76% of UK residents have said that the communities of the future need to be built as sustainably as possible, according to a new Eurocell report.
In its research of 1,000 UK residents, 75% agreed that this needs to extend to the products used to build tomorrow’s homes and that they should be made using sustainably sourced materials.
76% of respondents said that communities should provide habitats for the local wildlife. This desire to develop built environments that are more than just places to live was also reflected by 74% of UK residents who said that the area should actively foster a sense of community.
Accounting for advances in technology was an important factor for 73% of those surveyed. While this includes mod cons like high speed broadband, it is also a call for green tech such as electric car charging to become the norm in the nation’s homes.
New housing developments are under the spotlight now more than ever, as the government has recently committed to building 70,000 homes across the country. Eurocell’s Future Communities report reveals a range of consumer opinion on how these new homes should be planned, designed and built.
The report includes insights from five architects from practices BDP, Stanton Williams, TOWN and Urbanist Architecture.
Thinking about the future, Kathryn Tombling, architect at BDP, said: “As designers, we’ve all got to respond to the climate change emergency quickly. For us, the environmental and sustainability agenda has been very strong for 10 years or more. But now there’s a big wake-up call for all of us.”
These statistics show that people are starting to ask more from the areas and homes in which they live. The country’s residents want to know that the environmental impact of their whole community has been carefully considered, including both how the buildings are made and how they interact with the world around them once they’ve been built.
The Future Communities report can be downloaded in full here.