In February’s newsletter we introduced the Happy Homes Project and the Happy Homes Toolkit (HHT).

We have been continuing to develop the HHT with the University of Reading and in May we hosted an interactive workshop on the impact of HHT in policy – asking: how can measuring lived experience and wellbeing be built into people-centred housing strategies; and how can policy makers evaluate housing success through validated social metrics, not solely environmental performance?

The workshop, attended by local authorities, MHCLG, GLA, OPDC, Homes England, academics and others, delved into five of the Happy Homes themes – safety, health and wellbeing, environment, options and choices, and enjoyment – looking at barriers, challenges, responsibilities and potential policy actions at local, regional and national levels. The outputs from this workshop will be shared later this month.

In parallel we are continuing to enhance the Happy Homes POE tool and use it on pilot schemes – if you have a project which has been in occupation for 12 months, then do get in touch!

Graphically the process is:

The automation now near completion will enable residents of large numbers of projects to give their valuable social value feedback at modest cost to building owners and developers. The Happy Homes survey can be standalone or in addition to building performance POE. As the database grows, we will be building much greater functionality into the toolkit.

We are currently talking to statutory bodies, research institutions and potential funders about incorporating physical building data into the model to identify the precise design decisions that affect social value – the resident’s experience. Once this work is complete, we will be able to develop a tool that predicts the effect of design decisions on social value from concept to delivery.

If you’d like to be kept up to date with project progress, please sign up to our mailing list www.happyhomestoolkit.co.uk