Parliamentary investigation into design’s effect on behaviour

A new Parliamentary-led inquiry is launching into how the design of the built environment can encourage “positive behaviour change”.

The eight-month inquiry is being led by the Design Commission – a cross-parliamentary group of parliamentarians and representatives from business, industry and the public sector.

It was launched in Parliament by architect Lord Richard Rogers and will be chaired by Baroness Whitaker and Professor Alan Penn, Dean of the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment at University College London.

The inquiry will seek to discover and showcase case studies and best practice examples of design for “good” behaviours and also “how design-led planning policy can create environments in which individuals and communities thrive”.

Following its research phase, the inquiry’s final report will be launched in late 2015. It will make a series of recommendations which will aim to “stimulate new thinking” in government’s approach to planning policy.

The call for evidence has been launched at www.policyconnect.org.uk and is looking for insights on the relationship between behaviour and the built environment, as well as case studies of how behavioural change has been brought about through changes to local infrastructure.