Urban design, urban quality and the quality of life: Reviewing the department of the environment's urban design campaign

Abstract

This paper explores issues of ‘quality’ in urban design, principally through an evaluation of one UK government initiative. Between 1994 and 1996–97 the former Conservative government sought to promote ‘quality’ and ‘responsibility’ in the broad fields of urban and rural planning through the Department of the Environment's Quality in Town and Country (QTC) initiative. It was one of the more widely welcomed activities of this administration, but its achievements are questionable. One key component of the QTC initiative was the Urban Design Campaign (UDC), which sponsored 21 selected projects to provide case‐studies and demonstration projects, each tackling a difficult design and development challenge. This review, via the experience of two of the projects, addresses the questions of what lessons were learned from the UDC in terms of processes and outputs, and in responding to the rhetorical questions—particularly focusing on the nature of urban design in the development process and its relationship with the quality of life—posed in the original QTC discussion document. Lessons for the UK and other countries are discussed.