The Quality of Life Foundation was established out of growing frustration with the UK property sector’s inability to create homes and neighbourhoods that are built to support communities’ needs long-term. Their mission is to find long-term, evidence-based solutions to challenges in the built environment sector, leading to housing that functions better for all.
In 2021 RealWorth were supporting the Quality of Life Foundation to design a post-occupancy survey that collects information on how well different homes and neighbourhoods serve the needs of their residents. The survey is part of a wider framework that aims to explore the way in which the way we live together as communities and the way that we design and manage our built environment to contribute to our quality of life.
To create the survey, RealWorth facilitated a Theory of Change session that determined the Quality of Life Foundation’s desired outcomes. RealWorth then designed a set of questions built around the six core themes and eighteen sub-themes from the framework, as well as a library of questions that can be selected based on context-specific factors that may be present in specific areas or regions. For example, an area of high crime or an area with low trust in development.
The survey will be used by the Quality of Life Foundation to measure post-occupancy satisfaction of residents across a number of tenures throughout the UK.
The next step for this project is to pilot the initial survey and make amendments to adapt to real-life delivery scenarios. After this, a finalised survey can be published as a resource to be used for residential developments across the UK.
