Design Group

Established in 2019 to inspire renewed ambition for the quality of the UK’s infrastructure.

Design Group

The Group exists to inspire, promote and champion design excellence in all nationally significant projects.

The National Infrastructure Commission’s Design Group was established in 2019 to inspire renewed ambition for the quality of the UK’s infrastructure.

Our mission

The Design Group’s mission is to inspire, promote and champion design excellence in all nationally significant infrastructure projects. This approach produces infrastructure which has social value and responds creatively to the needs of people, places and the environment.

We believe design processes help convene and engage people, to ensure new infrastructure improves quality of life across our communities and enhances the UK’s natural and built environment.

Having diverse professionals in the Design Group means we see and experience the world differently, though we are united by our shared belief in the transformative power of great design.

Design Group Chair Professor Sadie Morgan speaking at launch event for Design Principles
Design Group Chair Professor Sadie Morgan launching the Design Principles for National Infrastructure

Design Group members

A team of creative and technical design leaders, with experience spanning architecture, landscape, engineering and transport.

Design Principles

Guidance for embedding good design at every stage of infrastructure projects.

In February 2020, the Design Group published its Design Principles for National Infrastructure. This followed a recommendation made in the National Infrastructure Assessment.

These four principlesclimate, people, places and value – aim to guide the planning and delivery of future major infrastructure projects in the UK.

Download the principles

The principles build on the work of the Design Task Force established in the run up to the first National Infrastructure Assessment, which commissioned research on how such principles might be developed, sector attitudes to design, and a portfolio of examples demonstrating the value of design.

Case studies

In the four videos below, members of the Design Group and contributors involved in infrastructure design discuss four case study projects, each of which exemplifies one of the four National Infrastructure Design Principles.

Climate
People
Places
Value

Latest updates

Principles before particulars secures project success, say NIC design experts

Principles before particulars secures project success, say NIC design experts

The National Infrastructure Commission’s Design Group has published guidance on developing and implementing design principles for major infrastructure projects. Building on the Group’s high level design principles – climate, people, places and value – the new guidance sets out a structured process for applying tailored principles at every stage of a project life cycle. The...

21 May 2024 By
Letter to Planning Minister from Design Group Chair: Design excellence & National Policy Statements
The Severn Crossing behind a meadow of wildflowers

Letter to Planning Minister from Design Group Chair: Design excellence & National Policy Statements

Commission Design Group Chair Sadie Morgan has written to Lucy Frazer, the Minister of State for Housing and Planning at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, setting out the value of including clear guidance on the value of design in all of the National Policy Statements which set the strategic priorities for the...

5 Dec 2022 By
What makes good design? Commission’s Principles help frame civil engineers’ approach
Cover of report on good design in infrastructure by the ICE and NIC

What makes good design? Commission’s Principles help frame civil engineers’ approach

The National Infrastructure Commission’s Design Group has collaborated with the Institution of Civil Engineers on a major report examining the barriers to embedding good design at every stage of infrastructure projects. In September 2020, the ICE, in collaboration with the Commission’s Design Group, surveyed ICE members to establish how relevant they believed the Commission’s four...

13 Jul 2021 By
More news & insights
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Explore data used in the Commission's research, and gain insights from across UK infrastructure