ecobuild, London

CIBSE & UKCIP are proud to present the third annual GI design challenge!

Supported by ecobuild, this challenge highlighted the role of building-level green infrastructure, such as green roofs, living walls, indoor farms and gardens in creating sustainable indoor and outdoor environments. 

The competition asked for designs of buildings (existing or in planning) that demonstrate how both indoor and outdoor green infrastructure can contribute to the health and wellbeing of occupants, while simultaneously improving the building’s energy efficiency and climatic resilience.

This year’s winning team, Green Roof Shelters, is a company that takes necessary structures – such as bus stops, bin storage units or bike sheds – and turns them into individual ecosystems. Vertical surfaces provide habitats for insects and small mammals, with horizontal surfaces planted to provide pollen and nectar. The green roofs can also be designed to trap water and develop into mini-wetlands.

The prizes were presented by George Adams, Chair of the CIBSE Resilient Cities Special Interest Group, with judges Susie Diamond, Vice-chair CIBSE Resilient Cities Special Interest Group, Chloe Hampton from LSBU, David Stevens vice chair of the CIBSE Facilities Management Special Interest Group. Prof Derek Clements-Croome from Reading University also took part in the judging, but was unable to attend the event.

Winning entries

Winner – John Little from Green Roof Shelters

Click on the image for a pdf version (32.1 MB)

Highly commended – Jake Attwood Harris from Hawkins\Brown

Click on the image for a pdf version (36.1 MB)

There are two big issues facing our cities; the global population is booming, and more people are living longer. Both of these impact greatly on our cities and cannot be ignored if we are to ensure a sustainable urban environment.

According to the United Nations, these demographic trends will be among the “most significant” social transformations facing the modern era, impacting nearly all countries. The proportion of citizens living in urban areas is expected to increase by nearly two-thirds by 2050, and is widely recognised as an immense additional pressure on capacity to sustain the urban environment and infrastructure.

Changes in population demographics have resulted in an increased number of ‘third age’ citizens living in cities. As highlighted by the UK Housing our Ageing Population: Panel for Innovation (HAPPI panel) and subsequent HAPPI reports by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Care for Older People, there is a clear opportunity to improve the quality of life for the UK’s ageing population, and to challenge the negative perceptions towards older persons as they enjoy the longer post-working life period, referred to as their ‘third age’. There is also an opportunity to raise the aspirations of older people themselves to demand a higher quality built environment that does support their ageing and mobility.

The research projects included in the following work were funded under the cross research council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing programme, specifically the Design for wellbeing funding call and also including the ARCC BIOPICCC project, are all relevant to decision-makers interested in improving the health and wellbeing of our ageing society. The research findings include consideration of green space, the importance of choice, using technology and toolkits, the value of cycling and mobility scooters, the positive interactions within various forms of accommodation, as well as road set-ups that allow for easy crossing that reduce community severance.

The central aim of these diverse research projects is to better support the various stages of planning, design, and management of housing, neighbourhoods and public spaces, and how they can be improved to support the wellbeing and mobility of older people.

In order to help stakeholders with their decision-making, the information below covers the breadth of areas related to this topic, and is intentionally in headline format with quick-reference links to provide further details when required.

These are covered under the themes of:

• Understanding behaviour & the impact of perception
• Accommodation & care futures
• The importance of choice – co-design
• Transport
• Green spaces
• Technology/toolkits

The ARCC network has undertaken this synthesis exercise on behalf of the eight research projects featured on the diagram below. We would especially like to thank them for their time and commitment to this process.

Understanding behaviour & the impact of perception

What does the research tell us?

The key challenge for those looking at the big picture of our increasingly ageing population and the impacts of the built environment on their health and wellbeing is to consider a shift in their perceptions. Instead of seeing our ageing population as a problem to be solved through solutions such as specialist housing, the aspirations and knowledge (and spending power) of older people should be viewed as an opportunity to deliver the next generation of mainstream high quality and sustainable homes, and to regenerate our neighbourhoods and urban centres.

Changes in an older person’s life such as giving up driving, starting to live alone, or living with a physical impairment or sensory loss have an impact on mobility. Mobility, however, is enabled or constrained not only by the design of the built environment, but also by the impact of the attitudes and behaviours of service providers and the wider public.

To get a good understanding of how older people utilise their spaces, there are systems of sensors and smart devices to collect data about residents’ movement and activities. In tandem with qualitative methods, such as walking interviews, this can tell you how time is spent, where physical activity and social interactions occur. This can be particularly valuable data when making decisions around design or building requirements.

