SYHA Neighbourhood Review

South Yorkshire Housing Association asked us to test and produce an easy to use, interactive tool to rate the health of their neighbourhoods using a red, amber, and green rating system. The tool, The Healthy Neighbourhood Review, asks a series of questions developed by researching and observing what makes a healthy neighbourhood for SYHA residents. It is accompanied by a community engagement pack to allow SYHA to compare the output with local opinion. This in turn will allow SYHA to cohesively improve their neighbourhoods.

Through an iterative process of testing and developing on and off-site, the tool was refined and developed into a paper and more importantly an interactive, digital version. The development of an interactive web tool differed from conventional live projects, so recognising this early on, meant action was taken to source the correct expertise. Since we collaborated with the computer science department at the University of Sheffield, the tool was developed in just three weeks. The “front end”; images, graphics, survey and user interface was developed by the live project team, whilst the technical aspects of the website were developed by a computer science student.

The process of creating a technical output from an architectural brief was challenging but we were able to succeed thanks to strong communication, clear leadership, and efficient grouping of our team. This was supported by a priority for the social aspects and well-being of everyone involved. This was a critical part of the project as it revealed strengths within the team.

Throughout the project, we reflected on the potential scope of the Healthy Neighbourhood Review. Mainly its flexibility to be expanded and its accessibility to non-architectural individuals making it more appealing to a wider audience enabling public realm analysis outside of SYHA. This was reflected in the final presentation where external interest was shown. The web tool, its server, and database were handed over to SYHA with a supplementary pack, composed of guides, community engagement advice, templates and maps were included in our handover. Future-proofing and technological support were key in the handover.

SHYA looks to collect data through the online Healthy Neighbourhood Review, aligning with their new digital-first approach. They were impressed to see that their original brief of a survey tool had been met with a fully functional and expandable web tool with advanced data storage. We hope the tool will be used to improve the local neighbourhoods of the many SYHA residents.

Project Website: https://healthy-neighbourhood-review.herokuapp.com/home/

Credits

Student Team: 

Ziliang Wong, Yuxin Zhang, Dylan Fardon, Peihui Zhang, Xubang Duan, Ella Murrell, Matthew West, Wanli Liu, Alexandra Francis, Simran Dovedi, Yi Ding, Alanna Stevenson, Harry Phillips

Mentor:

Howard Evans