Design: The key to creating healthier, happier places

While some things may be too good to be true, who wouldn’t want to pay less for something better? The answer, it turns out, is quite a few of us because many people see investing in design as risky, time consuming, and expensive, Jim MacDonald, Architecture and Design Scotland's Chief Executive, writes in this blog. 

As Scotland’s champion for architecture and design, our job is to change this view by highlighting the value of design and we have just launched a campaign to do exactly that.  

Beyond aesthetics

Yes, design is about how a building looks, but it is also about so much more than that.  

Design determines how a building makes you feel, how it works, how sustainable it is. Design is also a brilliant way of getting people involved in a project and perhaps this is its greatest strength: engaging and empowering users to shape the building they need. 

Evidence of value

The good news is that there is a growing body of evidence to show how design adds value. From healthcare to housing, from individual buildings to whole towns, making use of design thinking can save us millions while creating sustainable, resilient, people-centred buildings and places.  

Eastwood health centre opened in 2016 and shows how design input can help create an award-winning building for less than the cost of a more conventional approach. Using design thinking, the team were able to adapt the brief while ensuring user requirements were still met. This approach is now used widely across the healthcare estate, ensuring new buildings are designed around users’ needs, provide spaces that are good to be in, and are cost effective. 

Carbon conscious

In Dumfries and Leven, our eight principles of carbon conscious places are being applied to revitalise the town centres and reduce their carbon footprints. These principles support a holistic approach to designing and adapting places, simultaneously addressing the immediate needs of the town while tackling the climate emergency. 

And in Alva, we used a whole-place collaborative approach to explore the ways in which investment in the town could be maximised as a catalyst for the improvement of in the long-term. This demonstrates that by using design and thinking beyond solving a single issue, we can have far wider impacts. 

All of this proves that design may not be a magic wand, but it can do some amazing things. So, if you want amazing to be your new normal, get in touch.