Even a short walk can lift the mood if the environment is sufficiently varied. Green spaces seem to be restorative, offering a respite from the tiring demands that busy urban places make on our directed attention. Older people walking between different types of urban environments show changes in their emotional response to place, based on brain activity patterns.

BESiDE
It is important to capture the voice of the users – older people themselves are the voice of authority, with insights into the importance of having and retaining some control over their way of life, and the need for satisfactory relationships within the constraints of a communal lifestyle.

What we can do about it?

It is critical to remember that older people range in their needs, they are not a homogenous group.

There needs to be a stronger emphasis on addressing the impact of attitudes and behaviours amongst service providers and the wider public on mobility in later life – and at this strategic level, the opportunity exists to explore the need for more explicit national guidance in the way we plan and design our homes and neighbourhoods for an ageing society and the role of awareness raising strategies and techniques to support the adoption locally by local authorities and their partners. This, in turn, requires greater leadership in engagement with industry leaders and local stakeholders, including older people, to respond to reviews, act on innovative practice and engender change.

Projects – Understanding behaviour & the impact of perception

• BESiDE
• Cycle Boom
• Co-Motion
• Mobility, Mood and Place

Accommodation & care futures

What does the research tell us?

The design and layout of the home can help older people to be more active day-to-day. Designing for these varying mobilities follows these five principles that allow ageing individuals to balance continuity and change; movement and stillness; independence and interdependence; and maintain openness and active involvement in decision-making.

There needs to be a wider focus in the housing market beyond first time buyers – downsizing or rightsizing in later life has an important role to play in supporting people to make the positive choices to improve their quality of life and future. A dramatic expansion of this form of housing could also play a vital role in creating and sustaining age-friendly mixed-age neighbourhoods and communities that support people to remain active and engaged throughout their third and fourth age.

Downsizing in later life has an important role to play in supporting people to make the positive choices to improve their quality of life and future wellbeing. A dramatic expansion of this form of housing could also play a vital role in creating and sustaining age-friendly mixed-age neighbourhoods and communities that support people to remain active and engaged throughout their third and fourth age.

Some specialist housing is lacking in terms of design ambition and quality, and is geared towards somewhat conservative notions of what older people want and need, rather than the aspirations of future generations. This includes the location of specialist schemes (often on the fringes of towns and villages), space provision in private apartments (often too small to accommodate guests and extended families), the environmental design (poor daylighting and ventilation), the types and provision of communal spaces (often based around the nursing home concept of the residents ‘lounge’), and the overall approach to fit-out and interior design (very prescriptive and institutional in feel). There is a risk that many of these schemes will not appeal to future generations and may become hard to let, hard to sell or require expensive remodelling or refurbishment.

DWELL
We may be reaching a tipping point in terms of attitudes towards downsizing. There is clearly strong demand amongst a substantial proportion of third-agers, but the supply and choice of downsizer homes is being stymied by a lack of innovation and a failure to deliver joined up housing policy.

What we can do about it?

For those operating at the strategic level, it is important to create links with local authority housing and planning departments, housing associations, developers, architects and local community networks such as access groups in looking at particular age-friendly design and building requirements that will impact on the positive ageing and mobility in the built environment.

When observing a week in the life of a care home, five characteristics were concluded of supportive care home buildings … legible, traversable, interconnected, aesthetic and diverse. How applicable are these for independent living too?

Projects – Accommodation & care futures

• BESiDE
• DWELL

The importance of choice – co-design

In recognising that older people are not a single homogenous group, it is also important to recognise that they have tremendous lived experience that can positively influence the discussions around their surroundings and lifestyles.

What does the research tell us?

Capturing the voice of the users – community residents themselves were the voice of authority, insights into the importance of having and retaining some control over their way of life, and the need for satisfactory relationships within the constraints of a communal lifestyle.

When co-designing for age-friendly buildings, spaces and communities, there are many opportunities relating to technology that will improve skills and enhance the understanding of all involved. These range from simple drawings and model-making activities to community mapping, the use of Photovoice, and more technological solutions such as GIS.

Investing time in relationship building is critical, and often this does not mean just attending a care home and asking questions straight out, as these discussions can be too remote for residents to engage with. There are techniques around supported conversations, the use of craft, and picture cards that will help you engage with older residents.

MyPLACE
Third sector organisations are increasingly turning to community‐level initiatives to increase service user participation in the design of services.

What we can do about it?

Talking to older people directly about what is significant to them (as both service users and local assets in terms of local knowledge and informal support) needs to be integrated with the more formal and technical knowledge of professionals, service providers and academics.

