Scottish Government

ANNEX 1 EMAIL SURVEY

DESIGN AT THE HEART OF HOUSE BUILDING: EMAIL SURVEY

INTRODUCTION

This email survey is part of a Scottish Executive commissioned research project entitled Design at the Heart of House Building being carried out by a consortium of universities (Heriot-Watt University; Edinburgh University and Edinburgh College of Art) with the support of Homes for Scotland. The research aims to highlight good practice in putting design at the centre of the building process in the Scottish house building industry.

This email survey focuses on the design process with particular emphasis on:

1. understanding issues surrounding skills and training in design in house-building organisations;
2. exploring whether there is a clear vision and understanding of design and design policy.

Please complete the questionnaire digitally on screen as this should be quicker for you and will greatly aid our analysis. You may have to contact colleagues for some of the information needed to complete the questionnaire but once this has been assembled it should take no more than 20 to 25 minutes to complete. Much of the questionnaire consists of tick boxes (simply click on the box to record your answer) but there is also space in text boxes to record more detailed answers. Please note that where you answer in the text boxes, these boxes will expand to fit the length of your answer. We request that you complete the whole questionnaire but if you have insufficient time to do this, please complete what you can and return the questionnaire as this should still give us useful information. If you are unable to complete many of the longer questions, your answer to question 2.1 is particularly important since it will give us an understanding of how you define design in the context of your activities.

Thank you for your help in this research which is of importance to the house building industry in Scotland. If you have any queries regarding the questionnaire please contact Jimmy Morgan at Heriot-Watt by email or telephone: 0131 451 3347. Please return completed questionnaires by email to james.morgan@sbe.hw.ac.uk by WEDNESDAY 20^THDECEMBER 2006. ALL REPLIES ARE IN COMPLETE CONFIDENCE AND NO COMPANY OR INDIVIDUAL WILL BE NAMED IN THE REPORTING OF THE SURVEY RESULTS.

1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION

1.1 Respondent Details

1.2 In which country is your company HQ situated?

Scotland
Elsewhere in UK
Non- UK

1.3 Where is your company head office located (or Scottish HQ if company HQ not in Scotland)?

1.5 In which of the following regions (defined by Homes for Scotland Regional Committee areas) has your company built homes during the past 5 years (include all areas where development is complete or on-site)?

1.7 Which market segments does you company build for? Please indicate by placing a number in box for the segments you build for ( e.g. if all three, put "1" in the box you build for the segment you build most, "2" second most and "3" third most frequently.)

2. DEFINITION AND VALUE OF DESIGN

2.1 How would you define design as it relates to your company's activities?

2.2 How important is design in your developments?

2.3 Please rate the importance to your company of the following aspects of design in your developments, where 1 equals "most important" and 4 equals "least important" of the categories shown.

2.4 Why, if at all, is design important to your company? (Tick all that apply)

If other, please specify:

2.5 Please rank the most important "3" items to your company form the following list when you are undertaking a development with "1" being the most important and 3 the third most important. (Please answer separately for each market segment for which your company builds.) If other development issues not shown on the list are amongst the top three issues for you, put a tick the "other" box, then name the issue and rate it in the text box below.

If other, please specify:

3. DESIGN STAFF AND TRAINING

3.1 How many staff are employed by your company (in Scotland) in each of the following categories and if you commission or "buy-in" services, how many outside staff have worked on your developments in the last 12 months?

*List each member of staff only once under their main role for your company. Include professionals who work in-house or are consultants contracted to work on a project, do not include local authority employees involved in your projects.
**Estimate numbers of staff working on your developments.
***If there are other staff you consider to carry out design functions which are not covered by the headings here, please include them in this box. Note that sales staff are listed separately.

3.2 How has the number of design related staff employed by your company changed over the last 5 years?

3.3 If your company commissions or "buys in" building design services from other companies, how has the number of design related staff "bought in" by your company changed over the last 5 years?

3.4 Does your company provide or give access to building design training for your staff?

3.5 How has the amount of building design training undertaken by your staff changed over the last 5 years?

3.6 How would you rate the availability of building design training for staff in the housing development industry?

3.7 How would you rate the quality of building design training for staff in the housing development industry?

4. INFLUENCES ON DESIGN IN THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

This section seeks to collect information on issues or factors which impact on your company's ability to produced high quality design in your developments. As far as possible, these are grouped into related topics. At the end of this section there is also an opportunity for you to comment on issues which are not covered in the list.

4.1 On balance, do the following improve or inhibit your ability to produce a high quality of design in your developments?

4.2 What are the main factors (possibly including factors not covered above) which assist your ability to produce high quality housing developments?

4.3 What are the main factors (possibly including factors not covered above) which inhibit your ability to produce high quality housing developments?

5. VARIATION IN DESIGN

5.1 Which of the following statements best reflects the variation in design between your developments (tick one box in each row)?

5.2 If you have some individually designed developments, do these designs influence your more standard products?

5.3 What, if any, barriers or constraints are there in applying aspects of individual design to more standard products?

6. STANDARD HOUSE TYPES

The term "Standard House Type" is commonly used to describe housing where one or all of the following are repeated from a standard template by a developer: floor plan; elevations; finishes; site design and layout. The developer may sometimes refer to a standard house type by a name for marketing purposes.

6.1 Does your company use standard house types?

6.3 Over the past 5 years how has the number of different standard house type you use in Scotland changed?

6.5 Over the past 5 years how has the proportion of developments on which you use standard house types in Scotland changed?

6.6 Overall, how does the use of standard house types impact on the design quality of your housing developments?

Why is this the case:

7. MODERNISING CONSTRUCTION

7.1 Has the modernising construction agenda influenced the way your company operates?

Please give details below:

7.2 Has the amount of off-site fabrication used by your company increased over the last 5 years?

If yes, please give details below:

7.3 If you use off-site fabrication, how does this impact on design quality?

Why is this the case:

7.4 Over the past 5 years how has the proportion of locally sourced materials in your developments changed?

If it has changed, please give details below:

7.5 Over the past 5 years how has the proportion of recycled materials in your developments changed?

If it has changed, please give details below:

7.6 Is your company registered with Constructing Excellence?

8. DESIGN QUALITY OF HOUSING PRODUCTS

8.1 If any of your developments have won design awards over the last 5 years please give details below (if more than 3 examples, please give most recent).

8.2 What are the main factors which contributed to your ability to produce award winning developments?

Please complete the questionnaire, save it as a word file and return it as an email attachment to Jimmy Morgan at Heriot-Watt University james.morgan@sbe.hw.ac.uk by WEDNESDAY 20 ^TH DECEMBER 2006. ALL REPLIES ARE IN COMPLETE CONFIDENCE AND NO COMPANY OR INDIVIDUAL WILL BE NAMED IN THE REPORTING OF THE SURVEY RESULTS.