The Design Quality Manual helps give an objective evaluation of the qualitative aspects of design. Matrices with five defined levels of quality have been developed that cover the key areas of architecture, environmental engineering, user comfort conditions, whole-life costs, detail design and user satisfaction. These can be scored by a visual survey and professional judgement and then augmented by scientific measurement where ... Read morepossible (e.g. temperature, lighting and sound levels). The resultant scores allow comparisons in terms of overall and specific aspects of building performance and design quality.

The Manual covers schools, hospitals and housing and offers a set of criteria by which to judge a broad range of design values; it focuses the design team on the needs of the end user and on the overall building performance.