Co-design in the built environment for positive ageing and mobility can include a range of experts including the older people themselves, plus planning, design, health, geography, sociology, gerontology, transport specialists, developers, futurists, technology developers, and the list goes on! Design examplar from Mobility, Mood and Place (pdf, 93.7 MB)

Projects – The importance of choice – co-design

• BESiDE
• BIOPICCC
• DWELL
• Mobility, Mood and Place
• Street Mobility

Transport

From across these research findings, those relating to improving transport are specifically relating to cycling, walking and also mobility scooters. But there are also findings relating to the resilience of these transport systems, particularly how important they are in ensuring continuous care for our older populations, whether this be in a care home, access to a range of services in primary or secondary medical care as well as social and community facilities, or care on the move services.

When choosing where to walk, older people value things like colour and wildlife, opportunities for social contact, and familiar places, especially those linked to key memories.

BIOPICCC
Resilient transport systems and mobility infrastructures are highly significant for continuous access to care for chronic illness, especially given that ‘extreme events’ such as flooding are becoming more common across the country.

What does the research tell us?

Older people are more likely to have mobility limitations, and people with mobility limitations were significantly more likely to report that various problems often or always affected their ability to walk locally.

Greater consideration in policy needs to be given to ‘care on the move’ and the role that transport and the wider built environment play as sites where care and support takes place.

Cycle BOOM
In addition to the benefits of physical activity cycling offers the potential for positive experience through engaging with landscape, fostering personal relationships and maintaining social contact with the outside world. In combination, this can provide a significant contribution to health and wellbeing.

Specifically relating to cycling are the following points:

• Despite this, cycling remains desirable among a small but significant minority of older people who have or are managing to prolong cycling under specific circumstances of their choosing ‘partial cycling’, and cycling is regarded as dangerous and the majority of the older population is therefore reluctant to cycle.
• Cycling also often becomes more difficult for people as they get older because of an ageing body, unsupportive built environment and technology ill adapted to their needs. To perform everyday cycling mobility often requires tremendous physical and emotional labour and therefore a willingness and ability to develop resilience. Older people’s cycling is therefore precarious and a generation that has already acquired cycling skills and a positive regard to cycling is diminishing.
• There is a significant potential market of older people contemplating cycling as part of a personal project for healthy ageing particularly given the growth in the availability and popularity of power-assisted cycles (e-bikes).

Incorporating technology with the transport options, a mobility scooter pilot study developed new sensors and low cost mobile devices to provide an improved basis for understanding the issues faced by mobility scooter users. A pilot study also identified a number of key areas for future research into improvement to urban planning as well as mobility scooter design that could provide solutions for improved wellbeing and mobility for scooter users. The key areas included the themes of technology, safety and accessibility.

In looking at walking as a method of transport, there are barriers to increasing the rates of walking amongst old people. One particular barrier is that of community severance, where the set-up of the road prohibits effective walking:

• When faced with a busy road, older people were more likely to report a time waiting to cross of over 30 seconds
• Older people have a strong aversion to using footbridges and underpasses
• Older people attach a higher value to their ability to walk to where they need to get without severance.

Street Mobility
Busy roads will deter people from walking along them or crossing on foot, and this severance also reduces the desirability of streets as social spaces.

What we can do about it?

In urban areas where the ‘car is king’, it is important to improve the transport and mobility options for our older populations by considering that this multi-tiered process requires a lot of planning and design. These discussions should start early and include the voices of the older populations as well as incorporating the findings from this research to mitigate problems experienced when cycling and using mobility scooters as well as ensuring that road planning takes into account the ease at which pedestrians can cross from one section to another.

Projects – Transport

• BIOPICCC
• Cycle BOOM
• Co-Motion
• Street Mobility

Green spaces

Access to green spaces, particularly in an urban context, may have beneficial implications not only the health of our ageing population, but all of the others stages along the way. That feeling of freshness and the positive effect on mood and brain activity has been shown through this research.

What does the research tell us?

Four qualities of place really make a difference to quality of life: access for all, access to nature, access to others and access to light.

The mundane matters and the commonplace counts! Everyday things, such as pavement quality, benches and street lighting, can make all the difference as we get older.

Even a short walk can lift the mood if the environment is sufficiently varied. Things like colour and wildlife, opportunities for social contact, and familiar places, especially those linked to key memories, are highly valued.

Well-designed environments can support older adults who have experienced a stroke to engage in, and return to, the activities they value.

Healthy ageing is influenced by local environments throughout our lives, beginning in childhood. Features of the environment – such as nearby access to public parks – can have lifelong positive associations with healthy ageing and in particular, with better cognitive health in later life.

