The various aspects of design - such as creation, function, and aesthetic - can be applied to many different disciplines and provide them with a value. While this is universally true for architecture, it has not traditionally been acknowledged for real estate, despite the close association between the two. Traditionally, real estate valuation has been determined by certain sales factors: income generated, recent similar sales, and replacement costs.
Now, a new book by researchers at MIT explores how design can be quantified in real estate valuation. "Value of Design: Creating Agency Through Data-Driven Insights" (Applied Research and Design Publishing) uses data-driven research to reveal how design leaves measurable traces in the built environment that correlate with real economic, social, and environmental outcomes.
The late MIT Research Scientist Andrea Chegut, along with Visiting Instructor Minkoo Kang SMRED '18, Helena Rong SMArchS '19, and Juncheng "Tony" Yang SMArchS '19, present a body of years of interdisciplinary social science research that weave together historical context, real-world case studies, and critical reflections that engage a broader dialogue on design, value, and the built environment.
Kang, Rong, and Yang met as students at the MIT Real Estate Innovation Lab , which was co-founded and directed by Chegut, who passed away in December 2022. Under Chegut's direction, interdisciplinary research at the lab helped establish the analytical tools and methodologies that underpin the book's core arguments. The lab formerly closed after Chegut's passing.
Q: How might the tools used in this research impact how an investor or real estate developer makes decisions on a property?
Kang: This book doesn't offer a formula for replicable outcomes, nor should it. Real estate is deeply contextual, and every project carries its own constraints and potential. What our research provides is evidence: looking back at 20 years of patterns in New York City data, we see that design components - physical features such as podiums, unique non-orthogonal geometries, and high-rise setbacks; environmental qualities like daylight access, greenery, and open views; and a building's contextual fit within its neighborhood - has a more substantial and consistent influence on value than the industry tends to credit.
Rong: One reason design has been left out of valuation practice is the siloing of architectural information: drawings stay inside individual firms, and there are no standards for identifying or quantifying the components that make up a design. We have countless databases, but never a true "design database." This book starts to fill that gap by inventorying architectural features and showing how to measure them with both insights from architectural theory and exploration of computational methods and tools. Using today's reality-capture technologies and the large-scale transaction data we obtained, we uncovered long-term patterns: Buildings that invested in thoughtful design often performed better, not only in financial terms, but also in how they contributed to neighborhood identity and sustained demand. The takeaway isn't prescriptive, but directional. Design should not be treated as an aesthetic afterthought, or an intangible variable. Its impact is durable, measurable, and, importantly, undervalued, which is why it is something developers and investors should not only pay attention to, but actively prioritize.
Q: Can you share an example of how design influences urban change?
Kang: As a designer and real estate developer, my work sits at the intersection of architecture, finance, and neighborhood communities. I often collaborate with resident stakeholders to reimagine overlooked or underutilized properties as meaningful, long-term assets - using design both as a tool to shape development strategy and as a medium for community engagement and consensus building.
One recent example involved supporting a longtime property owner in transforming their single-family home into a 40-unit, mixed-income apartment building. Rather than maximizing density at all costs, the project prioritized livability, sustainability, and contextual fit - compact units with generous access to light and air, shared amenities like co-working space and a community room, and passive house-level energy performance.
Through design, we were able to unlock a new housing typology - one that balances financial feasibility with community ownership and long-term affordability. It's a reminder that design's influence on urban change extends beyond aesthetics or form. It helps determine who development serves, how neighborhoods evolve, and what kinds of futures are made possible.
Q: How can this research be of use to policymakers?
Yang: Policymakers usually consider broader and longer-term urban outcomes: livability, resilience, equity, and community cohesion. This research provides the empirical foundation to connect those outcomes to concrete design choices.
By quantifying how design influences not just real estate performance, but neighborhood identity, access, and sustainability, the book offers policymakers a new evidence base to inform zoning, public incentives, and regulatory frameworks. But more than that, we think this kind of data-driven insight can help align interests across the ecosystem: urban planners, private developers, community organizations, and residents, by demonstrating that high-quality design delivers shared, long-term value.
In a time when urban space is increasingly contested, being able to point to measurable impacts of design helps shift debates from ideology to informed decision-making. It gives public agencies a firmer ground to demand more, and to build coalitions around the kinds of neighborhoods we want to sustain. Basically, this research helps create agency by making design intelligible in urban spaces where key decisions are made. The kind of agency we're interested in is not about control, but about influence and authorship. Design shapes how cities function and feel, who they serve, and how they change. Yet too often, those decisions are made without recognizing design's role. By surfacing how design leaves durable, measurable traces in the built environment, this work gives designers and allied actors a stronger voice in shaping development and public discourse. It also invites broader participation: community groups, resident advocates, and others can use this evidence to articulate why building attributes and environmental quality matter. In this sense, the agency is distributed. It's not just about empowering designers, but about equipping all stakeholders to see design as a shared, strategic tool for shaping more equitable, resilient, and humane urban futures.
