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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.
Key insights from LSE Cities' interdisciplinary research on the `compact and well-connected' city have been incorporated by central government in national planning policy and by the Mayor of London in the London Plan. This has led to urban land being developed more intensively, ensuring more sustainable and efficient use of space in English towns and cities. Research on green city policies has been adopted by the United Nations Environment Programme (2011) and is determining policy formulation in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Portland. Urban Age conferences and research have created an international network of urban policy-makers and scholars, and LSE Cities staff have had impact on the design of the Olympic Park in London and development plans for cities outside the UK.
Peter Jones' research developed new principles for urban street planning and design, which have been incorporated into Department for Transport (DfT) and Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) national guidelines. The methodology has been used in the Mayor of London's Roads Task Force report; Transport for London (TfL) now requires boroughs to use the classification for all new submissions for funding for street schemes. It underpins the specification of an £650m PFI highway maintenance contract with LB Hounslow, and has been used by other UK local authorities. Internationally, the approach has been applied in Australia and included in draft regulations for urban planning in Beijing.
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.
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.
Research at Kingston University led by Hilary Dalke has established the beneficial effects of colour design for application in long-term health care environments for people with neural disabilities. This work has led to the development of spatial design principles for improving the experience of service users, patients and staff.
Through her consultancy work with architectural firms, individual NHS hospitals, mental health units, independent charities and healthcare furniture and equipment suppliers such as Hill-Rom, Dalke has influenced their understanding of the issues involved, leading to improved design in hospitals, care homes and day centres, with consequent benefits for patients, staff and visitors in four institutions.
The populations of over 250 European and near Eastern cities are benefitting from closer integration of health and planning. As a result of research undertaken at the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Healthy Urban Environments (WHO CC), built environment professionals have integrated concerns about public health into their decision-making and, correspondingly, public health professionals have engaged with how urban places affect health. Based on a long-term programme of empirical study, this has happened through our development, and subsequent operationalisation, of the concept of `Healthy Urban Planning'. The adoption of our models, assessment tools and appraisal methods, has fostered a new emphasis on urban development and planning at neighbourhood level; the implementation of which has resulted in more active lives, more inclusive communities and environments that support health.
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.
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.