Mood, Mobility and Place
Green spaces seem to be restorative, offering respite from the tiring demands that busy urban places make on our directed attention. Older people walking between different types of urban environments show changes in their emotional response to place, based on brain activity patterns.

What we can do about it?

There are implications for the way we design our public spaces to ensure that people of all ages, and levels of mobility, can continue to get out and about. This may be at a strategic policy level, or decisions at the local authority level, and especially relevant to those who are providing the ways in, out and around public green spaces, including the easy of which people can cross roads to access these spaces.

Projects – Green spaces

• Mobility, Mood and Place
• MyPLACE

Technology & toolkits

An evidence review by Age UK of the benefits of technology for older people identified areas including:

• Reducing loneliness and isolation
• Being in control
• Living independently
• Participating and contributing

However, it cannot be assumed that any technology will necessarily be easy for an older people to learn. A very useful approach is the co-design of applications and toolkits that will involve people at all stages of their design, this will ensure technologies such as smartphones and tablets are useable and acceptable.

What does the research tell us?

Diverse approaches to participatory mapping offer the potential for more inclusive ways of taking forwards public engagement in identifying local priorities for changes to the design and regulation of the built environment.

In fact, carers themselves are ready to engage with technology when it makes sense in the context of their lives and when it ameliorates the lives of those they care for. Although some carers were hesitant about places advertised as ‘dementia-friendly’ because although they did not want to have places created for them which would effectively segregate them.

Co-Motion
The design and evaluation of a “Walking for Wellbeing” application for smartphone, which allows older adults to plan walking routes in their local area, highlights how this process can be used to develop an app to prototype.

What we can do about it?

Co-design! Co-design! Co-design! It is important not to create solutions on behalf of those intended to receive the benefit. For example, with wearable research devices – to enable people to engage with care home residents, the off-the-shelf wearables or monitoring devices were personalised as appropriate for them.

In particular research looking at an application that would list dementia‐friendly places within a given locality, the overall response was generally positive. But found the lack of depth and specific information in the current application somewhat disappointing. They indicated that longer reviews and more targeted information would be welcome.

By using technology to map activity ‘hot spots’ in the care home, it creates an understanding of when and where different types of physical activity and social interaction take place. This is valuable information that can be used by those planning the care facilities to understand what the environment needs to support an ageing population.

Projects – Technology/toolkits

• Co-Motion
• MyPLACE
• Street Mobility

And next steps…

The information provided includes important considerations across a number of themes that are also very closely intertwined, as you will see from the diagram at the top of the page. Some of the findings may be stating the obvious, however, these research projects not only create new knowledge, but sometimes reaffirm the status quo. Both are equally important.

Beyond introducing this suite of findings, the ARCC knowledge exchange network would encourage readers to look across the different themes, and further into each of the research projects as there are many important contributions towards using our built environment to improve health and wellbeing for the ageing population.

Acknowledgements

Led by the ARCC network, this work delivers a broad introduction to research findings from the Design for wellbeing call funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to support evidence-led decision-making into ageing and mobility in the built environment.

The following projects are to be commended for their collaborative work with each other and stakeholders to synthesise and target their research findings. This work intends to make it simpler for stakeholders to find those ‘unknown unknowns’, to create a marker for the latest research across a range of themes rather than promoting individual results only:

Mood, Mobility and Place

• Catharine Ward Thompson
• Katherine Brookfield
• Máire Cox
• Mark Cherrie

Street Mobility

• Jenny Mindell
• Jemima Stockton

Co-Motion

• Mark Bevan
• Howard Cambridge
• Steve Cinderby

BESiDE

• Ian Harrison
• Marianne Dee

DWELL

• Sarah Wigglesworth
• Friederike Ziegler

Cycle BOOM

• Tim Jones
• Ben Spencer

MyPlace

• Peter Wright
• Kellie Morrissey

BIOPICCC

• Sarah Curtis
• Jonathan Wistow

Many thanks are also due to the stakeholders who contributed their time and expertise in guiding the preparation of these materials. By attending the ARCC network workshop in London in April 2017, they made valuable contributions to the development of this evidence base that includes interdisciplinary engineering, social science and design research for wellbeing in the built environment.

This event, part of Green Sky Thinking Week, will feature talks by leading experts, presentations from shortlisted design teams and announcement of the winning and highly commended entries.

We’re looking for designs for office buildings (existing or in planning) that demonstrate how both indoor and outdoor green infrastructure can contribute to the health, wellbeing and productivity of staff, while simultaneously improving the building’s energy efficiency and climatic resilience.

The interaction of indoor plants with heating, cooling, acoustic management, air quality, staff productivity and wellbeing is an exciting and growing area of research: the benefits of green infrastructure don’t need to remain outside the building entrance.

