Video+Poster Gallery
The Video+Poster Gallery features an array of visual and dynamic presentations on scientific research, cutting-edge policy, technological innovations, and landmark urban design projects.
On display throughout the Congress, the Video+Poster Gallery provides ample opportunity for delegates to peruse at their leisure in between sessions.
Theme: Healthy city design and planning
P01
Embedding biophilic design within a whole systems approach to healthier cities
Luke Engleback
Foudner / Director, Studio Engleback Ltd, United Kingdom
Luke Engleback CMLI FRSA is a Chartered Landscape Architect and Ecourbanist based in the UK. He founded Studio Engleback in 1999. Since 1984, Luke has taught at the university level and regularly presents on ecourbanism, biodiversity, climate change adaptation, and health, both in the UK and internationally. He sits on the Landscape Institute Policy & Public Affairs Committee and peer review groups including the Cambridge Quality Panel and South Downs National Park Design Review Panel. Formerly with INTEGER Intelligent & Green think tank (1999–2005), and currently ‘Our Green Group’, he stays updated with Nature and Science, integrating insights into planning & design practices.
Alessio Russo
Senior Lecturer , Queensland Uninvesity of Technology, Australia
Alessio Russo is an Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), within the School of Architecture and Built Environment. He has over 20 years of international academic and professional experience across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the United States, and Australia.
Dr Russo is a recognised expert in urban ecosystem services and green infrastructure. His research focuses on the intersection of landscape architecture, human health, and climate change, with particular emphasis on improving wellbeing in cities through access to high-quality, biodiverse green spaces and strengthening the relationship between people and nature. He has authored more than 100 scholarly publications and serves on the editorial boards of several international journals, contributing to global discourse on landscape architecture,
urban ecology, and nature-based design.
Embedding biophilic design within a whole systems approach to healthier cities
Abstract Copy
The UNEP 6th Global Environment Outlook (2019) ‘Healthy Planet , Healthy People’ presented evidence demonstrating environment–human progress links, rejecting the standard ‘grow now, clean up later’ model. It stated a systemic transformation is required that protects natural capital assets through detoxification, decarbonisation, dematerialisation and the restoration of ecosystems to foster both human and planetary wellbeing.The Covid-19 shut-down demonstrated the extent to which people valued urban nature, reinforcing growing evidence of the restorative power of nature. Biophilia was a term used by psychiatrist Erich Fromm to describe ‘the passionate love of life and all that is alive’ (1973), and developed as a theory by the biologist E.O.Wilson in 1984, recognising an innate human tendency to seek connections with nature. Recently, understanding of human co-evolution with microbes and their essential functional role in our bodies has extended to their affects on physiological and mental health.
Urban dwellers have less biodiverse microbiomes than rural people. However, studies have shown how children with intimate contact of nature quickly gain greater microbiome biodiversity and greatly reduced levels of pathogens. Current research is investigating the role of the Urban Microbiome and Aerobiome (microbes in the air we breathe), and how these can be affected by urban landscape design.
Urban living at the current scale is very recent and we are in the midst of climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies that affect human and planetary heath. A whole systems ecourbanism approach can positively impact health, healthcare systems and the wider economy. We need to build resilience to the challenges ahead and can do this through a regenerative approach at macro, meso and micro scales of intervention. With the Covid pandemic in recent memory, the nature of biophilia is understood by many and can be a driver for bottom-up change.
Planning systems in both the United Kingdom and Australia do not explicitly require salutogenic design interventions, but there are biodiversity targets and sustainability standards. In response, this practice‑based paper draws on the authors’ professional experience across urban and landscape projects at neighbourhood and precinct scales to examine how biophilic design principles have been integrated within real‑world planning, design, and delivery constraints. Through reflective analysis of selected built projects, the paper identifies practical strategies and transferable lessons for embedding salutogenic outcomes within existing regulatory and design frameworks, positioning biophilic design as a core component of a whole systems approach to healthier cities.
Learning Objectives
- The biophilic filter is an important aspect to promoting greener healthier cities
- A whole systems approach seeks synergies between the many benefits of Nature Based Solutions, and planning legislation must require salutogenic design otherwise is can be 'value-enginneered' out of schemes
- A systems thinking approach must overtake conventional siloised thinking
P02
Improving health through the built environment: Taking leadership in delivering health net gain
Clare Delmar
founder , Build for health , United Kingdom
Clare is an urban planner and healthcare entrepreneur with 15 years experience investing in PFI hospitals and 15 years running a healthcare company special;ising in medical imaging and mens health. She is also a blogger on local health and planning (Listen to Locals), a campaigner on industry leadership (Build for Health), a trustee of the London Society and candidate for Councillor in Richmond-upon-Thames.
Graeme Craig
CEO, TfL - Places for London, United Kingdom
Graeme Craig is the Director and Chief Executive of Places for London, the property are of Transport for London. He is an experienced Commercial Development Director with responsibility for advertising, commercial partnerships, licensing & merchandising, property development, property management, asset management, estate management, telecommunications, and international operations & consultancy.
Improving health through the built environment: Taking leadership in delivering health net gain
Abstract Copy
Places for London, the commercial development arm of Transport for London, is one of London’s biggest landowners, and committed to improving health through the built environment. It is creating a platform to do this by embedding a measurable, place-based approach to improving health outcomes across its developments, and it is keen to establish itself as an industry leader in building for health. The commitment of its leadership team and the scale of its operation make Places for London an exciting and impactful organisation to drive innovation in how we build for health.A number of factors developing within the organisation and in the wider context of London have pointed to an opportunity to embrace the concept of health net gain as a fundamental measure of building for health, something which has been explored conceptually in recent years but not yet rigourously measured or universally applied. Places for London wishes to change this and use health net gain as a key metric in initiating and evaluating its developments across London.
Over the next six months, we will track and communicate how Places for London can translate its existing approach into a clear, measurable and transferrable model for delivering health net-gain at scale.
By adapting and enhancing what it is already doing into a clear, measurable health net-gain framework, Places for London has the opportunity to redefine how value is understood in the built environment – shifting the focus from development outputs to long-term health, social and economic outcomes for the city. In doing so, it will benefit us all – practitioners, policymakers, government, health providers, and, most of all, those who inhabit our homes and places.
Learning Objectives
- defining and measuring health net gain
- implementing health net gain in practice
- undertaking industry leadership
P03
Collaborative planning and health protocol development – a case study of participatory action research with Essex Planning Officers’ Association, NHS Integrated Care Board Estates and Public Health
Sem Lee
Founder, Director, OURI Labs, France
Sem Lee is an urban strategist, systems thinker, and designer working across public, private and third sector to deliver healthy places. Drawing on their lived experience in poor social housing when first arriving to the country, Sem founded OURI Labs, a health innovation research lab dedicated to shaping healthy, equitable cities that benefit communities and the planet. The practice specialises in participatory research, evaluation, and design, effectively bridging public health and urban planning policy.
Amber Nyoni
Strategic Planning and Public Health Lead, Essex County Council, United Kingdom
Amber Nyoni is a dedicated public health professional who champions equitable health outcomes for all. She holds a Masters in Population Health from University College London, with a focus on health and wellbeing in the built environment, and an undergraduate degree in Environmental and Public Health from Middlesex University. Amber's professional journey has contributed to her passion for the intersection of health and the built environment. She has worked in roles supporting a Health in All Policies approach across various disciplines, including Town Planning which led to the development of the Essex Livewell Development Accreditation for Housebuilders. Currently, as a Strategic Planning and Public Health Lead at Essex County Council, Amber supports the integration of public health and town planning to address and embed the wider determinants of health into planning processes. Her role involves providing public health expertise on health impact assessments for strategic planning applications and building capabilities and capacity within Essex. Amber's commitment to creating healthy and sustainable communities has been a driving force in both her professional and academic pursuits.
Collaborative planning and health protocol development – a case study of participatory action research with Essex Planning Officers’ Association, NHS Integrated Care Board Estates and Public Health
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The relationship between built environments and population health has been recognised since the 19th century, yet implementation of health-integrated planning remains fragmented across English local authorities. The 2010 Marmot Review and its ten-year follow-up reinforced the critical role of planning systems in creating conditions for health, highlighting an urgent need for collaborative mechanisms that embed health equity across council functions. While the National Planning Policy Framework provides opportunities for integration, systematic barriers continue to impede effective cross-sector working.This project examines how participatory action research (PAR) methodology was used to deliver a collaborative workshop supporting development of the Essex Planning Officers' Association (EPOA) Planning and Health Protocol – a framework designed to establish a culture of collaboration and confidence within planning and public health teams to deliver healthy urban environments. Prior to the workshop, we engaged with Essex County Council's head of wellbeing and place-based public health and strategic planning leads, co-designing activities with the Health and Planning Protocol Steering Group.
The final workshop brought together planning officers, public health practitioners, and integrated care board (ICB) representatives. Participants collectively mapped inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes necessary for effective health planning integration through experience mapping and co-creation of a logic model, building shared understanding across borough and ICB boundaries.
The co-design process itself became a policy intervention, creating new relationships and knowledge-sharing opportunities while building confidence in cross-departmental collaboration. The workshop identified collaborative levers for establishing a robust protocol, including joint steering groups with representation from planning, public health, and ICB organisations; improved strategic direction of Section 106 contributions towards health infrastructure and community benefits; and sustainable mechanisms for embedding health considerations into planning processes. The EPOA Planning and Health Protocol represents a significant advancement in collaborative policy design addressing critical gaps in health-planning integration. This approach demonstrates how co-design can transform regulatory frameworks from compliance mechanisms into tools for systemic change. As global urbanisation accelerates and cities worldwide grapple with climate adaptation and health challenges, this case study offers transferable lessons for health planning integration internationally – providing a practical model for translating a collaborative protocol development into actionable policy mechanisms that align organisational goals with population health outcomes.
