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Equitable access to decent housing remains a major global challenge, particularly for lower-income populations reliant on subsidised, affordable homes. Housing inequities are exacerbated by continuing commodification, demographic shifts, and the increasing time many now spend at home. Addressing these challenges requires stronger state intervention, closer cooperation between regulators, providers, and occupants, and a robust evidence base that links housing policy, supply, quality, and design with the social values needed to drive change.
This book examines how housing design governance shapes the quality of homes and the wellbeing of residents, analysing the political, economic, social, historical, and environmental drivers of design. Drawing on new comparative data and evidence from England, Chile, China, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland, it explores how contextual standards, cultural norms, and regulatory practices influence everyday life and perceptions of subsidised housing.
Combining historical, technical, and social perspectives, this interdisciplinary design research study provides a multidimensional understanding of housing quality. It offers practical insights for policymakers, housing providers, and designers, showing how lived experience can inform future standards and policies to create more inclusive, adaptable, and sustainable homes and communities.
List of contents
Introduction: Housing Standardisation and Design Governance
Part 1: Study Contexts 1. The Design Governance of Subsidised Housing 2. Comparative Housing Design Research
Part 2: Design Governance Histories 3. Housing Standards and Standardisation in England: A Historical Study of Design Governance 4. The Evolution of Housing Design Standards in Chile
Part 3: Systems and Standards 5. Housing Systems: Subsidised Housing Design and Regulatory Instruments 6. Housing Standards: Socio-technical Design Controls
Part 4: Homes 7. In-depth Case Study Cartographies 8. Home Use Studies: An Insight into Lived Experiences 9. Wellbeing and Housing Quality: Comparative Case Studies in Six Countries
Part 5: Conclusion 10. Decent Homes: Emerging Bodies of Evidence
About the author
Sam Jacoby is Professor of Architectural and Urban Design Research, Research Lead of the School of Architecture, and Director of both the Intergenerational Design Lab and the Laboratory for Design and Machine Learning at the Royal College of Art. His interdisciplinary work is interested in the social impact of design research, spatial strategies, and architecture.
Alvaro Arancibia is an architect trained at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, with an MPhil in Urban Design and a PhD in Architectural Design from the Architectural Association in London. His work bridges practice and research, focusing on collective housing and urban design in Santiago de Chile. His doctoral thesis received the AA Graduate Prize for Research: Outstanding Work 2015-2016, and between 2022 and 2025 he was co-investigator of the project Housing Standardisation: The Architecture of Regulations and Design Standards. Through his practice, he has won several housing competitions organised by the Chilean Ministry of Housing, including the Mirador Laguna project, completed in 2024. His research and design work have been published internationally and presented at universities in Chile, the UK, the US, and Mexico, contributing to debates on housing policy, standards, and typologies.
