CABE publications

Green space skills 2009: national employer survey findings

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:11:54 GMT

In July 2009 CABE, in partnership with English Heritage, commissioned Pye-Tait Consulting to carry out research to identify the total size, scope and labour market status of the green space sector in England.

Green space skills 2009: national employer survey findings presents the findings of that research.

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Creating excellent primary schools: a guide for clients

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:37:31 GMT

Helping primary school clients, working in either the local authority or the school itself, to make the most of new capital investment in their buildings.

There is a clear link between well-designed primary schools and pupil performance and behaviour. Successful school design is the result of hard work and collaboration between designers, contractors and visionary, committed clients.

Creating excellent primary schools takes readers step by step through the process, offering practical tools and a dozen inspiring case studies to show just what can be achieved.

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Our school building matters

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:06:03 GMT

A toolkit to help teachers make the most of the learning opportunities created by building a new school or refurbishing an existing one.

The quality of the buildings and spaces where we live and learn has a profound impact on all our lives.

Understanding how they get built, and knowing that local people can influence the process, gives pupils the skills and confidence to play a bigger, more positive role in their communities for the rest of their lives.

Schools can email futureschools@ssatrust.org.uk to order a hard copy.

Our school building matters is written and published by CABE with the support of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT). It has also been endorsed by National Primary Headteachers (NPH).

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360 magazine: spring 2010

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:48:34 GMT

Featuring reports on green careers, walking the High Line public park in New York, school grounds improvement in Barmby-on-the-Marsh and posters about Northala Fields and working as a woodkeeper.

Growing green careers

People love working in parks and green spaces. Yet there’s a national shortage of people with the right skills to do the jobs that are needed.

Walking the High Line

Carefully planned swathes of vegetation and unique views of the city are drawing up to 25,000 visitors a day to a remarkable new public park – the High Line.

Grounds for improvement

Barmby-on-the-Marsh is a tiny village in Yorkshire. At the heart of the community is the old Victorian schoolhouse with a small playground and a field.

Ever wanted to live in a forest? (poster)

Cindy Blaney (below) is a woodkeeper at Highgate Wood in north London. Gisselle Casio at 360? finds out more.

Poster: Northala Fields, London (poster)

Northala Fields is one of the most exciting new green spaces in the country. Derelict land has been transformed using waste soil from the nearby Wembley Stadium site.

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Large digital screens in public spaces: joint guidance from english heritage and cabe

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:18:00 GMT

Guidance from English Heritage and CABE to help local authorities in the consideration of planning applications for large digital screens in public places.

Some of the large digital screens in public places will be part of the Live sites programme for the London 2012 Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games, installed by the organising committee, LOCOG, which has been consulted in the preparation of this document.

Increasingly, too, there are proposals from other organisations, broadcasters and commercial companies to install large digital screens in towns and cities for a variety of purposes.

This is the final version of this guidance.

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Who should build our homes?

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:15:38 GMT

CABE has commissioned six experts with strong views to tell us what they would change to deliver more and better housing.

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Future health: sustainable places for health and well-being

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:45:45 GMT

Explaining how good design makes healthy places by bringing together what CABE knows about sustainable, health-promoting design with the latest thinking about individual health and well-being.

Drawing on examples and research, Future health shows how good planning can have a positive impact on public health, how health trusts can cut carbon and costs by co-locating services, and how designers can influence people's well-being.

Future health will be of interest to health trusts, planners, policymakers and premises providers.

Let us know what you think about this publication.

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Grey to Green: how we shift funding and skills to green our cities

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:53:21 GMT

Green infrastructure does not receive anything like the investment or management that goes into grey infrastructure.

Grey to Green will fuel a debate about whether this is smart, given the dangers of climate change and the opportunities to improve public health. It also reveals the urgent need for more people, with the right skills, to manage the living landscape of our towns and cities.

Grey to Green: how we shift funding and skills to green our cities provides fresh ideas and evidence, showing how we could design and manage places in radically different ways. It will be of interest to anyone involved in greening the built environment, but above all to the people taking decisions about where to commit public money at a local and a national level.