Learning Objectives
- Apply participatory action research methods to cross-sector policy development
- Identify collaborative mechanisms for embedding health equity in planning processes
- Translating a collaborative protocol into a mechanism to deliver on healthy placemaking
P04
Designing affective city: The role of architectural facades in urban wellbeing
Chenxi Wang
PhD Student, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Chenxi (Aurora) Wang is a PhD candidate in Architecture at the University of Cambridge and an affiliated research member of the Cambridge Cognitive Architecture Lab and Neurocivitas Lab. Her research focuses on neuroarchitecture and human factors, examining how spatial design influences stress regulation, behavioral health, and team functioning. She has experience in field-based and experimental research and received multiple awards like Bruckmann Fund. She has academic and professional experience across the University of Melbourne, UCL Bartlett, and international design practices, and her work aims to integrate architectural design with behavioral health and performance research.
Michal Gath-Morad
Assistant Professor, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Dr Michal Gath-Morad is Assistant Professor at the University of Cambridge, Department of Architecture, and Fellow and Director of Studies at Peterhouse. She directs the Cambridge Cognitive Architecture (CCA) group and founded NeuroCīvitās, a cross-disciplinary initiative on mental health and the built environment. She holds a Doctor of Sciences in Cognitive Science from ETH Zürich. Her research integrates architecture, cognitive science, and neuroscience to examine how spatial configuration shapes cognition, stress regulation, and team performance. Her work combines behavioural experiments, psychophysiological measures, and computational modelling to develop evidence-based design strategies. Dr Gath-Morad has published in leading journals including Scientific Reports, Automation in Construction, and Building and Environment, and has secured funding from UKRI/SNSF and Horizon Europe. She will hold an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship (2026–2028) at the BeMoBIL Lab, TU Berlin. Her current research focuses on high-stress and complex environments, including healthcare and extreme settings.
Designing affective city: The role of architectural facades in urban wellbeing
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Architectural facades form the primary visual interface encountered by urban pedestrians at street level. Their contribution to affective experience and mental wellbeing remains insufficiently articulated within urban design and planning, despite accumulating evidence that visual characteristics of the built environment shape emotional responses in everyday exposure.This study reviewed 61 empirical and theoretical studies examining how facade attributes relate to affective perception, operationalised through valence (level of pleasantness) and arousal (level of psychological activation). The review follows a PRISMA-guided selection process and draws on work spanning environmental psychology, urban design, and computational architectural analysis. Across streetscape, building, and detail scales, a consistent set of determinants emerges, including visual complexity, materiality, symmetry, and biophilic integration. These attributes are associated with systematic variation in affective appraisal, influencing perceived comfort, safety, and restorative potential within walkable urban environments. The literature exhibits a pronounced methodological separation. Perceptual surveys foreground subjective evaluation and experiential meaning, while computational and simulation-based approaches quantify formal and environmental properties. Psychophysiological methods capture implicit affective responses. These strands rarely converge within a shared analytical structure. At the same time, dimensions such as narrative coherence, cultural meaning, and perceptual fluency remain under-specified, despite their evident role in mediating affective experience.
An integrative conceptual framework is developed in which architectural facades are treated as affective mediators within pedestrian–environment interaction. The framework links measurable design attributes to affective responses through perceptual and cognitive processes, establishing a structured pathway from physical form to behavioural and experiential outcomes. This positioning supports a shift from descriptive evaluation towards evidence-informed design reasoning. Ongoing empirical work is extending this framework through the integration of computational facade metrics and human self-reported affective evaluation in real-world urban settings and, where possible, complementary behavioural or physiological indicators. The aim is to develop scalable methods capable of capturing how measurable architectural design conditions affective experience in situ. The review advances a basis for affect-aware urban design, framing facades not as passive visual elements but as active components in shaping psychologically supportive and healthier city design.
Learning Objectives
- Identify how architectural facade attributes structure affective responses (valence and arousal) in street-level urban environments.
- Recognise the limitations of current methods used to study how buildings affect perception and wellbeing.
- Design an integrated framework linking facade design and human responses to support healthier urban design.
P05
Community cohesion as social infrastructure for post-disaster resilience: Evidence from Central Texas
Lindsay Sansom
Research Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University, United States
Dr. Lindsay Sansom is the Co-Director of the Together for a Better Tomorrow Program, a Faculty Fellow in the Center for Health and Nature, and a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at Texas A&M University School of Public Health. Her research examines how environmental conditions, public spaces, and community systems shape health, resilience, and social connection. Grounded in community-engaged and practice-based methods, her work has focused on water security, environmental health, rural park access, and the role of greenspace in supporting community cohesion. She has led and contributed to interdisciplinary projects with communities across Texas, including colonias along the U.S.–Mexico border and historically under-invested urban neighborhoods. Her current work explores urban parks as social infrastructure and examines how community spaces can strengthen well-being, belonging, and collective capacity.
Garett Sansom
Associate Professor, Texas A&M University, United States
Dr. Garett Thomas Sansom, DrPH, MPH, is Director of the Together for a Better Tomorrow Research Program and Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health. His work focuses on environmental health, community resilience, environmental justice, and the ways neighborhoods, infrastructure, and exposure burdens shape health outcomes. He also serves as a faculty member in the Texas A&M Interdisciplinary Program in Toxicology.
Dr. Sansom’s research emphasizes community-engaged approaches to addressing environmental contamination, disaster recovery, water quality, greenspace, and healthy neighborhood development, particularly in historically overburdened communities. He has led and collaborated on projects supported by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, and Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas. His scholarship includes more than 40 peer-reviewed publications spanning environmental exposure assessment, community health, resilience, and sustainable cities.
His work is grounded in building practical, community-informed strategies that connect research, planning, and policy to improve environmental conditions and support healthier, more resilient cities.
Community cohesion as social infrastructure for post-disaster resilience: Evidence from Central Texas
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Thesis Statement: As climate-related disasters increase globally, resilience is often framed in terms of physical infrastructure and emergency response capacity. However, climate-resilient communities also depend on the strength of social systems that support collective action and recovery. This study examines whether community cohesion, expressed through social ties, trust, and local networks, functions as a determinant of post-disaster recovery trajectories. Although social factors are increasingly acknowledged in resilience frameworks, there remains a need for empirical, place-based evidence demonstrating how these dynamics operate across time and within comparable community contexts.Methodology: This study examines post-disaster recovery following two major flood events in Central Texas: the 2015 flood in Hays County and the 2025 flood in Kerr County. Both events resulted in loss of life and significant disruption to local communities, providing a basis for examining recovery processes across similar regional settings at different points in time. Data collection in both settings was conducted using a modified 'Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response' (CASPER) approach, which enabled rapid, household-level assessment of post-disaster conditions. Surveys were administered to capture patterns of social interaction, perceived support, access to resources, and barriers to recovery. The modified approach also incorporated questions related to community cohesion, community resilience, and local network dynamics to better understand the role of social systems in recovery processes.
Results: Findings indicate that communities with stronger pre-existing social cohesion experienced more co-ordinated and adaptive recovery processes. Cohesion scale scores were also significantly associated with resilience measures (p < 0.05), further supporting the relationship between social connectedness and post-disaster recovery capacity. Informal support systems, including neighbour networks, faith-based organisations, and community gathering spaces, played an important role in supplementing formal emergency response systems and facilitating access to information and resources. In contrast, communities with weaker social connectivity experienced delays in resource access, reduced co-ordination, and lower levels of institutional trust, contributing to more fragmented recovery trajectories.
Conclusions and Implications: These findings suggest that community cohesion functions as a measurable component of resilience and influences the effectiveness of recovery processes across comparable community settings. Integrating social infrastructure into disaster planning, alongside investments in physical systems, may strengthen both preparedness and recovery capacity. While grounded in Central Texas, these results have broader relevance for climate-resilient planning in disaster-prone regions globally, where aligning formal response systems with locally embedded social networks remains a persistent challenge.
Learning Objectives
- Assess the role of community cohesion in post-disaster recovery, including how social ties, trust, and local networks influence access to resources and coordination following flood events.
- Describe the application of a modified Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) approach to capture household-level data on social dynamics, resource access, and recovery conditions in post-disaster settings.
- Interpret findings to inform climate-resilient planning, with particular attention to how social infrastructure can be integrated into disaster preparedness and recovery strategies alongside physical systems.
P06
Healthy cities and the historic environment: Embedding heritage in policy and planning
Linda Monckton
Head of Wellbeing and Heritage, Historic England, United Kingdom
Dr Linda Monckton is Head of Wellbeing and Inclusion Strategy at Historic England and a heritage professional with an expertise in how heritage can promote and sustain increased wellbeing. She is author of the new Historic England Wellbeing and Heritage Strategy and delivers a programme of pilot projects and strategic development. She works closely with the heritage and health sectors and other Arms Length Bodies and devolved nations along with international colleagues to establish evidence gaps and what works. She also has a publication record on aspects of architectural history and wellbeing and heritage. She sits on a number of advisory and steering boards for research projects, is a peer reviewer for the Arts and Humanities Research Fund, and advises international colleagues on wellbeing and heritage. She has held a fellowship at the Southampton Institute for Arts and Humanities; was recently a visiting lecturer at University College London’s Institute of Sustainable Heritage and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment. We protect, champion and save the places that define who we are and where we've come from as a nation. We care passionately about the stories they tell, the ideas they represent and the people who live, work and play among them. Working with communities and specialists we share our passion, knowledge and skills to inspire interest, care and conservation, so everyone can keep enjoying and looking after the history that surrounds us all.
This abstract is co-authored by Linda Monckton (Historic England, Head of Wellbeing and Heritage), Desi Gradinarova (Historic England, Senior Policy Adviser - Wellbeing and Heritage) and Elizabeth Bennett (University of Leeds, Research Fellow). It draws on work undertaken by Historic England and The ACHTaxonomies Project, led by Adala Leeson (Historic England, Head of Social and Economic Research).
