Design Quality

MADE provides a support and facilitation service to help achieve better places. We provide a critical friend, a champion and a crucial source of expertise.  The focus of our support and facilitation service is assisting people who are charged with delivering or procuring change in the built environment:

• developing substantial new public or mixed use buildings;
• creating masterplans for new or existing neighbourhoods and quarters;
• managing complex regeneration programmes for estates, neighbourhoods, district, town or city centres;
• revitalising green or urban public spaces or the wider public realm;
• planning new or regenerated transport interchanges;
• developing planning, urban design, housing or regeneration policy.

Help from MADE is generally used at the beginning of the design and development process (often prior to the appointment of a design team, consultants or a developer), but can be used at other critical points. The scope of design support extends from single buildings to masterplans. As a local body we provide a flexible, responsive service, connected to local networks and intelligence.

How MADE design support works

MADE has a panel of experts. They are people with a wide range of professional expertise and experience in the built environment:

• architects;
• urban designers;
• planning professionals;
• landscape architects;
• project managers;
• engineers;
• property & quantity surveyors; and
• people experienced as clients who have delivered high quality environments.

Most of our expert panellists have specialisms, but they all have general expertise in what makes great places and experience of development, planning and regeneration.

Arranging for support

If you have a project you think would benefit from design enabling support contact MADE in the first instance. We will meet and discuss your organisation’s needs. If it is agreed that this is the right option we will draw up a programme of support and assign one or two experts to the project. The expert is contracted and paid by MADE. We can offer anything up to 10 days support but we are flexible: if we think the project would benefit from just two or three days, that is what we will offer. MADE provides management support and monitoring of our expert's work, receiving regular reports and updates. At the end of the assignment we will evaluate its effectiveness

What the MADE expert does

The expert will meet with key officers on a one-to-one basis to provide advice and support. He/she may attend joint meetings of partners or facilitate special meetings or workshops. He/she may also provide telephone or written advice and undertake background research. The MADE expert’s work will not replace work that could have been done by an in-house officer or paid consultant. For example, the he/she will not write a design brief, but he/she may give advice on writing a brief, show examples of good design briefs, or sketch out suggestions for section headings and graphics. The idea is to build the skills and capacity of in-house teams and to help clients get the very best value from paid consultants by making sure they are well chosen, briefed and managed. Typically the expert’s role may be to assist the client in setting up fair and transparent procurement of designers or developers that ensures that quality of design is carefully considered and the right skills are sought.

Help our expert might provide

• identifying and articulating an organisation’s needs and aspirations for the project (particularly in design terms);
• building skills and capacity among your key officers;
• consulting stakeholders effectively;
• developing a strong brief;
• developing criteria for evaluating and selecting a dedicated and highly competent design team;
• procurement issues such as PFI or partnering;
• helping brief design teams and review progress;
• using tools to assess and deliver design quality, such as design guidance and design codes;
• integrating planning and masterplanning through neighbourhoods and districts, and getting the most from regional and sub-regional strategies;
• strategies for bringing on board partners and colleagues who may be hampering progress on design quality;
• monitoring standards for best long-term value.

Confidential and impartial
The expert’s advice will be confidential although it is likely that MADE will request permission to share learning. The advice is impartial and conflicts of interest are monitored closely. MADE experts may not support projects in which they have a commercial interest. When there is a competitive situation, for example a developer competition, MADE assists the client and does not work with any of the competing firms.

Added extras

As a MADE client you may receive additional support direct from the MADE team to assist with the process by (for example) facilitating workshops or researching precedents. In addition MADE organises activities that are designed to complement the projects we are currently working with such study visits, learning events and workshops to share experiences.
To discuss support from MADE contact:
David Tittle - Chief Executive - david@made.org.uk or 0121 348 7980