High-quality Baukultur is defined by well designed cities, villages and buildings. High-quality places create a pleasant living environment. They are good for people‘s well-being and health. But what exactly is high-quality Baukultur? How can it be defined and put into practice?

That is the purpose of the Davos Baukultur Quality System. It is an instrument enabling the assessment of Baukultur qualities in places with the help of the following eight criteria: Governance, Functionality, Environment, Economy, Diversity, Context, Sense of Place and Beauty. Furthermore, the quality system supports planning and projects, competition judging and participatory processes. It also incorporates and weights social, emotional and cultural values equally to technical and functional aspects.

The quality system includes an assessment form with a questionnaire for each of the eight criteria. This questionnaire can be adapted to the specific situation of a place or project and expanded if necessary. The completed questionnaire is used to determine the Baukultur quality of a place as well as its strengths and weaknesses from a Baukultur perspective.

The Swiss Federal Office of Culture (FOC) created the Davos Baukultur Quality System in cooperation with international partners. The Quality System is a contribution to the ongoing Davos Process that began in 2018 with the adoption of the Davos Declaration “Towards a high-quality Baukultur for Europe”. The quality system complements existing instruments and contributes to the maintenance and design of diverse high-quality Baukultur places.

Author: Swiss Federal Office of Culture

Date: 2021

Link

https://davosdeclaration2018.ch/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/2022-06-17-174034-dbqs-en.pdf