This briefing paper explains the research behind the What Works Centre for Wellbeing's recent refresh of a review examining the changes made to community places and spaces that are designed to boost social relations and individual and community wellbeing.

This project report examines whether current social housing allocation and matching policies and practices meet the needs of applicants or tenants and maximise social housing sector performance and efficiency outcomes. It looks at how to optimise housing stock allocations based on individual needs, and neighbourhood and community needs.

In this report, the authors highlight the substantial benefits of upgrading the UK’s housing stock to make the case for greater policy support above and beyond existing packages. They also argue for a comprehensive, nation-wide retrofitting programme to meet improved environmental standards to be overseen by the UK government’s new energy efficiency taskforce.

The research outlined in this report was conducted by Leeds Beckett University and the University of Liverpool during 2022, in response to a brief from What Works Centre for Wellbeing. The report explores the extent to which we can better identify what works in changing community infrastructure and improving wellbeing.

The learning and teaching of the interior design needs to be completely rethought to create a sustainable circular design ecosystem. This paper identifies four key sustainable design principles as a foundation for a new education paradigm for a circular interior design ecosystem model.