Elizabeth Bennett
Research Fellow, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Elizabeth Bennett is an interdisciplinary researcher and lecturer, based in the UK. Her research and teaching areas include music, theatre, performance studies and creative writing. She is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, where she is delivering the The ACHTaxonomies Project as part of a Consortium of academics, policy practitioners and consultants from the arts and humanities, natural sciences and social sciences including economics.
Healthy cities and the historic environment: Embedding heritage in policy and planning
Abstract Copy
Hosted by Historic England, this panel discussion will explore the vital role that heritage plays in healthier, happier cities and communities. The impact of the historic environment on wellbeing will be explored through different stages of urban environment development and policy, from planning to design, stakeholder engagement to delivery, and valuation to evaluation.The first section will introduce some of the ground-breaking work taking place at Historic England on heritage and wellbeing, including our strategic and policy work – the ACH Taxonomies Framework, a series of linked taxonomies that will better articulate the value of arts, culture and heritage on an economic platform. We will also share evidence about how heritage assets and people’s proximity to them supports individual and community wellbeing, contributes to community connection and a sense of belonging – and helps address health inequalities and unmet social needs. There are multiple ways through which heritage could be weaved in place-based approaches to supporting public health, including through integration of healthcare provision into communities and social prescribing.
The middle section will be a panel discussion with external speakers who will explore heritage, the urban environment, and wellbeing from multiple interdisciplinary and organisational perspectives. The discussion will explore key case studies that highlight the impact of heritage on preventive health, sustainable cities, social cohesion, personal wellbeing, place-attachment, and a sense of belonging. Through these examples, we will discuss how policy and planning can be used to support breakthroughs in understanding the relationship between the urban communities, the historic environment, and healthy, sustainable, equitable, futures for our cities – and how this will simultaneously deliver to local and national priorities under the Pride in Place strategy and the neighbourhood health agenda.
The final section will be a Q&A, where the audience is encouraged to participate ‘in person’, but will also have been provided with an opportunity to pre-submit questions to the panel via written or voice notes, allowing for different forms of engagement beyond the live Q&A, and for people who are not able to attend the panel to submit questions and have their answers recorded.
Learning Objectives
- Enhanced knowledge of existing economic and social policy on heritage and mental and physical health.
- Greater awareness of best practice in relation to stakeholder engagement and communication activation of heritage.
- Increased familiarity with and ability to share knowledge of the evidenced health benefits of heritage and how to embed them in planning and development.
P07
Decomposing the complex association between the 15‑minute city planning and health
Yating Jiang
PhD researcher, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Yating Jiang is a PhD student in Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. Her research focuses on the associations between city planning, active mobility and human health.
Decomposing the complex association between the 15‑minute city planning and health
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The 15-minute city (15MC) planning envisions that residents can access essential services within a 15-minute walk or bicycle ride from home. It is expected to have positive effects on population health and travel behaviour. However, the relationship between multidimensional 15-minute city characteristics and health is complex, including travel behaviour, physical health, mental health, and social contact. This study aimed to decompose the association between the 15-minute city planning and health.This study aimed to: 1) construct a composite 15MC index based on key dimensions of 15MC, including diversity, accessibility, and density; 2) explore the associations of 15MC with active travel behaviour, perceived health, mental health, and social contact.
We refined the 15MC composite index and assessed 15MC index by using Mazziotta–Pareto Index method. The analyses of health and travel behaviour were based on Physical Activity through Sustainable Transport Approaches (PASTA) longitudinal study across seven European cities. Associations between 15MC index, travel behaviour, and health outcomes were estimated by using logistic models and linear regression models.
A higher 15MC index was associated with better perceived health, mental health, and lower perceived stress. We examined the impact of sub-indicators, demonstrating different dimensions had specific effects on health outcomes. Furthermore, we found that 15MC planning could benefit health by promoting walking and cycling behaviours.
This study contributes to the development of healthy cities by highlighting the social implications of 15-minute city planning. It calls for more human-scale planning approaches that genuinely engage residents in active travel and promote associated health benefits.
Learning Objectives
- To understand the application of the 15-minute city index in assessing the impact of built environment on health outcomes.
- To identify key features of 15-minute city that should be considered by city managers and planners.
- To explore the policy and practical implications of 15-minute city planning, with a focus on the scale of human mobility.
P08
The method to create a healthy city
Aaron Kim
Intern, Darin Partners, United Kingdom
Student
The method to create a healthy city
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In order to analyse and discuss the method to create a healthy city, we must first assess the criteria on what a healthy city actually means. As Gil Penalosa once said: "A city that is good for a five-year-old and good for an 80-year-old is a good city for everyone." This suggests a healthy city is where accessibility is a basic standard and provided for anyone dwelling in the city. This implies the removal of physical hurdles integrated throughout the city, such as transportation, architecture and the ecosystem around the city. Thus, our criteria for analysis and the theoretical construction of a healthy city is: 1. transportation; 2. architecture; and 3. city ecosystem.Most of the cities globally are often car-dominated, whether it is a city with a low population or a metropolis. According to the World Health Organization, transportation contributes 14 per cent of global greenhouse gas emision which are linked to severe biological health problems such as respiratory diseases. Not only does domination of private vehicles such as cars damage our health internally, it may also catalyse physical inactivity within people as dependency on cars reduces daily movement. Another interesting factor about transportation is that it is a social determinant of health due to the fact that oftentimes the lower-income groups rely more on walking, cycling and public transport. A healthy transportation system within the city would require further development of safe, uninterrupted public pathways for pedestrians and cyclists but also specific improvements on public transports as there are high dependency on public transports for people to access jobs, education and even healthcare.
Architecture shapes health at the scale of buildings and streets. Research in environmental design and urban planning often suggests the direct correlation between a building’s layout, form and the physical, mental wellbeing of the residents. In 2026, where working from home is very frequent, research shows that people spend over 90 per cent of their time indoors (EPA). Therefore, architecture controls people’s exposure to factors such as air quality and social interaction. The most critical factor is air quality, Harvard’s “Healthy Buildings” study alluded to a conclusion that better ventilation can lead to 61 to 101-per-cent higher cognitive scores.
Finally, the ecosystem where people interact with natural components in the city is crucial, especially with the rapid development of technology and lack of nature. An ecosystem of a healthy city includes three layers. Natural systems, built environment and
Learning Objectives
- Urban Health
- Public Policy
- Community Engagement
P09
Spatialising One Health: A structuring principle for health justice in urban systems – evidence from Greater Cambridge
Mark Drane
Founder & Director, Urban Habitats, United Kingdom
Mark is an experienced practitioner and researcher with 25 years’ experience. He works across the fields of public health, urbanism, planning, and architecture. Mark founded Urban Habitats in 2018, putting research into action in local places. Alongside practice work he is a healthy places specialist at South Cambridgeshire District Council. He is a member of the Centre for Public Health and Wellbeing at UWE Bristol where he completed his doctoral research, Healthy Streetlife. He is a board member at Green Squirrel, a social enterprise with a vision for caring communities which runs Railway Gardens, a community resilience hub. Happiest whilst on a bicycle, Mark is an optimistic allotmenteer and lives in Cardiff.
Flora Samuel
Head of Department and Professor of Architecture (1970), University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Flora’s strength is in connecting ideas and people from different backgrounds and fields – the scholarship of integration and application, making connections across disciplines and sectors, contextualising specialisms in the larger context and making sense of them to non-specialists. Her current work focuses on inclusion through planning policy and processes evidenced through digital map making with communities and others, summarised in her most recent book Housing for Hope and Wellbeing (2023). For Flora climate change is a social justice issue.
An Architect trained at Cambridge and Princeton Flora has strong opinions on the future of architectural education and the changing role of architects. She taught for 10 years at Cardiff before leading the March at the University of Bath. She was then the first woman Head of the University of Sheffield School of Architecture. She left Sheffield for Reading University to help set up a new School of Architecture to deliver an education for uncertainty.
Flora is on the Board of the Taskforce for Planning and currently leads Public Map, a £4.6 million Green Transitions Ecosystem grant based in the Design Museum in London. She has also led on the creation of the Cambridge Room, an inclusive space for planning consultation in the region.
Zhuozhang Li
Research Associate, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
As an urban scholar in everyday spatial politics, Zhuozhang Li’s research is established at the intersection of urban studies, visual cultural studies and critical theories. He completed his PhD at CAVA, University of Liverpool in 2022. By highlighting Hong Kong urban cinema as an archive of descriptions of how the city is being lived and practised, his thesis developed a cinematic urban tectonic study to discover the hidden thread fabricated by multiple pieces that all relate to the production of everyday urban space. In 2016, he graduated with an MA (distinction) in Urban Design and the 50th Anniversary Alumni Prize at the University of Sheffield, and completed a BEng in Urban Planning at the Northwest University (China) with a First Class Scholarship in 2014. He is currently a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, working on the Cambridge Room project with local communities and groups.
Ruchit Purohit
Research Associate, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Ruchit is a researcher, architect, urban designer, and development practitioner. Ruchit has previously worked on projects ranging from community led regeneration, community led heritage, and community led design. Areas of interest include critical analysis of the current understandings of Heritage, participatory decision-making, tools for participation such as codesign and coproduction, transdisciplinary research in built environment, and urban commons.
Ruchit graduated with a PhD in Design Research Planning from the Kingston University London, a Masters degree from the University College London in Development Planning: Building and Urban Design in Development, and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Mumbai.
