CABE History 1999-2011

A timeline of CABE's activity from its foundation in 1999 to 2011

1999

  • Lord Rogers’ urban task force launches the report from its year-long investigation, Towards an urban renaissance. The scale of the job ahead is signalled by the number of recommendations: 105.
  • CABE opens for business on 1 September, working from the St James’s offices of the former Royal Fine Art Commission.
  • Sir Stuart Lipton is CABE’s first chair. ‘We want to inject architecture into the bloodstream of the nation,’ he says.
  • A retail plan for Princesshay, Exeter, is CABE’s first major design review. ‘A proposal of real architectural excellence has not been achieved’, we say. An improved scheme returns in 2002 – and the completed centre opens in 2007.

2000

  • Jon Rouse is CABE’s first chief executive. An early meeting at 10 Downing Street results in the Prime Minister’s Better Public Building Award.
  • By design sets out a new government creed for higher standards: ‘good design is important everywhere’.
  • CABE reviews proposals for Birmingham’s Selfridges store: ‘a high-quality civic landmark which will make an important contribution to regeneration’.
  • CABE’s enabling service is set up to advise clients at the early stages of design, with 10 of the best built environment professionals, or ‘enablers’. By 2009, we can call on the support of 323 enablers – and in 10 years we enable 652 projects.

2001

  • Building for Life is launched as a pioneering partnership between CABE and the housebuilding industry. Architect Terry Farrell is its chair, with designer Wayne Hemingway taking over later.
  • CABE moves to Waterloo, returning the RFAC’s furniture to the V&A – but keeping a bust of Inigo Jones. New office interior is the first UK commission for newcomer David Adjaye.
  • CABE’s first research report, The value of urban design, shows how excellent design adds value rather than cost.

2002

  • Architecture and built environment centres centres start to benefit from a million pound annual funding programme run by CABE. By 2009, a network of 21 centres stretched from Newcastle to Plymouth.
  • Decrepit shop fronts, broken streetlamps and congested pavements earn Streatham High Road in south London the title of England’s worst road in CABE’s Streets of Shame campaign.
  • Brindleyplace in Birmingham and BedZED in Sutton are among the first great places in CABE’s case study library. By March 2009 there were 316 places we love online.

2003

  • Sheep, goats and chickens help launch CABE Space at Coram’s Fields, London. Our new unit aims to promote the best in public space design. CABE Space has since worked in 90 per cent of the most deprived areas in England.
  • Creating excellent buildings, weighing in at 1kg and 244 pages, is the first comprehensive guide created for public sector clients. In 10 years we directly advise 376 public bodies.
  • Linford Christie, Judi Dench and Ian McKellan name their own ‘wasted spaces’ as part of CABE Space’s campaign highlighting urban land in limbo.

2004

  • John Sorrell is appointed chair of CABE, after Stuart Lipton steps down. Richard Simmons becomes chief executive.
  • Serious concerns over designs for the Royal London Hospital gives way to warm praise, following several design reviews. In 10 years we advise on the design of 33 major health buildings.
  • Ashford is the venue for the first CABE urban design summer school. Since then, 664 professionals have attended the intensive four-day training course.

2005

  • Planning policy statement 1 comes into force, to a welcome. No longer is policy just about whether a scheme will harm a place. Now the design of each development must make a positive difference.
  • CABE moves its HQ to a Seifert-designed tower – the building formerly known as Space House – in London’s Covent Garden.
  • Another welcome from CABE, this time for government’s mandatory common minimum standards for procurement. Public building costs must now be considered over the whole lifetime of a project.

2006

  • CABE brings design and healthcare professionals together for a ‘health week’ of 60 events. ‘CABE has played a key role in supporting a step change’ in public building, health minister Andy Burnham says.
  • The design of eight out of 10 new private homes is not good enough, CABE’s national housing audit concludes – and one in five should not even have been given planning permission.
  • A proposal for a former filling station site on London’s Albert Embankment startles our design review panel. ‘This is one of the poorest tower designs it has been our misfortune to see.’ The proposal is later withdrawn.

2007

  • Following a 2006 audit which found that half of new schools were not good enough, CABE begins reviewing all significant BSF school proposals to help local authorities make the right planning decisions.
  • The Thames Gateway is described in New things happen as England’s San Francisco bay area. CABE’s identity project positions the Gateway as much more than space for new housing. Work on a pact follows to ensure design standards apply across the area.

2008

  • A third of a million people in Birmingham enjoyed the UK’s first climate change festival. CABE and the city council host 181 activities over nine days, helping people recognise the link between climate change and the design of the buildings and places around them.
  • Too much carbon and too little money means more holidays at home. CABE begins the management of a £45 million programme to boost cultural regeneration in coastal towns.
  • Young Muslim Londoners launch Inclusion by design, our publication moving the inclusive design agenda on from box-ticking on wheelchair access.
  • Building for Life is adopted by the Homes and Communities Agency and local authorities to assess new homes using the Building for Life standard. By 2011 every local authority in England will have accredited BfL assessors.

2009

  • Schoolchildren from around the country converge at the V&A museum in London for the launch of the Engaging Places education programme which is cosponsored by English Heritage. In six years, 230,000 young people take part in education programmes funded by CABE.
  • Exactly a century after Shackleton’s expedition to the South Pole, his footsteps feature in CABE’s national ad campaign for our new Sustainable Cities web resource.
  • Green infrastructure does not receive anything like the investment or management that goes into grey infrastructure. CABE Space urges a shift from Grey to Green.
  • Secondary school designs falling short of a new minimum design standard will never be built out. ‘The threshold adds real teeth to the design process,’ says schools minister Jim Knight.
  • World class places celebrates what has been achieved since Lord Rogers’ task force, and sets out an ambitious strategy for improving quality of place.

2010

2011

  • CABE launches new online versions of its two major client guides - Creating excellent buildings and Creating successful masterplans - drawing on more than ten years' experience of advising clients on how to get the best out of their projects.
  • Core funding of CABE by Government ends on 31 March. The organisation ceases to exist in its present form.