Recording of launch webinar

Judging criteria

The proposals will be judged on evidence provided against the following categories:

• Health, wellbeing and productivity of staff – improving staff working environment including the indoor / outdoor air quality
• Improving energy efficiency – looking for solutions that complement and enhance existing building systems
• Climate resilience – improving thermal comfort, water management and flood prevention measures

Design submissions must make clear any associated requirements for the building’s maintenance and management regime.

The design should demonstrate consideration of:

• the building curtilage – the surroundings: street scene, plazas, courtyards, other public spaces surrounding the building
• the external building surfaces
• the building’s interior

London

Partners: Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health & BRE

Our event brought together 62 professionals from across the research, industry, policy and third sector communities to think about and inform future action on solutions for reducing exposure to air pollution when indoors. Delegates considered:

• what solutions can be enacted now?
• what solutions do we potentially have, but do not yet know enough about? and
• what knowledge gaps do we have that need research and innovation effort?

In 2016, both the RCP & RCPCH working party report Every breath we take and The Bonfield Review Eash home counts recommended taking action to tackle poor indoor air quality. Later this year, NICE will publish guidance on Outdoor Air Quality and are developing guidelines on Indoor Air Quality.

Prof Jonathan Grigg

Queen Mary University of London

Prof Stephen Holgate CBE

Chair of the Royal College of Physicians working party which published the report Every breath we take: the lifelong impact of air pollution in 2016. Professor Holgate is the Medical Research Council Clinical Professor of Immunopharmacology and Honorary Consultant Physician within Medicine at the University of Southampton. His current research focuses on stratified medicine, the role of the epithelium in orchestrating asthma and the evolution of asthma across the lifecourse.

Dr Peter Bonfield

CEO of BRE and author of the independent Bonfield review

The Bonfield Review ‘Each Home Counts’ was published in 2016. Dr Peter Bonfield joined BRE as a research scientist in 1992 and become Chief Executive Officer of the BRE Group of companies in January 2012. Peter is also Chairman of the Health, Safety and Environment committee for AIRTO – the Association for Independent Research and Technology Organisations. He is a Vice President and Trustee of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and is a Fellow of Institution of Civil Engineers, Institution of Engineering and Technology, Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and the Chartered Institute of Building.

Prof Jonathan Grigg

Queen Mary University of London

Professor Grigg is a Professor of Paediatric Respiratory and Environmental Medicine. He was vice chair of the RCP/RCPCH working party on the long term effects of air pollution and is a member of the committee of the medical effects of air pollutants (COMEAP).

Dr Marcella Ucci

Chair of the UK Indoor Environments Group (UKIEG) & University College London

UKIEG is a multidisciplinary network for UK activity concerned with indoor environments, health and well-being. Dr Ucci’s expertise includes building monitoring and modelling, health impact of buildings (especially biological such as dust mites), application of epidemiological methods to built environment studies, and operational aspect of buildings – especially occupant behaviour.

Dr Andy Dengel

Director, BRE Environment

Andy joined BRE in 2006, and currently leads the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) team, along with those dealing with air pollution, lighting and HVAC engineering. Andy also leads BRE’s research and consultancy activities on the physical monitoring of indoor environments.

Dr Gary Fuller

King’s College London

Dr Fuller is an air pollution scientist in the Environmental Research Group at King’s College London. His research focuses on the sources of urban air pollution, particularly PM10, and how these affect people’s health. He has led the development of the London Air quality Network, now the largest urban network in Europe.Dr Fuller is a member of the MRC-PHE Centre for Environment and Health and the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Health Impact of Environmental Hazards.

Prof Martin Williams

King’s College London

Prof Williams’ research focuses on the relationship between air quality and health, and on the linkages between air quality and climate change. He also chairs the Executive Body of the UNECE Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution, and chairs the Modelling Review Steering Group for Defra.

Dr Ben Jones

University of Nottingham

Dr Jones’ work focuses on measurement, analytical, and modelling approaches to the indoor environment in order to create a low-carbon and healthy building stock. He is currently investigating the infiltration of air into UK housing stock, the energy required to heat that air, and examining fine particles emitted during home cooking and methods of reducing exposure to them. Dr Jones is a UK representative on the board of the Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre, and the secretary of the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers Natural Ventilation Group.

Dr Paul Harrison

Independent consultant toxicologist and Director of IEH Consulting Ltd. Prof Harrison chaired the EU Working Group on ‘Lowest Concentration of Interest’, developing a system establishing limits for acceptable level of emissions of hazardous substances from building products. He was a co-author of the recent RCP/RCPCH report “Every breath we take”.