Spatialising One Health: A structuring principle for health justice in urban systems – evidence from Greater Cambridge
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Background: Across the UK and internationally, cities and communities are under pressure to accommodate growth. Commonly, this is framed as economic growth, largely externalising impacts on human health, planetary health, and nature. Three problems identified are: health impacts are siloed – incentivising trade-offs between humans, nature and planet; development happens in local places yet impacts are not evaluated at this scale; and, despite numerous frameworks and pilot interventions, this has not crystallised into system-level action within policy and practice. One Health is increasingly used to address these connections yet is often applied in human‑centric, high‑level ways that limit impact on city-level decision‑making.Greater Cambridge is a microcosm of the resultant problems including: access to affordable housing; critical gaps in infrastructure; food and water insecurity; environmental degradation; and biodiversity loss. People in Greater Cambridge are relatively healthy and wealthy yet averages mask underlying inequity in the UK’s most unequal city. Government proposals for up to 150,000 new homes in Greater Cambridge exemplify a context of growth pressure. Health equity is emphasised in local policy yet per the congress theme: business-as-usual risks breakdown – a breakthrough strategy is needed.
Methods: This paper draws on practice-based research, Healthy Greater Cambridge, an empirical study centring community knowledge. It advances and spatially localises One Health as a structuring principle to reshape urban systems so that development supports health justice. A researcher-in-residence approach was taken, hosted at the Cambridge Room, an urban room. Data were collected and analysed from desktop data plus rapid reconnaissance through stakeholder conversations (n=8), community dialogue, and observations across Greater Cambridge. A One Health profile was developed that informed synthesis of the Healthy Greater Cambridge approach.
Findings: While One Health profiling is essential for revealing interconnected health impacts and inequities, description alone will not deliver health justice. Emergent from the data and understanding, the Healthy Greater Cambridge approach demonstrates how One Health can be operationalised through seven foundational concepts. Five priorities for action are illustrated by case studies: creating with communities; opportunities for movement; healthy food system; making space for nature; and getting it right at all scales.
Conclusion: This paper advances One Health and operationalises it in context. Recommendations are made for policy, practice, industry, and communities. Business-as-usual risks harms to One Health. Health justice is not a luxury: it’s a necessity for the future of Greater Cambridge and cities facing growth pressures globally.
Learning Objectives
- 1. Understand how spatially localised, community‑centred evidence can be used to operationalise One Health as a structuring principle across urban systems.
- 2. Identify why business‑as‑usual approaches to growth risk undermining health justice, and how a One Health framing alters decision‑making across planning, infrastructure, and governance.
- 3. Apply the lessons from the Healthy Greater Cambridge approach to support health justice in other cities and communities facing growth pressures.
Theme: Healthy homes and neighbourhoods
P10
Residential settlement urban design: Review, assessment and evaluation process
Khalafalla Omer
Volunteer planner, Royal Town Planning Institute, UK
Khalafalla is an experienced architect and town planner with 20 years' experience in managing architecture designs, building construction, and development proposal planning applications. He holds a BSc in Architecture and Spatial Planning, an MBA in Project Management, and an MSc in Urban Development and Planning. He is a licentiate member of the RTPI and Urban Design Network.
Residential settlement urban design: Review, assessment and evaluation process
Abstract Copy
Background: Cities today are subject to high urban growth, which require a clear planning and design policies to endorse sustainable neighbourhood development process. Recently, the UK neighbourhood development proposals led by private planning consultancies, and according to highly standard national and local urban design policies. However, neighbourhood site studies indicate that not all previously developed neighbourhood are not well designed owing to lack of strong character, diverse land use, human scale enclosure, pedestrian experience and active travel.Research gap: In terms of design policies, UK national government developed a well-structured National Model Design Code, while certain planning and architecture consultancy endorse new urbanism and traditional architecture design principles. Nevertheless, certain city council planning departments have integrated urban regeneration policies but there shall be an integrated approach to review, assess and evaluate existing neighbourhood urban designs.
Method: The paper would examine Poundbury Neighbourhood design based on urban design assessment tools like figure ground mapping, urban characterisation assessment, and legibility study, followed by scoring system development in order to address the design strength and weakness. Poundbury Neighbourhood would be taken as a case study because it endorsed new urbanism and traditional architecture principles, which becomes founding design principles that support the local architecture and existing urban legacy.
Result: The paper therefore reveals important subjects thought would lead to better revision, assessment and scoring system. First, the paper topics would represent a logical framework work about good neighbourhood urban design quality. Second, it would address a better mapping process to address and assess urban design concerns. Lastly, the paper would develop inclusive multi-dimension scoring system to evaluate residential settlement urban design.
Conclusion: Existing neighbourhood urban design required a better review and assessment process in order to proceed with appropriate improvement process. Planning consultancies and city council planning shall question the appropriate process that would lead to better urban regeneration plans.
Learning Objectives
- Understanding neighborhood urban design
- Neighborhood urban design assessment
- Neighborhood urban design evaluation
P11
Scottish GPs’ perspectives on the home environment as a determinant of health
Laura MacLean
Research associate, The University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom
Dr Laura MacLean is a Research Associate in the Department of Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management (DMEM) and a Part 2 architect. Her work operates at the intersection of architecture, health and environmental wellbeing. Her research explores the relationships between people and their environments, with a particular focus on how natural and designed landscapes can support health, wellbeing and sustainable futures.
Drawing on an interdisciplinary background spanning architecture, design and social science, Laura develops innovative, evidence-informed approaches that translate health policy into actionable design solutions.
Laura is a researcher on the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)–funded Design HOPES (Healthy Organisations in a Place-based Ecosystem) programme. As part of this project, she worked on the design and development of Mosaic Landscapes, an evidence-based facilitation tool that supports collaborative NHS estate planning. Mosaic Landscapes enables healthcare staff, patients and communities to co-design inclusive, health-supportive green spaces by linking landscape decisions directly to wellbeing outcomes. The work has generated peer-reviewed publications and has been applied across NHS sites.
Laura works closely with NHS Boards, Public Health Scotland, government bodies and third-sector organisations to embed co-design, sustainability and evidence-based design practices within healthcare and public environments. Laura is Prince2 trained in project management, bringing structured management and delivery expertise to complex, multi-stakeholder research and innovation projects.
Sonja Oliveira
Professor of architecture, The University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom
Sonja Oliveira is Professor in Architecture and Sustainability Design Innovation and an Associate Dean (REF) in the Faculty of Engineering. She has over 25 years internationally leading design innovation and interdisciplinary research experience in health, energy, technology and design sectors. She combines design, architecture, environmental engineering and behavioural science to understand how complex phenomena interrelate and how society may develop responsive intelligent mechanisms in polycrisis extreme scenarios. She has led diverse multi and interdisciplinary design and research projects funded by EPSRC, ESRC, AHRC, Leverhulme as well as consultancy, ranging in value from £200k-£29mil in the UK and internationally. She has an established international reputation in socio-spatial intelligent communication and governance, nature inspired collective responsiveness and climate action thought leadership. She founded the Radical Architecture Practice for Sustainability network (http://www.rapsresearch.com) in partnership with leading design practitioners and researchers in Sweden, the Netherlands, Portugal, Austria and France. She is an Advisory Board member to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in the UK, Thought Leadership Specialist Advisor to the Design Council and a board member of the World Green Building Council (Serbia). Currently, Sonja is leading delivery of multiple research and innovation projects aiming to transform interrelated energy, climate and health systems to account for complex multi-scale interconnected encounters between humans, nonhumans, spatial, socio-technological and environmental dimensions of everyday life. Sonja has worked with climate tech and socially progressive innovation think tanks, UK and EU government institutions, business consultancy, international design firms, research institutions and recently housing associations to examine complex cross-disciplinary problems that emerge in the designed environment.
Scottish GPs’ perspectives on the home environment as a determinant of health
Abstract Copy
Housing quality and neighbourhood conditions are well-established social determinants of health, influencing respiratory illness, mental health, chronic disease management, mobility and social wellbeing (Bentley et al., 2025; Barnett et al., 2023; Krieger and Higgins 2002). In the UK, poor housing is estimated to cost the NHS £1.4 billion annually, rising to £18.5 billion when wider societal costs are included (Garrett et al, 2021). While architects and housing professionals diagnose unhealthy homes, healthcare professionals diagnose unhealthy patients. However, there is currently little structured integration between the two. This disconnect represents a missed opportunity to align health systems with housing and neighbourhood policy.This research examines how primary healthcare professionals (PHCPs) in Scotland perceive and engage with the home environment within routine clinical consultations. A qualitative survey of 80* primary healthcare staff explored four themes: (1) perception of housing and health; (2) clinical considerations; (3) current practice; and (4) roles, responsibilities and training. The findings indicate that PHCPs widely recognise that housing conditions such as damp, cold and overcrowding shape patient health and healthcare use. However, integration into practice remains inconsistent. Consultation structures, time pressures, and lack of embedded housing assessment tools limit systematic enquiry. Many respondents expressed uncertainty about their roles and boundaries and concern about raising housing issues without clear referral pathways. As a result, housing is often acknowledged but not operationalised within primary healthcare.
For the built environment and policy sectors, these findings position primary healthcare as a critical but under-leveraged site of real-time information about housing performance and neighbourhood stressors. Clinicians routinely encounter the lived consequences of poor housing conditions, however, without cross-sector co-ordination, this knowledge does not systematically inform housing standards, retrofit programmes or neighbourhood planning strategies. As Barnett et al (2023) observe in the US context, major housing policies such as the Community Reinvestment Act and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit programmes have not systematically incorporated input from healthcare professionals regarding community health outcomes. This current study therefore demonstrates that strengthening integration between primary care and housing systems presents a significant opportunity to enable earlier identification of unhealthy homes, reduce avoidable healthcare demand and support the development of healthier housing policy.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the relationship between housing conditions and health outcomes.
- Explore how primary healthcare professionals currently address housing issues in clinical practice.
- Identify opportunities to integrate healthcare insights into housing and neighbourhood policy.
P12
Indigenous sustainable practices of Vastushastra: Spatial and material analysis through case study
Kala Choyimanikandiyil
Associate professor, Manipal School of Architecture and Planning, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Karnataka, India
Kala Choyimanikandiyil is an architect and academician with over 28 years of experience in teaching architecture courses and industry practice in architectural and interior design.