More Grey to Green

The green information gap: mapping the nation's green spaces calls for a single, shared, information resource – a kind of atlas – to help piece together the different elements of the nation’s green infrastructure. This call is supported by 15 national organisations.

Read more about CABE's Grey to Green campaign.

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The green information gap: mapping the nation's green spaces

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:35:14 GMT

There is a major gap in the national information about Englands urban green spaces: nobody knows how many there are, where they are, who owns them or what they are like.

This makes it difficult to co-ordinate provision, respond to changing social needs or plan for a changing climate.

A single, shared, information resource – a kind of atlas – would help piece together the different elements of the nation’s green infrastructure – parks, gardens, allotments, trees, green roofs, cemeteries, woodlands, commons, grasslands, moors and wetlands.

The green information gap: mapping the nation's green spaces is a position paper written for policymakers. It says the new resource could be part of a wider information revolution that makes the most of our nation’s green assets.

Why we must map green infrastructure is a single page letter of endorsement from organisations including CABE, Association of Garden Trusts, Black Environment Network, Capacity Global, Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, English Heritage, The Garden History Society, Greenspace, Groundwork, International Council of Monuments and Sites UK, Institute of Parks and Green Spaces, Keep Britain Tidy, Landscape Institute, Natural England, Play England and UK Public Health Association.

More on Grey to Green

Find out why we are campagining to shift investment from grey to green infrastructure.

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Planning for places: delivering good design through core strategies

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:39:53 GMT

Helping local authorities take a spatial approach to writing their core strategy as part of a local development framework.

An understanding of how a place works, what makes it special and the opportunities it offers is critical to developing a core strategy.

Planning for places: delivering good design through core strategies has been produced to help local authorities take a spatial approach to their strategy. Drawing on workshops, it helps planners place good design at the heart of their core strategies.

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Design review: principles and practice

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:40:56 GMT

Design review is a tried and tested method of promoting good design and a cost-effective way of improving quality.

Design review: principles and practice explains how design review can support good design through the planning process and how to set up and run a design review panel. Case studies illustrate the breadth of panels now operating and share learning from their experiences.

The publication will help anyone running or wanting to establish a panel, including local authorities and other public bodies. It will also interest architects, planners and clients.

Supplementary information

This publication is based on information from a 2008 survey of local and regional design review panels.

We have also published further details of several aspects of running a design review panel.

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Helping community groups to improve public spaces

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:07:10 GMT

A summary of research by CABE into the main barriers facing community groups in improving public spaces.

Throughout the country, gardens, allotments, play areas and other public spaces are being transformed for the better by groups of local residents. These community groups often contribute hundreds of hours of volunteer time and considerable expertise, but sometimes they lack the practical support they need.

This briefing is primarily for local authorities but will be of interest to other public space managers such as housing associations. It recommends ways to support community groups that are working to improve neighbourhood spaces and points to other organisations that can offer additional advice.

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Guide to green space apprenticeships

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:30:34 GMT

A good practice guide to help local authorities, landscape contractors and others involved in delivering green space services to plan and manage successful horticulture apprenticeship programmes.

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360 magazine: autumn 2009

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:25:52 GMT

Featuring an explanation of the new minimum design standard for Building Schools for the Future, a look at Japan's approach to engaging communities in public space and a poster for students considering how much buildings cost.

Explaining the minimum design standard

Building Schools for the Future (BSF) is seeing every secondary school in England rebuilt or refurbished. Here we look at the new minimum design standard, coming into force next year.

Engaging communities with public space

Manabi-no-Mori is a beautiful park in Kakamigahara City, Japan. Since opening in 2005 it has been a huge success. It is an outstanding example of inclusive design and a beautiful green public space, maintained by local people.

Opening a window on the past

Key stage 3 students from Cardinal Newman Catholic School, Brighton, recently took part in ‘A window on the past'. This project focused on three streets in the Lanes, a historic part of Brighton now packed with shops and restaurants.

