A new independent body focused on raising people’s quality of life and wellbeing by improving the built environment has been established by Stirling Prize-winning architect and government design champion Professor Sadie Morgan.
The Quality of Life Foundation will work with large-scale developers, house builders, investors and other key stakeholders in the development industry to come up with ways of improving how our buildings and communities are planned, procured and constructed to actively provide a better quality of life.
The Quality of Life Foundation will focus on the way people think and feel about places and how their experience can be improved
The Foundation, established by Professor Sadie Morgan, co-founding director of Stirling Prize-winning architect dRMM and government design champion, is committed to creating a new framework that brings about change. Learning from previous initiatives, its role will be to gather research and make recommendations that will make clear both the responsibilities and benefits of promoting quality of life within the built environment.
The Quality of Life Foundation has been established as a not-for-profit company that will create a focus for debate, research and development of best practice guidance with a strong focus on what ordinary people think and feel about the places they live.
Professor Sadie Morgan said: “The built environment plays a huge role in shaping people’s lives and how they feel. We are facing a climate emergency, so wellbeing, quality of life and sustainability are inseparable: for buildings and neighbourhoods to have a positive impact on people’s wellbeing they must also be good for the environment.
“The Quality of Life Foundation will bring together the very best practice from across the design and development industry to focus on the way people think and feel about places and how their experience can be improved. The aim is to influence the myriad ways in which design has the potential to positively address contemporary challenges and to influence policy at a high level, helping to ensure that the built environment can deliver its full potential to improve people’s quality of life.”
The first steps will be to bring together an advisory board, which will represent a broad range of views across the public and private sectors. Over the next year it will carry out research to develop a set of quality of life principles and look at ways of effecting change in how the development industry works.
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More about the Quality of Life Foundation
The Quality of Life Foundation is a new independent body whose purpose it is to raise people’s quality of life and wellbeing by improving our built environment. Its aim is to work with large-scale developers, house builders and investors to come up with ways of improving the way our buildings and communities are planned, procured and constructed. The Foundation is committed to creating a new framework that brings about change. Learning from previous initiatives, its role will be to gather research and make recommendations that will make clear both the responsibilities and benefits of promoting quality of life.
The Quality of Life Foundation is a not-for-profit company, led by Prof. Sadie Morgan as chair of a board that will represent a broad range of views across the public and private sectors. The board will meet quarterly for an initial 12-month engagement to develop a set of Quality of Life principles and to advise on the agenda of the Foundation’s work. The board will create a focus for debate, research and development of best practice guidance with a strong focus on consumer experience. Board members will have the capability to act as high-profile advocates for the role that development can play in achieving quality of life.
The board will have around eight members with a wide range of skills and expertise including:
- Wellbeing
- Environmental sustainability
- Consumer insight
- Architecture
- Urban design
- Community engagement
- Local government
- Tech entrepreneurship
- Property development
Quality of Life Foundation’s Twitter
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