Professor Marialena Nikolopoulou gives lecture at Universidad de Sevilla

Deputy Head of School and Professor of Sustainable Architecture, Marialena Nikolopoulou, gives lecture titled, ‘Performance of buildings: thermal comfort, occupant perception and use of space’ at Universidad de Sevilla on Friday 6 March 2020.

Professor Nikolopoulou will discusse her research looking at the environmental comfort conditions of open spaces in cities. Professor Nikolopoulou writes, ‘Investigating thermal comfort conditions in outdoor urban spaces, has thrown some light on the complexity of the issues involved, demonstrating that a quantitative approach is insufficient in describing comfort conditions outdoors.’

Dr Silvio Caputo on international panel for Urban Farm 2020

Dr Silvio Caputo, Director of Research and Innovation at Kent School of Architecture and Planning is part of the international panel for the Urban Farm 2020 competition. The competition, organised by the University of Bologna and Florence, ‘challenged students to redesign three locations, in three months, having a look at the three spheres of sustainability.’ The final event took place on Thursday 20th February in Pordenone, during NovelFarm, a trade fair for agricultural technology and new approaches to farming. As part of the series of events organised by the fair, Dr Caputo chaired a roundtable on ‘farming the city’ and the role of local authorities in planning for urban agriculture.

Professor Nikolopoulou interviewed by TRT World

Deputy Head of School, and Professor of Sustainable Architecture, Marialena Nikolopoulou, was recently interviewed by Turkish television channel, TRT World as part of their flagship arts and culture programme ‘Showcase‘, on Monday 17th February to discuss vertical forests. The news angle followed the world’s first ever Forest City, by Italian architect Stefano Boeri.  Watch the full interview online now.

CASE Open Lecture: Clare Brass, Department 22

The next CASE Open Lecture will be given by Clare Brass, founder and co-director of Department 22, with her talk titled, ‘Designing for sustainability and circular economy’ on Tuesday 3 March 2020 at 6pm in Marlowe Lecture Theatre 1.

Why architecture?

Clare’s talk will talk about circular economy and how the skills of architects and designers are essential for putting it into practice. She will show case studies and examples that explore the challenges and limitations of circular thinking, and explain its relationship with people, food, cities and nature. Looking at architecture from the perspective of positive action, this is an opportunity to explore how understanding your own values and needs can  lead you to a more fulfilling life as a creative professional.

Clare Brass is founder and co-director of Department 22, a design and innovation consultancy for the circular economy with a focus on food, exploring better solutions for a better 22nd century (www.department22.uk).  She was head of sustainability at the Design Council before setting up SEED Foundation, developing user-centred entrepreneurial solutions to social and environmental challenges such as food, water and waste (www.foodloop.org.uk, www.cargocollective.com/foodloop). In 2010 she set up and ran SustainRCA at the Royal College of Art, where she was also leader of sustainability and enterprise for Innovation Design Engineering in partnership with Imperial College Business School. During her time at RCA she was a mentor for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

All welcome!

 

CASE Open Lecture: Kristen Guida, London Climate Change Partnership

The upcoming CASE (Centre for Architecture and the Sustainable Environment) Open Lecture will be given by Kristen Guida, manager at London Climate Change Partnership with her talk titled, ‘From Science to Policy – adapting London to climate change’ on Tuesday 28 January at 6pm in Marlowe Lecture Theatre 1.

Adapting to climate change requires good evidence-based policy and interventions. That means making strong links between science policymakers, and practitioners across different sectors. The London Climate Change Partnership exists to facilitate those links and ensure that those responsible for making the city climate resilient have the best evidence at their disposal and the capacity to use it.

Kristen has been working for nearly fifteen years on climate change adaptation, currently as manager of the London Climate Change Partnership, and previously as director of Climate South East and Chair of Climate UK. Her major interest is in convening partners from across sectors and helping them work together to respond to the social and environmental challenges presented by climate change. In particular, she is interested in the social justice issues raised by climate change and the need to incorporate equity in adaptive planning. In her previous life, she worked on human rights, as a Senior Researcher on political rights, civil liberties and press freedom at Freedom House in New York.

All welcome!

Professor Marialena Nikolopoulou to speak at The Edge Debate

Deputy Head of School, Professor Marialena Nikolopoulou to speak at the upcoming Edge debate titled, ‘Climate Responsive Urbanism: How can professionals meet the challenge of urban densification in a time of climate change?‘ on 9th January 2020.

The event will be jointly hosted with The Urban Design Group, and is the first in a series of debates entitled ‘Cities, Climate and Critical Urban Infrastructure’. The series looks to explore the ‘consequences of current practices in building, urban design, planning, regulation and policy on critical urban infrastructure’. The event will be convened by Richard Lorch, Editor, Buildings & Cities, hosted by Robert Huxford, the Director of The Urban Design Group and chaired by Professor Rohinton Emmanuel, Glasgow Caledonian University. Professor Nikolopoulou will be joined by Gerald Mills, University College Dublin, Asaf Din, Perkins&Will, Rachel Toms, Public Health England, and Nicola Bacon, Founding Director of Social-Life.

