Richard Lorch is an architect, researcher, writer and editor-in-chief of Buildings & Cities. He was the former editor-in-chief of Building Research and Information and executive editor of Climate Policy.
He is a visiting professor at University College London and Politecnico di Milano and on the advisory board of the Dresden Leibniz Graduate School. He works on organisational / policy responses to climate change - mitigation and adaptation paths - and the environmental impacts of the built environment and building performance at different scales from the individual building to neighbourhood to city.
As editor, his key concerns are fair, robust peer review assessment and feedback processes, author support and the diffusion and take-up of research and new knowledge by ‘end users’ - promoting two-way dialogue and co-production between stakeholders, practitioners, policy makers and the academic community.
Latest Commentaries
Lessons from the Swiss Impulse Programme
The former Swiss 'Impulse programme' was a successful response to the 1970s energy crisis. It provides important lessons for today’s climate emergency about what governments, industry and academia can do to create a successful transition within the construction industry. Niklaus Kohler and Kurt Meier (both former members of the Construction and Energy Impulse programmes) reflect on key lessons for today about its implementation and how to sustain change over the short and long term.
New European Bauhaus Festival: Living within Planetary Boundaries
The first annual festival of the New European Bauhaus – a cultural initiative of Ursula von der Leyen (President of the European Commission) – took place in Brussels 9 – 12 June 2022. This ambitious programme and its recent festival recognises the built environment's centrality to creating climate neutrality, quality of life and social equity. Matti Kuittinen (Aalto University, coordinator of the Nordic Bauhaus programme) reflects on the festival, summarises its takeaways and applauds the mainstreaming of the New European Bauhaus.