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5th Anniversary Essays

5th Anniversary Essays

It's B&C's 5th year of publication. Celebrate with us by reading these thought-provoking essays.

These commissioned essays from Buildings & Cities' authors and readers explore how the research landscape is changing. New essays are continuously being added to the collection during 2024 as part of B&C's anniversary.

Collectively, these essays offer fresh insights into the processes and issues that are currently inadequate or missing in the built environment research landscape. A wide perspective from different disciplines and geographies creates a positive, collective vision for shaping the research agenda. Recommendations are made for what needs to change.

We hope this will provoke and inspire research funders, researchers and other stakeholders to discuss, reflect and act. Ideas range from systemic change to key research questions to improving engagement to change of focus.

Latest Commentaries

The current situation is implausible: there are pledges for 2030 but no roadmaps for their fulfilment over time. Image: Giovanna Cassavia (TU Graz).

To achieve net zero GHG emissions by mid-century (the Breakthrough Agenda) it is vital to establish explicit sector-specific roadmaps and targets. With an eye to the forthcoming COP30 in Brazil and based on work in the IEA EBC Annex 89, Thomas Lützkendorf, Greg Foliente and Alexander Passer argue why specific goals and measures for building, construction and real estate are needed in the forthcoming round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC 3.0).

A session from a participatory drawing workshop at the Rumi Library, led by Sadia Sharmin in 2019

While Living Labs are often framed as structured, institutionalised spaces for innovation, Sadia Sharmin (Habitat Forum Berlin) reinterprets the concept through the lens of grassroots urban practices. She argues that self-organised knowledge spaces can function as Living Labs by fostering situated learning, collective agency, and community resilience. The example of a Living Lab in Bangladesh provides a model pathway to civic participation and spatial justice.

Climate Mitigation & Carbon Budgets: Research Challenges

Why the built environment research community is vital for policy and strategy implementation

Figure 1.

Strategies for decolonising street names: top-down by city authorities or bottom-up by local communities?

Integrating Nature into Cities

Nature-based design, combined with the transformation of underlying worldviews, can enhance urban resilience.

Co-ordinate Built Environment Research for the Public Good

Why a coordinated programme of built environment research needs to be based on the public good

The Challenge of Research Prioritisation

How to decide which research challenge to address

Reframing Sustainable Construction

Why a new approach to sustainable development is needed.

Artificial Intelligence and Decarbonisation

How building research can harness AI for mass decarbonisation

Figure 1: The current silo'd approach to urban climate sciences and the study of indoor and outdoor spaces

Understanding the interactions between urban form, outdoor and indoor spaces, and local climate requIres interdisciplinary interaction

Image courtesy of Keith West

Why large cities will need to contract or be abandoned altogether

The Marinaressa Coral Tree is a prototype filigree structure created by the University of Stuttgart. https://bit.ly/40thfPO  Photo: Chrisna du Plessis

Why the next industrial revolution needs to be based on nature and not "technology"

The Transition Design Framework (after Irwin et al. 2015)

Both research and practice have a key role in developing positive, shared visions for the built environment

Systems Thinking is Needed to Achieve Sustainable Cities

Why a just transition to sustainable cities depends on quality, affordable housing

Artwork © Pat Sonnino 2024

Why urban innovation is not enough to create sustainable cities

Is Gentrification a Crime?

Is Gentrification a Crime?

The destruction of cultural heritage is a war crime. Should peacetime destruction or displacement be a crime too?

Overcoming Regime Resistance to the Circularity Transition

Observations from 15 years of built environment reuse research about how change occurs

Rethinking Energy Research in the Global South

Partnering with NGOs and integrating local knowledge can enable researchers to develop effective and context-specific solutions

Mainstreaming Research Agendas from Global South Countries

Why research funders, institutions and academics need to frame research agendas that are locally responsive

The Challenges of Evidence-Based Design

Challenges ahead: why urban planning and urban design need robust quantitative evidence for decision making.

Rethinking Construction Product Regulations

Challenges ahead: why robust research and education can help drive the necessary changes in regulating construction products to meet society's demands

Integrating Feedback into Research and Practice

Challenges ahead: collecting, managing, integrating and sharing comprehensible findings on actual performance from cradle to grave

A World in Emergency and Emergence

Challenges ahead: how the recent past is shaping the research agenda

Overhaul the Building Regulations: The Role of Research

Challenges ahead: research has a role to protect the public interest and inhabitants

Creating Circular Built Environments

Challenges ahead: Making the UN's Building Breakthrough a reality

Image courtesy: D Rodighiero, EPFL

Challenges ahead: how the conduct of research needs to change

The Case for Relational Research

Challenges ahead: why relational research is vital for society and reduces dysfunction and disaster

Bridging the Climate Change Research and Education Gap

Challenges ahead: the curriculum in many US built environment courses needs to change

Net-Zero Requires Improved Collaboration between Researchers and Policymakers

Message to COP29: more effective collaboration is essential

Why Convergence Research is Needed

Challenges ahead: addressing the complex issues of building performance, public safety, climate change and socio-ecological value

Part of a time-lapse measurement of temperatures across London. Image: Jonathon Taylor

Looking forward: citizen science is changing the research landscape

Why Research Must Now Prioritise Inhabitants

Challenges ahead: understanding and protecting the end-users of the built environment

Construction Management Research: The Challenge of Consequences

Challenges ahead: why research must focus on potential problematic consequences and provide proactive built-in fail-safes

Photo: Ilan Kelman

Designing Beyond Climate Change

Challenges ahead: sustainable design is much more than addressing climate change

Antwerp old town. Photo: Rohinton Emmanuel.

Challenges ahead: framing urban research as a commons activity and as a research agenda

Research in a Rapidly Changing and Increasingly Uncertain World

Challenges ahead: how the conduct of research needs to change