Tag: sustainability

  • Designing Intelligent Mobility

    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 […]

  • Creative Activism, COP26, Emerging and Forgotten Voices

    Creative Activism, COP26, Emerging and Forgotten Voices

    Today is the last day of COP26 and, being based in Glasgow, I thought it would be a good time to share some thoughts and images. I don’t want to write about COP26 itself, but rather about how creative activism has reshaped the city space and visually and emotionally engaged people in the last two […]

  • Sustainability in the Built Environment: UK Government Inquiry

    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 […]

  • The impact of the built environment on climate change – and of climate change on the built environment

    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 […]

  • Reducing carbon from older buildings: the need for holistic heritage approaches or… hot water bottles, curtains and lifecycle carbon

    Reducing carbon from older buildings: the need for holistic heritage approaches or… hot water bottles, curtains and lifecycle carbon

    My research is investigating ways to reduce carbon emissions from residential heritage buildings while retaining their heritage values. It is generally acknowledged that many more buildings can be considered heritage buildings than merely those designated in planning as listed or in conservation areas. It is unclear how many buildings fall into the ‘heritage category’ but it […]

  • An ecological turn

    An ecological turn

    As is the usual way of things for me, it was a couple of days before the abstract deadline that I clocked this conference in Bologna next January: The Ecological Turn. Design, architecture and aesthetics beyond “Anthropocene”. A key question they ask and describe is: ‘How does the ecological thinking affect architects, designers and the […]

  • Exploring the design in place of on-street wireless charging for EVs

    Exploring the design in place of on-street wireless charging for EVs

    We are taking part in an 18-month Innovate UK research project exploring the design of, and user interactions with, on-street wireless charging for electric vehicles (EVs). This £3m project, entitled “On-Street Residential Induction Charging”, or OSRIC for short, is about using induction charging plates in roadside parking bays that draw power from lampposts and are available […]

  • Exploring Blackpool and High Street Renewal

    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 […]

  • Transformative Transport design

    Transformative Transport design

    Sometimes something happens that represents the tipping point between simply enhancing the design of an existing product or service and when a transformative redesign happens. I am wondering if we are about to hit this for urban transport systems. The modern tram is frequently seen as a core high quality public transport system, but its […]

  • Additive Manufacturing – helping to reduce waste in aircraft production

    Additive Manufacturing – helping to reduce waste in aircraft production

    If you’ve read all the hype about 3D printing in recent years, you would be forgiven for thinking that we should all be driving around in 3D printed cars and 3D printing our own furniture by now.  Of course, in reality any new manufacturing process takes time to move into production, and after the hype […]