The debate will be held at The Gallery, 70 Cowcross Street, Farringdon, London, EC1M 6EJ from 14.00 – 17.10 followed by networking. If you are interested in attending the event, please register here.

Dr Henrik Schoenefeldt premieres ‘Restoring the Palace of Westminster’ documentary at RIBA

Dr Henrik Schoenefeldt and the Kent School of Architecture and Planning (KSAP) hosted an event at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) on Thursday 5 December to launch the new film by Dr Henrik Schoenefeldt, University of Kent and KMTV titled, ‘Restoring the Palace of Westminster’. The film, based on Dr Schoenefeldt’s research project, Between Heritage and Sustainability for the Restoration and Renewal Programme was followed by a panel debate led by KSAP Head of School, Professor Gerald Adler, ‘Can Victorian architecture be sustainable?’ Panel guests included:

  • Hannah Parham, member of the Historic Building Consultancy team at Donald Insall Associates
  • Edonis Jesus, BIM4Heritage
  • Sebastian MacMillan, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership
  • Richard Lorch, Editor in chief, Building and Cities
  • Fionn Stephenson, Chair in Sustainable Design (University of Sheffield)
  • Henrik Schoenefeldt, Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Architecture (University of Kent)
  • Adam Watrobski, Principal Architect at Houses of Parliament

The event was live streamed on YouTube and is available to watch online.

 

Urban Albedo present at CIBSE Build2Perform Live 2019

Deputy Head of School, Professor Nikolopoulou and Professor Kolokotroni, Brunel University, presented the Urban Albedo project at a seminar on ‘Urban Design’ at the CIBSE Build2Perform Live 2019 at Olympia in London on Wednesday 27th November 2019. The session ran through how the Urban Albedo collaborative research project is looking at the impacts of the urban fabric to the urban temperatures and how new material can improve urban climate.

FEW-Meter Project hosts successful Technology and Green Spaces Symposium

Dr Silvio Caputo is leading the UK team in an international 3-year project, funded under the SUGI called Food-Water-Energy Nexus, which started in June 2018. The FEW-meter project aims at measuring the efficiency of urban agriculture in terms of resource consumption, food production and social benefits. Each one of the five countries involved in the project (UK, France, Germany, Poland and USA) will focus on a specific type of urban agriculture and a particular city. The UK will be looking at Community Gardens and City Farms in London, which have recently seen a surge of interest.

Recently, as part of the project, Kent School of Architecture and Planning, and Social Farms and Gardens, the association representing UK community gardens and city farms, organised a symposium, ‘Technology and Green Spaces’ on 29th October 2019.

The symposium was very well attended and participants included organisations such as Forum for the Future, universities such as University of Salford and many other associations that work in the field of urban agriculture and the management of green spaces in cities.

The symposium was structured in two sessions: the first one exploring new food technologies and how these are changing the landscape of urban agriculture and the second one looking at digital tools to enhance user’s experience in public parks. The day ended with a discussion on the future of these technologies, their risks and benefits, with a very high-level exchange of opinions that will surely set the future agenda for projects in this field. KSAP and Social Farms and Gardens will draft a report to summarise the main findings of the event, which will be very useful to trace the evolution of the use of green space in cities.

CASE Dalby Square project featured on BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire Show

The Centre for Architecture and the Sustainable Environment’s (CASE) Dalby Square project was recently featured on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme. The Dalby Square project in Margate is a cross-sector collaboration between Kent County Council (KCC), Thanet District Council, Kent School of Architecture and Planning, the School of Psychology and the private sector. The aim was to develop and retrofit the KCC owned property at 12a Dalby Square into an exemplar residence that simultaneously addresses the challenges of climate change and promotes opportunities for inter-generational living, whilst also ensuring that the existing architectural details of the property are conserved and restored.

“The council wanted to address some of the issues with Dalby Square, and bring it back to its former glory, as part of the wider regeneration of Margate”, says Professor Marialena Nikolopoulou, CASE founder and director of the centre between 2011 and 2018. She also notes that, “If you have an extended family living together they they can afford the house, they’re in a better situation, while also looking after each other. Whether that’s grandparents looking after their grandchildren, or an extended network of siblings.”

CASE worked with architects Lee Evans Partnership to transform the five-story terraced townhouse from former subdivided hotel rooms into a home that enables several generations of the same family to live together under one roof, with both communal and private living areas.

The refurbishment of the heritage townhouse in Dalby Square, Margate, has been completed and a three-generation family are part of the innovative project, where extensive monitoring will take place, to evaluate the climate change adaptation strategies, whilst focusing on overheating, thermal comfort and energy performance, while testing the concept of multi-generation living. CASE aims to develop a ‘Sustainable Heritage Toolkit’ to help other coastal towns across the UK.

You can watch the episode on BBC iPlayer, with the feature on 12a Dalby Square starting at 47.31.