She has practised on residential and interior projects in South India. Since 2008, she has focused on academia and undertaken extensive research on Indian traditional architecture and sustainable design. Her contributions also include areas on campus design.
A K Kasthurba
Professor, National Institute of Technology, India
Dr A K Kasthurba is a professor, architect, researcher and conservation specialist at the Department of Architecture and Planning, National Institute of Technology Calicut, in Kerala, India.
With over three decades of experience in architectural education, she has been dedicated to teaching architecture since 1990, continuously updating her expertise to align with evolving trends in urban renewal, tourism planning, heritage conservation, earth-based construction, and environmentally sustainable design. Throughout her career, she has received multiple international awards and recognitions for her contributions to the field. She has established academic collaborations with esteemed universities in the United States and actively participated in various professional bodies. Her commitment to community development is reflected in numerous outreach initiatives and consultancy projects aimed at fostering sustainable architectural practices.
Anupama Pavithran, Architect, Scuola Master F.lli Presnti del Politecnico di Milano in Piazza, Italy
Anupama Pavithran
Architect, Scuola Master F.lli Presnti del Politecnico di Milano in Piazza, Italy
Anupama Pavithran is an architect, product designer, and academician with over 10 years of experience in architectural design, interior architecture, and research-driven practice. Her work spans residential, hospitality, and large-scale housing projects, with involvement from concept development to detailed design and execution.
She has contributed to diverse projects including villa design, apartment planning, resort development, and commercial architecture, along with site planning for multi-acre developments. Her approach integrates functional planning, spatial quality, and contextual sensitivity, supported by strong skills in architectural detailing and visualisation.
Alongside professional practice, she has extensive experience in academia, having served as an assistant professor leading architectural design studios and courses in building construction, interior design, and spatial design. She has actively mentored students and contributed to curriculum development, fostering a design-thinking and research-oriented approach.
Her interests lie at the intersection of architecture, design innovation, and user-centred solutions, with a focus on creating meaningful and efficient built environments.
Indigenous sustainable practices of Vastushastra: Spatial and material analysis through case study
Abstract Copy
Hinduism is an ancient religion originated in India long before 3000 BCE and the worship of God took various forms with time. Hindu temples were meant for their religious worship and cultural activities. The principles of planning and design of temples had followed principles of Indian traditional architecture called ‘Vastuvidya’ or ‘Vastushastra’; a subject laid down in the ‘Vedas’ (religious texts) of Hinduism many years back. Brahmins (certain sect among Hindus) always lived around the premises of these temples. The houses of Brahmins also were built according to the Vastuvidya principles. Other sects of Hindus like ‘Kshatriya’, Vaishya’ and ‘Sudra’ also had followed vastushastra principles and different dimensioning systems for each of their residential units. Over the years, as population grew, families started inhabiting in their own agricultural properties.Vastushastra reveals a clear understanding of culture, climate, spirituality and sustainability. It incorporates the principles for site planning, spatial arrangements, material selection and construction techniques in accordance with cosmic forces and environmental conditions and, most importantly, the social and religious practices.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the sustainable principles of Vastushastra through one case study of a century-old traditional residence located at Kallamundkur village in Dakshina Kannada district, Karnataka, India. The study aims to identify how spatial layout, orientation pattern, material types, construction techniques, and interior detailing align with Vastushastra principle and contribute to environmental performance and occupant comfort.
The methodology followed is a qualitative case study approach involving onsite documentation through measured drawings, photographic surveys and observational analysis. The Vastushastra concepts, such as Vastupurusha Mandala, functional layout of internal spaces, orientation with respect to cardinal directions, courtyard planning, etc., are technically explained. Further, the construction materials and techniques – laterite stone masonry, lime mortar, timber structures, clay roofing tiles and red oxide flooring – are evaluated for sustainability potential in terms of material properties, thermal comfort and regional availability.
The findings reveal that the residence design practices a high level of climate responsiveness, material efficiency and functional adaptability, achieved through passive design strategies of Vastushastra doctrines. The study concludes that traditional residential architecture represents a sustainable building model that remains remarkable today. Conserving and learning from such heritage structures can indeed contribute meaningfully to sustainable development goals.
Learning Objectives
- To explain the concept and planning principle sof Vastushastra (Indian traditional architecture) followed in residential design
- To analyze the underlying Vastushastra principles of the case study of an ancient house of Padival family in Kallamundlur Village in Mangalore
- To tabulate the sustainability aspects observed in the case study
P13
Barriers and solutions to heat pump installation in Ealing to reduce air pollution and decarbonise heating: A policy report
Ella Kline, MSc Student, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine/Ealing Council, United Kingdom
Ella Kline
MSc Student, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine/Ealing Council, United Kingdom
Ella Kline is a biomedical scientist specialising in climate change, health and environmental epidemiology. She is currently studying MSc Climate Change and Planetary Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which includes a placement with Ealing Council. She has a BSc in Biochemistry and an MRes Biomedical Research as well as over two years’ experience working in cellular therapeutics.
Elizabeth McGill
Assistant Professor in Public Health Evaluation, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom
Dr Elizabeth McGill is an Assistant Professor in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Her research focuses on complex systems approaches to evaluation, the commercial determinants of health and health inequalities. She also has a particular interest in building research capability and capacity in local government settings.
Rosie Rowe
Research Capacity Lead, Ealing Council, United Kingdom
Dr Rosie Rowe is the Research Capacity Lead at Ealing Council. She has a background in public health, with a particular interest in healthy place shaping. She seeks to use research and evaluation to inform the delivery of innovative programmes that have a lasting impact in reducing health inequalities and fostering healthier communities.
Barriers and solutions to heat pump installation in Ealing to reduce air pollution and decarbonise heating: A policy report
Abstract Copy
Electrification of heating is essential to reach net zero in the UK, and preventing combustion of fossil fuels for heat could eliminate local heating-related air pollution. Levels of key pollutants, namely nitrogen oxides (NOX) and particulate matter (PM), that negatively impact health remain above WHO guidelines in Ealing and London-wide. Transport for London and the Greater London Authority predict that domestic heat and power will be the largest source of NOX emissions by 2030. Heat pumps, which are approximately three times more efficient than conventional boilers and do not require local fossil fuel combustion, present an opportunity to simultaneously mitigate climate change and tackle air pollution. However, their uptake is much slower in the UK compared to similar European countries. Therefore, a gap remains in our understanding of how to support local residents to install heat pumps, what barriers they face, and what role local governments and civil society can play in facilitating a shift away from fossil fuel heating technologies.This project is carried out as part of a master’s of climate change and planetary health and is a collaboration between London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Ealing Council. It aims to understand current barriers that prevent uptake by property owners in the UK and effective policies, incentivisation and communication to encourage property owners in Ealing to switch from fossil fuel heating technologies to heat pumps. These questions will be answered using a literature review and interest-holder interviews. The literature review will synthesise existing evidence on the barriers faced by people in the UK relating to heat pump installation. Interest-holder interviews will be conducted with property owners in Ealing Air Quality Focus Areas and Ealing Council officers. Through property owner interviews, we aim to understand awareness of heat pumps, opinions of national and local government support, and reasons preventing them from installing a heat pump. Interviews with local authority officers will collect data on feasible solutions that could be implemented by Ealing Council to support property owners to transition away from fossil fuel heating technologies. This project will culminate in a policy report (September 2026) that provides recommendations to Ealing Council on heat pump-related communication and policy.
Learning Objectives
- 1. Participants will be able to explain barriers facing property owners in the UK from moving to heat pumps.
- 3. Participants will be able to describe solutions that may support residents in moving away from fossil fuel heating technologies.
- 2. Participants will be able to identify areas where local authorities can facilitate property owners and residents in switching to heat pumps.
P14
Home heat hubs – a win-win for healthy homes and sustainable communities
Clare Delmar
founder , Build for health , United Kingdom
Clare is an urban planner and healthcare entrepreneur with 15 years experience investing in PFI hospitals and 15 years running a healthcare company special;ising in medical imaging and mens health. She is also a blogger on local health and planning (Listen to Locals), a campaigner on industry leadership (Build for Health), a trustee of the London Society and candidate for Councillor in Richmond-upon-Thames.
Travis Theune
CEO and founder, Thermify, United Kingdom
Travis has over 30 years of experience, having built world-class data centres as well as managing large scale cloud operations for some of the earliest cloud adopters in the industry. As cofounder and CEO of Thermify, he is committed to providing a clean, green solution to the environmental impact of cloud computing. By using the waste heat generated by mini-data centres, Thermify aims to reduce, if not eliminate, fuel poverty in the UK while reducing the carbon impact of large-scale computing.
Home heat hubs – a win-win for healthy homes and sustainable communities
Abstract Copy
Data centres are considered critical infrastructure by the Government and are being developed across the country at pace. While they are seen as essential to the AI economy, they are also regarded as environmentally unsustainable owing to their power and water requirements. Tensions are mounting between the requirements of economic growth through data centres and the concerns of local communities over their impact on environment, health and energy needs.There is, however, an opportunity to harness the vast resources driving data centre growth into a sustainable approach to home heating. Capturing the heat generated by data centres and channelling this into heating for homes and local facilities is an approach gaining steam in several regeneration schemes in London and other cities in England. It’s also an approach that can be delivered to individual homes, with an immediate and powerful impact on alleviating fuel poverty and supporting healthy homes.
Thermify, a Wales-based an energy technology company that provides low-carbon, affordable home heating and hot water by repurposing waste heat from distributed data centres has developed a technology called the Heat Hub, which offers customers cloud services through a distributed network of smaller data centres, called “cubes”. These cubes can be housed within a home, or in a a garden shed, and Thermify will charge companies looking for cloud computing services to make use of these distributed, mini data centres. So, by providing cloud services for businesses, it acts as a heat provider for households – the cost of electricity is largely covered by its cloud customers, allowing Thermify to offer low-to-no-cost heating to homeowners.
