public land to ensure high quality development, which is supported by the RIBA.
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We look forward to the publication of an action plan by summer 2009 and to working together with Government to deliver on these objectives.
Ewan Willars, Head of Policy at the RIBA said:
"It is great to see Government acting in a joined up way on design quality and improving our public places. We are pleased that in future all public buildings will have to meet minimum design standards; this should go a long way to ensuring that all publicly funded buildings are designed and built to the highest standards, and contribute positively to a sense of place. It is also good to see that Government departments will have quality of place targets embedded in their strategic objectives, and that government will shortly be publishing an action plan to take this agenda forward. We look forward to working in partnership to improve the quality of design within our communities."