Tag: built environment
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Cross-pollination Resources
Over the last year the Cross Pollination research project, part of the Placed-Based Research Programme hub, worked in several locations to see how the Cross Pollination approach could enable local organisations to enable their own communities. One of the key objectives for this particular research project was to develop ways to cascade and enable cross-pollination […]
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Designing Intelligent Mobility
This week I received a long-awaited early Christmas present. My Design Group colleagues, Matthew Cook, Miguel Valdez, James Warren and I had written a chapter entitled Towards an Intelligent Mobility Regime in the second edition of the Elsevier book Intelligent Environments. As often happens for a major internationally co-authored publication, this has been almost […]
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Sustainability in the Built Environment: UK Government Inquiry
Earlier this year the Environmental Audit Committee published a Call for Evidence on how best to reach ‘net zero’ in our built environment. They received 140 written responses, including two from members of the Design group, Alice Moncaster and Jane Anderson. Both were also invited to give evidence in person (virtually), Jane on […]
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The impact of the built environment on climate change – and of climate change on the built environment
Why is the built environment important to climate change? We all live and work in buildings, and they provide us with shelter and warmth, belonging and protection. However the built environment is responsible for a huge 39% of all global carbon emissions, far higher than any other individual sector. This 39% can be divided into […]
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Cities of permanent experiments and atmospheres of reception
We have been thinking quite a bit about the effect that urban experiments may have on cities, particularly when sustainability experiments become business as usual. This was inspired by our recently work on an Innovate UK project, On Street Residential Induction Charging (or OSRIC for short). The project involves the deployment of wireless chargers for […]
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Exploring Blackpool and High Street Renewal
Last week I visited Blackpool for the first time, to help facilitate an event with local residents looking at high street renewal. The event was organised by The Glass-House Community Led Design in partnership with our Design Group and Historic England, to collaboratively explore how historic high streets can be reimagined to better serve their […]
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Design dreams of digital worlds – but is digitech sympathetic?
The architectural collective Assemble– winners of the Turner Prize – continue to explore the designed and manufactured world in the second part of BBC Radio 4’s series, The Sympathy of Things inspired by John Ruskin’s views on aesthetics and the central role of sympathy. With Amica Dall and Giles Smith, the BBC state “The series is an argument […]
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Design dreams of the material world – but is it sympathetic?
Have a listen to BBC Radio 4’s two-part series, The Sympathy of Things in which the architectural collective ‘Assemble’ – winners of the Turner Prize – explore the designed and manufactured world, arguing that just as mass production has disrupted and changed our relationship to the material world, so digital technologies will also disrupt these relationships […]
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Smart & Green Building Expo Milton Keynes 2018
Where else to host the inaugural Smart and Green Building Expo than Milton Keynes, one of the UK’s smart cities? Milton Keynes is famous for its many smart city initiatives, such as MK:Smart, which developed innovative smart projects including, the MK IoT network demonstrator, the MotionMap city-wide transport information service, the Our:MK platform for community engagement, the […]
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PhD Fellowship Opportunities at the Energy DTA
Energy research opportunities at The Open University (OU) through the DTA3 COFUND Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD Fellowship Programme. The OU is a partner on the successful bid for the ‘Extended University Alliance Doctoral Training Alliances (DTA) in Energy, Applied Biosciences for Health and Social Policy called The DTA3 COFUND Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD Fellowship Programme. This is […]