“Our mission is to eliminate fuel poverty in the UK”, says Travis Theune, the CEO of Thermify. “We are showing that energy use can be both affordable and sustainable.”
The Heat Hub is currently being tested as part of a UK Energy Networks pilot scheme, and Thermify hopes to build on this and develop its technology at scale.
Learning Objectives
- explore issues around data centres/ impact on communities
- identify approaches to using data centres for local benefit
- explore the Heat Hub
P15
Restoring the human layer: Analogue co-design for healthy urban homes
Fiona Caulfield
Interior + Spatial Practitioner, Remodel, United Kingdom
Fiona Caulfield is an interior & spatial design researcher, educator, and practitioner dedicated to promoting social and spatial justice within social and affordable housing. Utilising critical theory and participatory design, she collaborates with residents and stakeholders to create adaptable and personalised living spaces. By developing interactive toolkits and policy blueprints, she empowers communities to assert their rights and shape their environments. Fiona advocates for restorative practices that transform interiors into homes that nurture health, identity, and belonging, while amplifying marginalised voices in the built environment.
Restoring the human layer: Analogue co-design for healthy urban homes
Abstract Copy
Today's housing is more efficient and standardised than ever, yet many new urban developments, especially in social and affordable housing, prioritise functionality over fostering a sense of belonging. As cities rush to meet housing demand, there is an increased risk that standardisation will undermine the sensory and emotional qualities essential for wellbeing. Despite the growing recognition of healthy homes as a key policy priority, design approaches still focus primarily on technical performance rather than lived experience and personal attachment.This workshop responds to that tension by asking: what is interior design for in the age of optimisation? Inspired by wider calls to protect creativity and human experience in an increasingly automated world, it reframes interior design as a critical tool for restoring the “human layer” within housing. The session offers an analogue, sensory-led co-design methodology that foregrounds human experience as a form of design intelligence, complementing, rather than competing with, digital systems. The session advocates a future in which digital systems operate unobtrusively, preserving the lived experience of home as fundamentally human.
Structured around a guided co-design protocol, the session delivers an interactive, participatory workshop. Participants collaborate at a shared co-working table using analogue tools: mapping, collage, and tactile material exploration. Each participant will generate an individual response, articulating personal needs, spatial preferences, and emotional priorities while also engaging with and developing others' contributions. A collective vision board develops in real time. Facilitated reflection will identify commonalities, shared priorities, and points of tension, making the often-overlooked sensory and emotional dimensions of domestic space visible.
Producing a highly visual “emotional floorplan” that captures a collective vision of home grounded in lived experience. This artefact synthesises diverse contributions into a coherent spatial narrative, evidencing how sensory, material, and atmospheric qualities shape wellbeing. In parallel, participants gain practical, transferable insights into facilitating analogue co-design and translating qualitative, actionable spatial strategies for high-density housing contexts.
Improving housing outcomes is not solely a technical or financial challenge; it is also a human one. By demonstrating how immersive, provocative design-led interventions can meaningfully enhance the lived experience, the workshop offers a scalable, replicable model for practice, policy, and housing delivery. It advocates a shift in design priorities: from optimisation alone to a more balanced approach that supports efficiency with deeply human, sensory, and participatory forms of design, ultimately contributing to healthier, more inclusive, and more resilient neighbourhoods.
Learning Objectives
- Consider how analogue design approaches support wellbeing in high-density housing.
- Explore methods to facilitate sensory-led, participatory co-design workshops.
- Synthesise individual and collective spatial insights into actionable strategies to form human-centred spatial frameworks.
P16
From overheating to tipping points: Designing for hidden health risks in urban homes
Mingyu Zhu
Research Associate, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
Mingyu is a Research Associate at the Urban Big Data Centre, University of Glasgow. He is the winner of the Design Research for Healthy Cities, HCD2025.
He employs innovative research approaches, including urban big data analysis, participatory social surveys, and multimethod simulation methods. His primary interest lies in cross-disciplinary collaborations that bridge engineering, social sciences, and art & design, with a focus on designing, constructing, and managing urban built environments to enhance sustainability, inclusiveness, and resilience.
Qunshan Zhao
Professor of Urban Analytics, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
Dr Qunshan Zhao is a Professor in Urban Analytics in Urban Studies and Social Policy and a Deputy Director of the Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC) at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, UK. Qunshan's research has three main keywords, including Cities, Sensors, and Data. His research interest focuses on creating a sustainable urban future and tackling related social, economic, and environmental problems by using new forms of data and related analytical approaches. Ongoing research efforts include urban infrastructure location optimization (urban green infrastructure; bike sharing station; alternative refuelling stations location modelling), human-environment interactions (human mobility patterns in urban/natural spaces, particularly by mobile phone app data), housing energy efficiency and fuel poverty (fuel poverty and housing environment sensing and evaluation), 3D city modelling, urban slum modeling in Global South, and open source spatial optimization methods development (pysal/spopt).
Jiayi Jin
Assistant Professor, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Dr Jiayi Jin is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Architecture Department, University of Strathclyde, whose research explores digital urban technologies and creative participation to promote equitable and sustainable cities. She leads several British Academy and UKRI-funded projects, including “Gender-Inclusive Cities”, “Participatory Neighbourhood Planning for the ‘Brown to Green’ Transition in Tyneside”, and “Navigating Urban Ecologies”. Her work focuses particularly on how urban design and planning are conceptualised and experienced through a gender lens. Beginning with an investigation of Newcastle’s City Centre Transformation Plan back in 2021, her research has expanded to explore feminist urban environments and gendered dynamics in urban politics. She works closely with external partners including community organisations, architects, urban planners, artists and local government, employing methods such as gender equity walks, interviews, documentaries, counter-mapping, and GIS/PGIS analysis to foster interdisciplinary exploration and promote more inclusive urban futures.
From overheating to tipping points: Designing for hidden health risks in urban homes
Abstract Copy
As climate change intensifies, urban overheating is emerging as a pressing challenge for healthy city design. However, current approaches in planning and policy tend to frame heat risk through static categories of vulnerability, focusing on predefined ‘at-risk’ populations and extreme events. This paper argues that such approaches overlook a critical dimension: overheating can function as a tipping point, where everyday thermal discomfort escalates into broader health and wellbeing challenges. Recognising and designing for these transitions is essential for creating resilient and inclusive urban environments.The study draws on empirical work conducted in Southwark, London, combining in-home environmental monitoring with resident experiences. Rather than concentrating solely on highly vulnerable groups, the research explores how overheating affects a wider range of households under typical living conditions. The findings reveal that heat exposure can trigger cascading impacts across multiple domains: disrupting sleep and recovery, intensifying existing health conditions, increasing psychological stress, and placing additional strain on household routines and care practices. These effects are often cumulative and interdependent, meaning that relatively moderate overheating can, over time, push households from a state of coping into one of systemic strain.
For urban designers and planners, these findings highlight a gap between how heat risk is currently assessed and how it is actually experienced. Existing metrics and interventions, often centred on outdoor temperature thresholds or building-level efficiency, do not fully capture the indoor, lived realities of overheating. Nor do they account for the ways in which spatial design, housing typologies, and neighbourhood context shape exposure and adaptive capacity.
This paper proposes a shift towards a tipping point-informed design perspective. This involves recognising early warning signs of stress within domestic environments, integrating indoor environmental data into planning and retrofit decisions, and designing housing and neighbourhoods that support both thermal comfort and adaptive behaviours. It also calls for greater attention to ‘hidden vulnerabilities’ that emerge through changing social and demographic conditions, rather than relying solely on predefined risk groups.
By reframing overheating as a dynamic and relational process, this research offers practical insights for healthy city design. It encourages planners, designers, and policymakers to move beyond reactive responses towards anticipatory strategies that address the conditions under which heat becomes harmful. In doing so, it contributes to a more nuanced and actionable understanding of how urban environments can better support health and wellbeing in a warming climate.
Learning Objectives
- Reframe overheating as a tipping point
- Recognise hidden vulnerabilities
- Design and planning responses
P17
Creating a healthy neighbourhood for all ages
Nigel Saunders
Director, Pozzoni Architecture, United Kingdom
Director at Pozzoni Architecture, Nigel Saunders, has extensive design expertise within the housing sector across all age groups, with a particularly keen interest in intergenerational living. Nigel is also chair of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s ‘Housing, Planning & Ageing Group’ which aims to address the city region’s housing options for older people, including creating balanced communities within our towns and cities. He is also a contributor to several APPG housing-led inquiries.
Emma Tanti
Senior Associate, Pozzoni Architecture, United Kingdom
A senior associate at Pozzoni, Emma specialises in the later living sector. Responsible for delivering care sector projects she has a holistic understanding of all the key design ingredients for a fulfilling experience in later life. A specialist in her field, Emma has undertaken research into care hotels, dementia-friendly design and intergenerational housing and is currently leading the design stages for the health innovation neighbourhood at North Manchester General Hospital. Emma also co-ordinates the Pozzoni Academy, mentoring the next generation of architects.
Creating a healthy neighbourhood for all ages
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In this session, we will explore the innovative approach to the comprehensive redevelopment of redundant NHS land at North Manchester General Hospital (NMGH) to create a healthy neighbourhood comprising 600 homes.The project sits within a strategic masterplan for the entire NMGH estate designed by Sheppard Robson. The ambition for the neighbourhood is to create a new mixed-use, vibrant community with a strong sense of place within one of the most economically deprived areas of the country. The scale of investment gives an incredible opportunity to level-up life chances and outcomes for local people and act as a catalyst, through social inclusion and healthy ageing.
It will ensure local people are supported to get well and stay well by tackling the root causes of ill health. The project is framed by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) approaches to city planning for improved health outcomes. It uses WHO Healthy City guidance to set out an approach to planning a healthy neighbourhood that has the potential to address social determinants of health inequality across the life course.