Dr Sani Dimitroulopoulou

Public Health England

Dr Sani Dimitroulopoulou is a Senior Environmental Scientist within the Environmental Change Department at PHE’s Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards. She has expertise on indoor and outdoor air quality, ventilation and population exposure. She represents PHE as the policy lead in the Cross Government Group on Gas Safety and Carbon Monoxide Awareness (COCGG) and she is the Secretary of the UK Indoor Environments Group and Member of the British Standards Committee on Indoor Air Quality.

Colin King

Director of BRE Wales

One of the UKs foremost experts on refurbishment with key responsibilities at BRE of being the lead officer on retrofit, refurbishment and Hygrothermal performance of Buildings. He sits on numerous technical groups including the DECC Moisture Advisory Group, DCLG Part C, currently delivering Welsh Government revisions to Part A, B and C of the Building Regulations, and BRE member of the UKCMB (UK Centre for Moisture in Buildings).

Prof Paul Linden, University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

Principle Investigator and Project Lead for the MAGIC project and Director of the Cambridge Forum for Sustainability and the Environment. Paul’s research focuses on environmental fluid mechanics. The Environmental and Industrial Fluid Dynamics group at the University of Cambridge conducts experimental and theoretical research on problems associated with our environment and the processes that affect and are impacted by climate change.

Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford

Focusing on adaptation to climate change in the built environment, the secondment aims to enhance the uptake, utility and value of existing simulation models at the building-, suburban- and city-scale by building on existing EPSRC-funded research to:

• engage with targeted stakeholder groups to investigate the barriers and challenges of policy and industry uptake and application of several existing simulation models
• use existing models and output from the ARCADIA project (focusing on London) as a case study to demonstrate possible strategies to better meet stakeholder requirements
• work with key stakeholders to investigate the utility and enhanced impact of the proposed strategies
• develop guiding principles to inform both stakeholders and researchers to help ensure models currently in development are suitable for informing policy-making and practice in the future.

Planned project outputs:

• Guiding principles for those responsible for both using and developing climate change simulation models to support decision-making.
• Case study from ARCADIA demonstrating possible strategies for increasing the relevance, utility and impact of existing models.
• A community of stakeholders, primarily in London initially, with enhanced understanding of the potential utility of climate change simulation models from research and an increased ability to access and use such models to support policy and practice.

Key outcomes:

• The project aims to provide an increased capability to use demand-driven simulation models and output to inform a more resilient built environment
• Users of research outputs can benefit from improved access to models and outputs
• Current and new EPSRC research PIs can use the guiding principles to adapt their model and model outputs to more usable and formats for adoption by policy and/or practice.

Bioaccessibility describes the potential for a substance to be absorbed by an organism currently and over time. Applying a bioaccessibility assessment to contaminated land allows for a less conservative, more accurate risk assessment with a focus on human health impacts.

Contaminated brownfield land

Soil contamination can be a major barrier to re-use of brownfield sites, particularly former industrial sites.

Sites that contain organic contaminants – such as those from petroleum products, solvents and pesticides – are usually assessed for ‘total contaminant concentration’. While this highlights some of the adverse impacts on health, it is a very conservative approach and can deter redevelopment.

Relevance

• The Government needs to meet local housing requirements through finding suitable land in the right places. By using bioaccessiblity assessments, more brownfield land could be re-designated as suitable for housing.
• Bioaccessibility methodologies can also help to push a more sustainability-driven planning policy, as more former industrial sites are considered safe for development, and demand for development sites increases.
• Brownfield sites are often well-connected and central, leading to healthier cities.

Bioaccessibility

• Bioaccessibility or in vitro methods account for the proportion of a contaminant that if ingested and digested, will be available for absorption by the body.
• Bioacccessibility is already used to assess remediation options for soil contaminated by heavy metals such as lead and zinc, and PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon) contamination from incomplete combustion of fossil fuels including vehicle emissions.
• Bioaccessibility methods improve the accuracy of contaminated land assessments and adopt a less cautious approach.

Now what?

Our research demonstrates that bioaccessibility techniques can be applied more widely to the assessment of soils afflicted by organic compounds closely related to heavy industry, manufacture, transport and construction.

Bioaccessibility testing could lead to an increase in the number of contaminated sites re-designated as usable, encouraging greater re-use of brownfield sites, and a more sustainable and healthier urban environment.

Our project paves the way for bioaccessibility testing to become the standard approach for sites affected by organic contaminants. The method can be applied globally as such compounds are common, and could also be used to assess new types of contaminant.

