Building for a healthy life

A design toolkit for neighbourhoods, streets, homes and public spaces.

From:: Homes England
Published: 17 May 2026
Last updated: 20 May 2026 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

PDF, 22.2 MB, 112 pages

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Details

For over 20 years, Building for a Healthy Life has been applied to residential development, with expertise of its many contributors in streets, landscape and place design.

Building for a Healthy Life uses 12 core principles to聽assess聽placemaking, giving clear examples of what good placemaking looks like.聽It uses a traffic light system to assess聽a development scheme鈥檚 approach to these core聽principles.

This updated 2026 version includes illustrated tips showing what improves new places and what can spoil them.

Homes England聽adopted Building for a Healthy Life as its key design quality聽indicator in 2019.

Published 17 May 2026

Last updated 20 May 2026 show all updates

20 May 2026
An amended version of the PDF has been published.
17 May 2026
First published.

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