The design also takes an age-friendly approach, aligned with Manchester’s position as the UK’s first WHO Age-Friendly City region. As such, it provides a diverse range of housing to support the creation of an age-inclusive community:
• family housing;
• later living;
• extra care;
• care;
• supported housing;
• key worker; and
• step-down “care hotel”.
Our work has identified six key healthy neighbourhood Innovations (HNI) required to realise the potential of the redevelopment for addressing the aims:
• HNI.1: Co-produced civic institutions;
• HNI.2: A distributed care model;
• HNI.3: Diversity and flexibility in residential typologies;
• HNI.4: A co-ordinated social infrastructure;
• HNI.5: Destination and connector; and
• HNI.6: Research, development and digital infrastructure.
There is ambition for healthy ageing businesses to establish and grow here. Commercial space adjacent to the homes and new hospital could include research facilities, with its centrepiece an International Centre for Action on Healthy Ageing to provide opportunities for work on advanced healthcare collaborations.
The neighbourhood will become a “prevention demonstrator” to promote significant commercial research and the potential for housing design, tech products and new forms of healthcare to be trialled and developed. We will also explore Greater Manchester’s Housing First and Live Well initiatives, and their importance to the city region’s approach to healthy city design.
Learning Objectives
- Innovative approaches to healthy neighbourhood design.
- The importance of community placemaking for health and wellbeing.
- The possibilities of stepdown care/health hotel accommodation supporting the NHS.
P18
Healthy city design for schools: Applying healthy streets through school streets and safer routes to school
Cara Mazetti
Senior consultant, AECOM, United Kingdom
Cara is a senior consultant in AECOM’s Streets team, with over 10 years’ experience supporting local and regional authorities to plan and deliver healthier, safer and more inclusive streets and neighbourhoods. Her work spans active travel, school streets, safer routes to school, mobility hubs, public transport operations, liveable neighbourhoods, placemaking, and wider streets and public realm improvements.
She brings a collaborative and pragmatic approach to programme delivery, supporting partners to translate policy and evidence into practical, deliverable interventions that respond to local context and community need. Her work focuses on improving everyday environments for walking, wheeling and cycling, particularly for children, older people and disabled users.
Within AECOM, Cara leads a working group focused on school streets and safer routes to school, sharing best practice and strengthening approaches to creating healthier environments for children and families. She also co‑leads AECOM’s Inclusive Streets Technical Practice Group, supporting the integration of accessibility, equity and inclusive design principles across projects, disciplines and geographies.
Her work is driven by a strong interest in the role that streets and neighbourhoods play in shaping population health, equity and climate outcomes, and in supporting cities to deliver public spaces that improve quality of life for all.
Healthy city design for schools: Applying healthy streets through school streets and safer routes to school
Abstract Copy
This practice‑focused workshop will explore how the Healthy Streets framework can be applied in practice to create healthier, safer, and more inclusive environments for children through School Streets and Safer Routes to School programmes. Drawing on AECOM’s experience delivering and supporting schemes for local authority clients across the UK and Ireland, the session will combine case study evidence with interactive discussion to examine how theory translates into real‑world implementation.The session is grounded in the Healthy Streets framework, which focuses on creating streets that are safe, inclusive, active, and supportive of health and wellbeing. The workshop will briefly introduce how healthy streets principles intersect with existing research on child health, active travel, road safety, air quality, and equitable access to public space, providing a shared conceptual basis for discussion across disciplines including transport, urban design, public health, and education.
Using School Streets and Safer Routes to School as the primary application, the session will explore what has been designed and delivered in practice, how schemes have been implemented, and the contexts in which they operate. Case examples will cover a range of settings, including urban and suburban schools, main road School Streets, schemes on bus routes, and wider network‑based Safer Routes interventions. The workshop will outline how schools have been selected and prioritised, how engagement and consultation have been undertaken with school communities and residents, and how different operational approaches have been used, including ANPR enforcement, physical or stewarded barriers, and permit and exemption systems.
The session will reflect on what has been learned through implementation, including strengths, limitations, and unintended consequences. Topics will include monitoring and evaluation approaches, evidence of health, safety, and behavioural outcomes, and lessons around deliverability, compliance, equity, and community acceptance. Participants will be invited to share their own experiences and challenges to enrich the discussion.
The workshop will conclude by exploring implications for future practice and policy, including how School Streets and Safer Routes to School can be scaled, adapted, and embedded within wider healthy streets and healthy city strategies. Discussion will focus on next steps for practitioners and decision‑makers seeking to move from pilots to long‑term change, and the broader role of school‑focused interventions in shaping healthier cities for children and communities.
The workshop will provide practical tools, shared learning, and space for dialogue to support healthier school journeys and neighbourhoods.
Learning Objectives
- Demonstrate how the Healthy Streets framework can be applied in practice through School Streets and Safer Routes to School to create healthier, safer and more inclusive environments for children.
- Share practical lessons from real‑world delivery, including implementation challenges, community response, equity considerations and measurable outcomes.
- Explore how school‑focused interventions can be scaled and embedded within wider Healthy City strategies to support long‑term change.
P19
City XXI and Mariupol settlements: Healthy communities for the war-displaced population in Ukraine
Viktor Riabokin
Co-founder, Vid Sertsya Budova NGO, Ukraine
Viktor Riabokin is a systems architect of Ukraine's recovery models, working across project preparation, finance, and the implementation of reconstruction projects. He co-founded the NGO Vid Sertsya Budova, which focuses on designing replicable, self-sustaining, and inclusive residential settlements.
Viktor serves as coordinator for international cooperation in social and affordable housing at Mariupol City Council, where he engages international financial institutions and bilateral donors to co-finance housing solutions for internally displaced families and returning veterans. He is also part of the leadership of Harvard's course Advancing the Sustainable Development of Ukraine, which aims to promote sustainable reconstruction processes nationwide.
Viktor combines an academic background in political economy with practical experience in cross-sector partnerships spanning government, communities, NGOs, the private sector, and IFIs.
Michael Cottakis
CEO of 89 Global
Michael Cottakis is CEO of 89 Global, an international advisory platform supporting the development and execution of strategic investment projects.
He has experience in strategy development, public-private initiatives, and stakeholder engagement in European and international contexts. He combines an academic background in economic history with practical experience in establishing and leading advisory platforms focused on policy, finance and development. 89 Global forms the project management unit responsible for developing a new city project in Ukraine, while the company is supporting Mariupol City Council in the development of housing settlements for Mariupol IDPs across the country.
Previously, Michael co-founded and led the 89 Initiative, a pan-European platform that connects policy, academic and financial stakeholders. He has also established a network of experts who support advisory and programme delivery activities.
He has a PhD from the London School of Economics (LSE), which focused on the historical drivers of entrepreneurship in cities.
City XXI and Mariupol settlements: Healthy communities for the war-displaced population in Ukraine
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Background: Ukraine is facing profound societal challenges after four years of war: displacement, growing inequality, the reintegration of over 4.6 million internally displaced persons, and limited access to adequate housing. These challenges are not only humanitarian but structural, affecting long-term social cohesion, economic recovery, and community resilience. Addressing them requires systemic solutions that move beyond short-term aid toward inclusive, active citizenship-driven communities capable of sustaining Ukraine's recovery.Purpose: We showcase models for interconnected affordable communities of different scales in Ukraine to reintegrate veterans, IDPs, and resettled families traumatised by years of war. Three mutually reinforcing components – affordable and healthy housing, integrated social services, employment and entrepreneurship infrastructure – form a system of social and economic inclusion. Mixed-income, community-scale clusters prevent segregation and foster cohesion. Barrier-free design for returning veterans is embedded as a baseline, not an add-on.
Methods: Each model for City XXI and Mariupol settlements is designed and delivered through interdisciplinary partnerships that combine local leadership with international academic and technical expertise. Graduate-level academic training acquired through Harvard School of Public Health’s Advancing the Sustainable Development of Ukraine course has equipped leaders of Ukrainian projects, who are joined by seasoned engineers, architects, and urban planners. Each community has an economic anchor, e.g., logistics hub, industrial park, with home-building sequential to job establishment. The “Lab as a Service” (LaaS) concept positions communities as living design laboratories. Financing is structured as blended models combining municipal resources, concessional loans, international donor grants, and private investors' contributions that make housing and infrastructure affordable without creating dependency. Neighbourhood masterplans are developed to LEED certification standards, incorporating trauma-informed design, green building techniques, walkable 15-minute neighbourhood structures, renewable energy infrastructure, and community centres as core social anchors.
Results: City XXI and Mariupol projects address Ukraine’s twin mandates of human capital and infrastructure recovery. Resiliency is designed into the communities from the start through local governance, shared ownership structures, and community-led management. Preliminary findings across all three settings confirm that participatory design processes themselves carry measurable therapeutic value, restoring agency to people who have had it stripped away by displacement. A neighbourhood impact measurement system will monitor areas of progress and challenge.
Implications: As a replicable, financeable platforms for post-war recovery, City XXI and Mariupol projects are suitable models for national reconstruction of Ukraine as it navigates displacement, recovery, and the urgency of building healthy, resilient communities.
Learning Objectives
- Understand how housing quality and neighbourhood design, including access to services, green space, and walkable layouts, influence physical and mental health outcomes in post-crisis settings.
- Identify evidence-based design and development approaches for delivering healthy, affordable, and adaptable homes within mixed-income, inclusive neighbourhoods.
- Assess how community-led design processes and shared neighbourhood infrastructure contribute to social connection, resilience, and everyday wellbeing across diverse population groups.
P20
Streets for a healthy life
Annabel Keegan
Technical director, PJA, United Kingdom
Annabel is a qualified transport planner and urban designer with a background in architecture. She has over 20 years of practical experience in multidisciplinary consultant teams.
She has a keen interest in improving the quality of streets and public spaces and her multi-discipline background allows her to work creatively to deliver high quality and innovative design solutions.
Annabel is the lead author of Streets for a Healthy Life the technical companion guide to Building for a Healthy Life.
