ABSTRACT
Housing design is, to a greater or lesser extent, the subject of regulation 2 by individual governments in Europe, involving a wide diversity of definitions of quality and of regulatory structures. In most countries there are building regulations which cover at least basic health and safety aspects of housing construction in all sectors, and increasingly go beyond this into energy and acoustic performance and even into areas such as accessibility for disabled people. In addition to the building regulations there are normally much more comprehensive types of housing quality ‘norms’, covering aspects such as internal space, layout and amenity. These ‘norms’ can be expressed in legislation, in mandatory building regulations, in official standards or as requirements of financing or insurance agencies. They sometimes cover all sectors, but more often apply only to housing in receipt of state loans or subsidies or within certain cost or size limits. In relation to the external environment and location, all countries have planning legislation which applies more or less to all sectors alike. In this chapter, we are mostly concerned with the first two types of regulation, but we make reference to the third as an important element in the whole picture. 3