Watch this place: East Beach Café

East Beach Café, designed by Thomas Heatherwick, a celebrated artist and designer, arrived in the Sussex resort of Littlehampton in 2007. Made out of steel designed to rust to a deep brown colour, the building has been described as a work of modern art.

Ever wanted to: work out how much buildings cost?

Janet Goh works for Davis Langdon, a leading quantity surveying practice, responsible for costing buildings like Tate Modern and Manchester City Stadium.

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Ten year review

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:17:00 GMT

In this review of the last decade, we look back at our work to answer a natural question: what difference have we made?

CABE marked its 10th anniversary in September 2009.

The Ten year review points to some of the challenges that remain, and is illustrated by some of the great new places in England.

It will be of interest to everyone who works with CABE and cares about the quality of the built environment.

More about the last ten years

1999-2009: a decade of change
An illustrated timeline of CABE's activities since we were founded in September 1999
10 places where we've made an impact
Buildings, spaces and projects that we've helped improve in the last decade.

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Homes for our old age: independent living by design

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:47:07 GMT

Featuring 10 case studies of housing schemes for older people, each of which offers inventive design and management solutions linking home and social care.

Being at home is what most people want in their old age. People want to retain a choice about where and how they live and to have a say over how they are cared for. They also want to keep their independence and stay connected to local communities and family networks.

Homes for our old age features 10 case studies of housing schemes for older people, each of which offers inventive design and management solutions linking home and social care.

The report will be of interest to those who commission, design and manage care in residential settings, including local authorities, registered social landlords and health trusts.

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Making competitions work

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:17:35 GMT

A well planned design competition can get excellent results if sufficiently resourced and targeted. We have drawn on the experience of people who have run successful competitions to help you understand what is involved.

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Open space strategies: what local authority decision makers need to know

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:57:37 GMT

Leaflet explaining to local authority decision makers what an open space strategy is and the tangible benefits of producing one.

Open space strategies: what local authority decision makers need to know is an eight page introduction to the purpose and benefits of open space strategies. It is aimed at people who are new to the concept of open space strategies.

This leaflet accompanies another CABE Space publication - Open space strategies: best practice guidance - which reflects the latest thinking on the role of open space in improving the quality of people’s lives and features case studies of recent innovation, progress and success from across England.

Related publications

Open space strategies: best practice guidance

Practical guidance to local authorities and their stakeholders on how to prepare, deliver, monitor and review an open space strategy.

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Space in new homes: what residents think

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:17:50 GMT

This research summary supports the case for more space in private homes, to ensure that they are functional, flexible and fit for purpose.

Drawing on detailed research, it shows that many residents do not believe that the space provided in their homes is sufficient for basic everyday activities. This has implications for storage of personal possessions, the arrangement fo furniture, food preparation, recycling, socialising in the home, privacy, social equity and adaptability. The research summary will be of interest to housebuilders, registered social landlords, local authorities and The Homes and Communities Agency.

This publication is only available for download. No hard copies are available.

Debate about space standards

This publication prompted a debate in the national press about space standards. Highlights included articles in The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph.

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CABE annual report 2008/09: financial statements and accounts

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:35:20 GMT

Describing how the organisation has helped to inspire good design through a combination of expert advice, independent scrutiny, and public engagement.

Expert advice from CABE included the launch of a groundbreaking new resource for local authority leaders showing how to create sustainable cities. CABE also delivered training for 170 Building for Life assessors in 105 local authorities, and hosted the first national conference on green infrastructure.

Independent scrutiny came in the form of 357 design reviews. This process enhanced the quality of many of the most important developments taking place in England. A further 71 reviews were conducted of proposals emerging for new Crossrail stations and Building Schools for the Future schools.

High profile initiatives to engage the public included the Climate Change Festival in Birmingham last June, visited by more than a third of a million people. 100,000 young people also took part in Green Day, a new initiative from CABE designed to make schools more sustainable.

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