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Lifetime Design Abroad

Written by Vivian Hutchinson for the New Zealand Social Entrepreneur Fellowship

Lifetime Homes was originally started in 1991 by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that came up with the Standards, and ran a political campaign that achieved getting these standards into the Building Code. As a result, the Lifetime Homes Standard is now a requirement in Wales and Northern Ireland ... and all public sector funded housing in England will be built to these standards from 2011, and all private sector dwellings by 2013.

But for Viv, this is a story that illustrates just how using one strategy in community development is never enough. In the English version of Lifetime Homes, the Standards have become a compliance issue, making them a ‘junior’ member of the Building Code (which means they are easily passed over if there is a contradiction with another part of the building code).  It is an overall strategy that hasn’t engaged designers, or created a social movement that gets buy-in from the building industry, the developers and from the general public.

The interesting thing is that for 20 years in New Zealand, CCS Disability Action has tried to get Building Code compliance and failed ... and the local Lifetime Design project was a response to that failure. When Viv toured the English projects, she could see that they have got the mirror image of each other’s problems and challenges. So there’s a lot to learn and share ... and Viv has set up an international relationship which also has the potential to spread the Lifetime Design principles well beyond our two countries.

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