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The case study captures and describes the outputs and impacts arising from cumulative research on the theme of accessibility in transport and urban design. Impacts are evidenced both through the research process in terms of end-user engagement, collaborative research and real world test bed research (local communities and neighbourhoods); and through intermediary and professional/ practitioner body validation, policy-making and take up of research findings and guidance/toolkits arising. Impacts have also occurred through wider dissemination, follow-up research and collaboration both nationally and internationally.
Since 2006 Professor Cooper has led interdisciplinary research to inform the design of the urban environment, especially in relation to creating sustainable places that support citizen wellbeing. Outcomes include a new model of design decision-making, a toolkit for urban design decisions, and collation of evidence on the impact of environment on mental health and wellbeing. Her work has been supported by EPSRC, over ninety companies, and six city councils. Impact has included tools to enable planners and developers to address issues such as density and wellbeing; informing government policy on mental health and the environment; raising the profile of design-led approaches to complex policy problems.
Research on urban planning has influenced planning decisions and assisted the Scottish Government and Local Authorities to maximise economic, physical and social factors in city visioning, planning and design. The private sector has received advisory and design training in master-planning though advanced spatial modelling principles and user engagement techniques; local authority planners have also been trained. The research has contributed to a paradigm shift in city planning towards place-making and community design, not just in Scotland but internationally. This agenda is now established as mainstream in city planning, and Scotland is regarded as a reference to best practice as witnessed by the wide adoption of planning documents such as Designing Places, Designing Streets, and in recent large scale developments such as Tornagrain (around 4,000 new homes), Knockroon (around 750 new homes) and Chapelton (around 8,000 new homes), which have used Strathclyde's master-planning techniques.
Work by Carmona et al has supported the national drive for better design in the built environment, helping to mainstream ideas about the importance of urban design and develop tools for design governance. A major strand of this research has focused on the use and potential of design codes in England, and has been a major contributor to their widespread adoption. As a result, by 2012, some 45% of local authorities and 66% of urban design consultants had used design codes.
ARU is a significant international leader in the definition and practice of design as research. Buildings and realised urban designs are the main research outputs. The research is also disseminated with books, international exhibitions, international journals, television and newspapers. This research is having verifiable influence on the direction of architectural practice and education in Asia and Europe. Impact can be seen in the numbers of visitors such as: 800,000 people to the 2011 Gwangju Biennale ARU Urban Folly; 170,000 people to the 2010 Venice Biennale; 130,000 people to the 2008 Venice Biennale, and 471,000 page views to the ARU website between Sep 2008 - Sep. 2013. Florian Beigel was awarded the Grand Art Prize 2013, of the Academy of the Arts, Berlin, 18 March 2013 for the research works he has carried out with the Architecture Research Unit over the past three decades.
A new form of personal rapid transit has been developed from research which began at the University of Bristol in 1995 and has since been commercialised by a University spin-out company. The ULTra system is now in operation at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 and constitutes a world first for the UK. Since opening in 2011, passengers have benefited from a personal, fast, reliable and low cost driverless transport system, that has removed the queuing and inefficiencies associated with bus transfers to the terminal. The Heathrow pods completed a million miles of fully driverless operation within two years of the system opening and have the highest satisfaction rating of any passenger service at Terminal 5, which itself is rated as the best in the world. The success of the system has led to a plan to extend it to Terminals 2 and 3.
Design thinking has benefited the economic performance of business and particularly the creative industries, changed awareness of design in everyday life, and informed public policy. Users and consumers have benefited from wider understanding of the genesis of products and services and effects on their quality of life. Design thinking research has been instrumental in forming a new business sector that provides design thinking expertise as consultancy. It has changed the processes of designers and design practices, and fed into UK design education policy. Design thinking has crossed discipline boundaries; for example framing new methods and processes in software engineering.
This case study describes impacts arising from pioneering UCL space syntax research by Hillier, Penn et al, funded principally by the EPSRC. Impacts have been achieved particularly through the establishment and subsequent activities of a technology transfer spin-out company, Space Syntax Limited (SSLtd), which works closely with UCL researchers to provide strategic, evidence-based consulting services in architectural and urban design, planning, transport and property development. Since 2008, SSLtd has informed the development of 147 projects in the UK and 73 projects abroad. The impacts of these projects, along with over 400 others undertaken before 2008, include significant and measurable economic, social and environmental improvement to urban environments in the UK and internationally, with important follow-on impacts on the quality of citizens' lives.
Vehicle and mobility design research carried out at the Royal College of Art (RCA) since 1993 has resulted in industrial innovation in vehicles and transport, both nationally and internationally, enhancing industry's ability to provide commercial, societal and environmental benefits between 2008 and 2013. The areas in which we are claiming impact include accessible, user-centred transport (Impact 1); future visions of public service vehicles and systems (Impact 2); and innovation in vehicle design for changing technologies (Impact 3). These impacts are produced through design and consultancy. Corroboration of impact takes the form of public records of achievements, and authentication by manufacturers.
The i~design research programme, which has been running in the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering (DoEng) since 2000, sought to understand population diversity in order to better inform design decisions for mainstream everyday products and services. Impact from this programme, since 2008, includes: skills embedded in companies through direct training of over 280 designers and design managers from industry; direct involvement in the improved design of more than 10 new products and services that have gone into production; educational resources for teaching Design and Technology trialled in nine secondary schools; over 800 wearable impairment simulators sold; and extensive web-based guidance, methods and tools for inclusive design accessed in over 170 countries.