How to Make People Friendly Places

A guide for politicians, professionals, and citizens

The job of urban design is to work with communities to bring together all the components that make a successful street, neighbourhood, town or city, making them fit together, look attractive, and work well.

This report celebrates the best of the work from this year’s National Urban Design Awards, and the communities, firms, and local authorities who demonstrate how it can be done.

Surveys repeatedly show that we are building in the wrong places, in unsustainable locations, creating neighbourhoods that don’t reflect current government guidance, and are designed around vehicles, rather than people. These awards demonstrate that we don’t have to do this. 

We can create quality development in any community in Britain. We can build in the right places that offer people access to the work, opportunities, and services they need for a fulfilled life, and that are not exclusively dependent on car ownership and use.  We can follow current Government and industry best practice guidance, and it will produce excellent results. 

The message of the 2021 National Urban Design Awards is that we can make outstanding urban design commonplace. 

Build in the right place, to a good quality, to current best practice.