New bioaccesssibility methods

We assessed two distinct methods with a wide range of soil and contaminant profiles. Both are repeatable, robust laboratory assessment techniques, demonstrating that bioaccessibility testing can be applied to organic contaminants, in a field dominated by established methods to assess bioaccessibility in inorganics and metals.

Further findings

• The project has also led to a better understanding of PCB bioaccessibility – we have now produced a background survey of PCB concentrations in central London.
• We have also demonstrated the benefits and opportunities of close interdisciplinary research, with researchers from soil science, geochemistry, organic chemistry and sustainability work together, at the University of Reading and British Geological Survey (BGS).

Benefits

In addition to more accurate risk assessments with a focus on human health impacts, bioaccessibility testing also leads to:

• Less landfill waste & energy use from remediation.
• Lower remediation costs for developers & government agencies
• Reuse of urban brownfield sites for homes, avoiding urban sprawl and long commutes.
• Reduced need for testing on living organisms.

Next steps for contaminated land community

• Exploring the findings and establishing professional processes & training
• Adoption by regulators

Next steps for researchers

• Further work in validation, followed by consultation with contaminated land professionals and regulators to encourage adoption of the methods.
• Developments through computer simulation assessments, or methods to accurately assess risks from dermal or inhalational contact with both organic and inorganic contaminants.

Facilities managers are in the best position to operate buildings sustainably, but there are no organisational drivers to motivate them to do so; the focus is on service delivery for the organisation that owns or occupies the building.

There is compliance to minimum standards, and we have schemes such as the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme and Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) that enforces the gathering of energy use information, but this is not driving sustainable practices – organisations just pay the bill as it’s a small proportion of their overall operational costs.

So what do we need to know?

We need to transfer our knowledge from academic and practice based research of how buildings operate and ensure that sustainable design intentions take into consideration how the building will actually be used.

We need to examine how buildings perform in use and understand what features can be added to improve sustainability. This requires performance measurements and understanding of how the architecture and engineering systems interact, and the impacts on each other.

We need to understand how the procurement route influences the performance of the building in use. For example, do Private finance initiative (PFI) projects, where the commitment is long-term, ensure whole life value and efficiency are serious considerations during construction?

What next?

We need to think long-term during the building design phase and improve the value of sustainable facilities management.

We need to develop better procurement practices for projects that ensure delivery of buildings that operate more sustainably.

We need to regulate building performance evaluations, especially for high-energy users. And the Landlord and Tenant partnerships need to embrace resilience and energy efficiency with commitments from both parties as neither can do it alone in this scenario.

We must also create a culture where the industry undertakes post-occupancy evaluations on a regular basis to ensure lessons are learnt and shared so we don’t keep making the same mistakes, and operators of buildings are compelled to run the facilities energy-efficiently.

We have an opportunity to apply multi-disciplinary research to influence the design of the built environment, and encourage mobility and socialisation. From an EPSRC Design for Wellbeing call, we’ve been working with researchers and practitioners to synthesise across this research to provide stakeholders with useful material to draw from in their decision-making.

Workshop, April 2017

Research presentations: Engagement with stakeholders

Our workshop shared ageing and mobility research with the policy and practice communities.

DWELL – Designing for wellbeing in environments in later life

Sarah Wigglesworth, Sarah Wigglesworth Architects

cycleBOOM – Design for lifelong health & wellbeing

Tim Jones, Oxford Brookes University

BIOPICCC: Built Infrastructure for Older People’s Care in Conditions of Climate Change

Sarah Curtis, University of Durham

Mobility, Mood & Place

Catharine Ward Thompson, University of Edinburgh

Firstly, delegates were asked to consider what information do we know we are not using, and why?

The discussions concluded that the causes and impacts of the urban heat island (UHI) effect are well understood, however, less is known about available tools and models to help designers and planners combat the issue. Concerns were also raised about accessing models and data without getting entangled in the inherent complexities, and as a result using a lot of time that design fees would not cover.

Participants identified the wealth of information held by the GLA, and I suspect there are other useful GLA data sets and innovations we didn’t hear about as the event was not London focused. BRE have a UHI map of London and have also mapped the effects of the UHI in a specific year (2008).

To sum up, there is a fair amount of knowledge and data available, with more for London than anywhere else.

What do we need to know?

How should we examine the impact of hybrid areas? ‘Hybrid’ was understood to mean tall buildings and green roofs. This raised the question should we aim for a city that is one huge tower block surrounded by green areas, or dispersed low-rise buildings, like parts of Paris?

