Building and Urban Science
We investigate how the built environment impacts people and vice versa to promote a more sustainable future. Our research in novel methods development supports policies such as decarbonisation of the built environment and the transition to active travel.
About our work
Our research generates new data by experiment and field study, and analyses this and secondary data to test hypotheses and to calibrate statistical and physical simulation models (for example, in lighting, energy, comfort and behaviour). We also investigate the nature of space and spatiality by theorising space as something particular to the living recipient rather than an objective container. Bio-inspired computational models use algorithms and biological principles to generate architectural form, spatial configuration and building morphologies. The Building and Urban Science research cluster excels in bringing scientific perspective and evidence to how buildings and the environments they provide, and are located in, perform, inclusive of occupants' interactions with them. Our strengths complement those of the other clusters, and their perspectives in humanities, social and ecological theories.
Our activities
Lighting and Active Travel
We investigate how outdoor lighting affects the safety and perceived safety of walking and cycling, for example crash risk, crime risk, discomfort from glare, and reassurance. The impact of our research includes improvements to national and international guidance for lighting, and the development of novel cycle lighting that enhances conspicuity.
Multi-scale energy simulation
Physics-based simulation of buildings and their interactions with climate (and the associated comfort and health impacts) and infrastructure at varying scales of aggregation; from single buildings, through neighbourhoods and districts, to cities and regional and national stocks of buildings. The purpose of these simulation models is mainly to better understand the effectiveness of strategies and policy interventions to decarbonise the built environment.
Stochasticity and behaviour
Following the famous quote from statistician George Box that ‘all models are wrong, but some of them are useful’, in this theme we employ parsimonious statistical and computational methods to better represent: the behavioural impacts of people on building performance (complementing the physics-based simulations), the uncertainties and sensitivities in building performance, the feedback of occupants’ interactions on their perceptions of comfort and under-/over-heating.
Climate and Indoor air quality
Mitigation effects of vegetation planning and design in urban air quality; explainable machine learning for modelling population exposure to indoor air pollutants; heat adaptation for care quality and operational resilience in hospitals; climate equity by design for the UK's just net-zero transition.
Biosemiotics and architecture
Exploring how sign processes, communication, and meaning-making give form to space, and how architecture functions as a kind of language. Built environment, health & wellbeing — Investigating how the geometry and form of architectural environments affect people physiologically and psychologically.
Sustainable Digital Design
Generative architectural design to support early-stage exploration and optimisation; AI-assisted BIM workflows to automate modelling, classification, and design decision-making; graph-based and semantic modelling for intelligent interpretation of building data; building performance analytics; low-carbon design strategies.
Pedagogical research for sustainable building and urban design
We develop a range of Open Educational Resources (OERs). Completed examples include a textbook on science and technology of low carbon design, a climate analysis app and a Google site on architectural acoustics. We also conduct citation, bibliometric and social network analysis to better understand the nature of research, knowledge accumulation, growth in citation metrics and how collaborative networks form.