Category: Design research
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Design, Development and Impact of Sustainability Website Resources
More than ten years ago, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) funded the design, development and launch of Soil-Net, an innovative, open, online soil education website resource to support school curricula. Soil science has been under-represented in teaching National Curriculum in UK schools, despite recognition of soil as a major global natural […]
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Citizenship in the smart city
The suite of smart city standards recently published by the British Standards Institute attempts to legitimise smart city developments by placing citizens at the centre of them. Working with Simon Joss and Youri Dayot from the University of Westminster, I analysed the standards to try to figure out how citizenship might evolve in the smart […]
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Lurking and learning at eSTEeM
Today we have presented on the 6th eSTEeM Annual Conference some of the findings from our eSTEeM funded project on student progression in OpenDesignStudio. The bottom line is that you even though you might just ‘lurk’ online, you can learn and succeed in your studies. Simply viewing the work other design students have posted online will […]
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A Tale of Research in Smart Cities
The challenge to design the smartest cities has been embraced in most larger UK cities but less is known about how to evaluate and measure the “smartness” of each approach. Smart city programmes are springing up across UK cities, offering solutions for contemporary challenges facing cities associated with population and urbanisation pressures, and bringing opportunities […]
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Places of worship, design, and communities
In the Empowering Design Practices project we have been working with groups of different faiths and denominations who look after historic buildings and who want to develop and ensure the sustainability of those buildings through co-design and community engagement. Places of worship have historically been functioning as centres of community life. But what is the […]
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Design and Innovation: Past, Present and Future
A useful summary by Harriet Powney of Robin Roy’s paper for the Design Research Society’s 2016 conference and his book Consumer Product Innovation and Sustainable Design has been featured on the website of the OU’s IKD Research Centre & SRA in International Development and Inclusive Innovation. She writes: New products are never simply the result […]