Participants commented on how much additional concrete is needed for green buildings, and queried how much green buildings do actually affect the urban climate. Mention of blue infrastructure was also made – while we are all aware that green and blue areas are important to ease urban climate challenges, there appear to be few metrics to measure the impacts. Establishing legal minimum / maximum standards for developers is an important task that needs to be addressed.

As more cities collect big data, questions were raised about how we actually analyse and use big data, and what the socio-economic impacts are.

Air quality is an area of concern across the UK – there are a number of useful tools to measure air quality which will help to enable mitigation strategies. While authorities such as the GLA and Kingston are working together to explore the impacts and solutions, more data is required from cities other than London.

Delegates discussed how useful mapping of the urban climate would be, and the need for a guide on how urban form relates to microclimates in order to help practitioners.

What’s next?

The workshop confirmed that it is vital for academics and practitioners to continue to mix: academic tools can be demonstrated and further developed to help practitioners, while practitioners can help researchers to understand what information would be most valuable, and the depth of detail they require for their designs.

Delegate’s suggestions and comments:

What do we need to know?

Models and planning processes capable of accounting for how cities evolve (land use, planning, human behaviours) in climate change scenarios.

New measurement protocols and parameterisation, capable of being used in different environments with cross-comparison of results possible.

Improved understanding of how green and particularly blue spaces can mitigate the UHI.

Better definitions –particularly of high density and appropriate density in relation to quality of built environment.

Research to reveal how air quality and thermal quality correlate within the urban heat climate to inform urban form and building design with regard to ventilation and passive cooling.

How to link measurement of city performance (heat, pollution) with investment.

Building-level fire safety standards exist. Are there wider area standards, for coping with multiple building emergencies in a dense urban setting?

What do we already know but are not using, and why?

Real time and empirical data for validation of models –suggestion that practitioners might not be aware of what’s available.

Current planning policy:

• Evidence presented suggests policy on daylight, sun and wind need updating.
• A microclimate perspective reveals negative unintended policy consequences e.g. air source heat pumps are encouraged but add to microclimate overheating.

Making urban research models more accessible could be helped by:

• Establishing if they better than commercial “black box” models?
• Improving the user interface and data set compatibility and integration with existing planning tools
• If specific real time datasets are required, consideration as to whether local authorities should be mandated to collect them.

How are we going to tackle or take it forward?

Produce a standard for city modelling and a standard data-sharing clause in funding bids, taking into account confidentiality, intellectual property and privacy laws.

Research outputs need to be disseminated quickly and simply to practice and industry.

The event did not disappoint. The presentations were excellent and varied, and we had some great discussions on our table between the talks. Having a modeller, a university researcher, engineers and a planner (me) around the one table proved a great combination, and I think we all enjoyed talking through the issues and thinking about the gaps in knowledge that need to be addressed.

I found the presentations from Prof Sue Grimmond on urban climate and heat island modelling particularly interesting. High-density development can exacerbate summer temperatures which are already rising as our climate warms. This can have direct negative impacts on comfort, health and wellbeing and can also have knock-on impacts on active cooling demand in buildings, further exacerbating the urban heat island (UHI). Prof Grimmond’s presentation demonstrated that UHI modelling has developed much further than I had realised; for example, see the UMEP tool online. This could open up opportunities for the Greater London Authority to research and develop policies requiring high density schemes in central London to model their impact on the UHI (taking into account building geometry, albedo, vegetation, shadowing, anthropogenic heat sources, etc.), and demonstrate how their impact would be mitigated e.g. through significant street tree planting or retrofit of green roofs.

Lee Chapman’s presentation on big data and advances in the availability of cheap, internet connected heat sensors was also thought provoking. Given increasing concerns about overheating in buildings as peak summer temperatures rise with climate change, particularly in dense urban areas, it made me think that the availability of these sensors could open up new opportunities for research collaborations between policymakers, developers and academia to cost effectively collect better data on summer indoor temperatures for different types of homes. Such data will be extremely valuable for improving the robustness of thermal modelling sometimes used for assessing planning applications.

Lastly, I would highlight Dr Paul Littlefair’s presentation and in particular his emphasis on the health and wellbeing benefits of daylight and sunlight. This seems to reinforce the argument made by Chris Twinn and others that performance standards for sunlight and daylight should be introduced into policy, since the widely used BRE approach on site layout planning is for guidance only. Perhaps such policies could also consider setting differential standards for certain types of area / development. For example, higher sunlight and daylight standards may be justified for public spaces in high-density urban areas where they will be important amenity spaces for large numbers of people year round.

I look forward to more of these valuable opportunities to bring together researchers, practitioners and policymakers working on urban environmental issues in future.

This blog represents the personal views of the author.