Streets for a healthy life
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‘Streets for a Healthy Life’ is a guide to best practice in street design for highways authorities and housing developers. It is design as a technical companion to ‘Building for a Healthy Life’, which is a design assessment tool and guide for new and growing neighbourhoods. ‘Streets for a Healthy Life’ provides examples of UK streets that meet the requirements for ‘healthy streets’ set out in ‘Building for a Healthy Life’.Following the success of the initial ‘beta testing’ document published in 2022, PJA was commissioned to prepare an update which includes a number of detailed case studies. The update has been prepared by PJA alongside Homes England, Design for Homes and Tibbalds.
This best practice case studies have been selected as they have proven successful and incorporate patterns of development and materials that should be transferable to multiple locations. They demonstrate what can be achieved in creating adopted highways that are first and foremost places for people, achieving wider benefits such as spaces for people to socialise and play, better public health, biodiversity, reduced carbon emissions, improved water quality and slower runoff. Each case study is broken down in detail, identifying their dimensions, geometry and choice of materials. The 2026 update also considers the process of highway adoption post planning. Homes England outlines their involvement in the process, and how they encourage developers to embrace new thinking to help create better, healthier and more inclusive places to live.
The separation between planning and highways policy and legislation can present problems in achieving these objective. In some places planning and highway authorities work well together towards the achievement of common goals, but we found other cases (including in unitary authorities) where they expressed different views over the designs of new streets.
The guide builds on the recommendations set out in ‘Manual for Streets’ that designers develop street character types based on a location-specific basis with reference to the relevant functions of each street. The purpose of this guide is not to define rigid street typologies, which are based on traffic flows and/or the number of buildings served. This is especially relevant now that many adoption authorities are having to make difficult choices about what they can afford to maintain.
Learning Objectives
- Awareness of new publication
- Design quality in adopted streets
- Best Practice Examples
P21
Social homes for health equity and economic prosperity, societal opportunity and national prosperity
Rosalind Raine FMedSci
Professor of applied health research; NIHR emeritus senior investigator, Department of Primary Care and Population Health, UCL
Rosalind Raine is professor of applied health research at UCL and a public health medicine doctor with an honorary appointment at UCLH, UK. She was elected a fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, selected as an NIHR senior investigator (now emeritus) and as one of the country’s ‘leading edge scientists’ by NIHR. She was also selected by the British Medical Association as a national role model in academic medicine.
Rosalind is recognised as a world-leading applied researcher with expertise in the examination of major health service / public health change of digital health innovations and of determinants of widespread implementation of evidence-based care. She collaborates across disciplines ranging from architecture to data science and sociology, enabling integration of diverse quantitative and qualitative methods to examine impacts of health / public health interventions on health outcomes, health inequalities, healthcare quality and costs.
She has advised on health policy internationally, nationally and regionally. She has sat on international and national boards and panels, including the London School of Health and Tropical Medicine Management Board, the HEFCE Research Excellence Framework Panel (whose recommendations inform the distribution of government funding to UK universities), the Lancet Commission on The Future of the NHS, and Medical Research Council (MRC) and NIHR Research Programme Panels.
She is a trustee at Global Health Partnerships (GHP) and The Bloomsbury Festival.
Social homes for health equity and economic prosperity, societal opportunity and national prosperity
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Context: Homelessness is a fundamental driver of profound inequalities in health across the life course, educational and employment opportunities and outcomes, and of crime and abuse. These put untenable pressure on UK resources and society but are avoidable through provision of social and affordable housing.Methods: (i) We undertook a UK literature review of peer-reviewed research articles and grey literature published between January 2010 and March 2024. We searched databases (PubMed, Medline, Cochrane, Web of Science, Econlit), together with GOV.UK publications and reports (Crisis UK, Shelter, St Mungo’s etc).
(ii) We analysed the following national cost domains:
1. Homelessness Services;
2. Children in care;
3. NHS (a. GP, emergency, hospital services; b. Mental Health services; c. Drug and Alcohol services);
4. Education;
5. Unemployment;
6. Benefits; and
7. The Criminal Justice System.
From these data, we estimated costs per homeless person per year and annual cost in each category for adults and children, together with total annual costs in 2024. We also calculated the benefits of social housing through a) economic return through rising land values; b) productivity from the construction industry; c) labour markets; d) tax revenue; e) distributional benefit; and f) costs incurred by homelessness.
(iii) We identified exemplars of social housing in the UK.
Results: We demonstrate the wider costs and benefits of providing healthy, social housing for individuals, local and national government, and the NHS, calculating that homelessness costs over £6.5bn per year in England, and investment in social housing could result in savings of at least £1.5bn annually. We discuss the data challenges and assumptions made in reaching these estimates. We highlight three exemplars of social housing (in Yorkshire and London).
Conclusion: A cross-sectoral approach to investment will not only address homelessness but will also deliver comprehensive, long-term benefits across society.
Learning Objectives
- To understand the health impacts of homelessness / precarious housing on physical and mental health and on wider social factors
- To understand the costs of homelessness and the savings through provision of social/affordable homes, and added wider societal and economic benefits
- To demonstrate that we can deliver high-quality social/affordable homes efficiently and to meet need
Theme: Community impact and social value
P22
Healthy farms: Reimagining agricultural heritage settings as salutogenic environments – a policy framework from AlUla, Saudi Arabia
Yousef Albalawi
Health promotion consultant, Madinah Health Cluster, Saudi Arabia
Dr AlBalawi is a physician and health promotion scholar with over 15 years' experience in public health practice and health system transformation in Saudi Arabia. He holds a PhD in Health Promotion from the National University of Ireland, Galway, and served as research fellow in health communication at its Health Promotion Research Centre. His doctoral and postdoctoral research focused on the application of behavioural theories and salutogenic frameworks to the design of evidence-based health interventions, with published work on health communication, social media diffusion, and community engagement strategies. He currently works in healthcare transformation consultancy with Madinah Health Cluster and the Saudi Public Health Authority (Weqaya), where his practice spans health settings design, behavioural intervention modelling, and health-integrated policy development. Alongside his public health career, Dr AlBalawi is the founder of Tarah, an operational farmhouse in AlUla's Wadi Sadr that has pioneered the conversion of a traditional date palm farm into an immersive living environment – an endeavour that positions him at the intersection of health promotion theory and the practical reimagining of agricultural heritage spaces as health-promoting settings.
Healthy farms: Reimagining agricultural heritage settings as salutogenic environments – a policy framework from AlUla, Saudi Arabia
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The WHO Healthy Settings approach has generated robust frameworks for cities, schools, workplaces, and hospitals. Yet agricultural settings – where humanity's relationship with land, food, and natural cycles is most elemental – remain conspicuously absent from this taxonomy. This paper proposes the "healthy farm" as a distinct and necessary category within the healthy settings framework, and argues that the global movement towards agritourism presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to embed health promotion at the foundation of agricultural transformation policy.The theoretical basis draws on Antonovsky's salutogenic model and its three dimensions of sense of coherence. Agricultural heritage environments possess characteristics that align with each dimension: comprehensibility through legible natural rhythms and culturally coherent landscapes; meaningfulness through connection to food production, ancestral practices, and place identity; and manageability through biophilic immersion, restorative environmental qualities, and social infrastructure that supports stress recovery. Unlike urban healthy settings, which must engineer these qualities into built environments, heritage farms offer them as intrinsic properties – yet without intentional health-promoting frameworks, this potential remains unrecognised and unmeasured.
The case is grounded in AlUla, northwest Saudi Arabia – home to over 3 million date palms across an ancient agricultural oasis now undergoing large-scale transformation under Saudi Vision 2030. Traditionally, AlUla's farms served a purely utilitarian function: owners were absent and only labourers inhabited the land. The concept of the farm as a liveable, health-promoting environment was entirely foreign. Tarah, a farmhouse in Wadi Sadr operational since 2022, challenged this paradigm by demonstrating that these agricultural spaces could be transformed into immersive living environments that activate multiple health determinants – from nutrition and physical activity to social connection and psychological restoration. Tarah predates and foreshadows Saudi Arabia's recent national agritourism investment through PIF-backed initiatives, which frame farm conversion in economic and cultural terms but lack any explicit health promotion orientation.
This paper argues that without a health-integrated policy framework, the Kingdom's significant investment in agricultural transformation risks producing tourism infrastructure rather than health-promoting settings. It proposes a healthy farm policy model comprising salutogenic design criteria, community health participation mechanisms, and measurable wellbeing indicators applicable to AlUla's expanding agricultural landscape and replicable across arid heritage regions globally. The contribution extends the healthy settings discourse beyond its urban bias and positions agricultural heritage environments as vital – and overlooked – arenas for health promotion scholarship and policy.
Learning Objectives
- Recognise the conceptual and policy gap in the WHO Healthy Settings framework regarding agricultural heritage environments and understand the rationale for establishing "Healthy Farms" as a distinct setting category.
- Apply Antonovsky's salutogenic model - comprehensibility, meaningfulness, and manageability - as an analytical lens for evaluating the health-promoting potential of rural and agricultural spaces.
- Appraise how national agritourism investment policies can be strengthened through the integration of health promotion criteria, using Saudi Arabia's farm transformation programme as a case study.
P23
The private city garden: An unused resource for individual and collective mental health?
Jesper Jorgensen
Independent scientist, NCIS, Denmark
With a broad academic background in psychology, education, communication, international development studies, neuroscience and public health science, I has worked with: the importance of sensory deprivation in extreme environments and how architecture can stimulate the sensory system as a countermeasure, how non-professionals can provide mental health support in disasters and how to integrate gardens, gardening and nature in mental health rehabilitation. Besides this I have a career in psychotherapy and psychiatric treatment and lecturing. For the past few years, I have worked partly with therapeutic garden design, partly with projects that are based on private garden owners as a basis for creating social inclusion and community and counteracting loneliness and social isolation in urban environments. I have been the local chairman of the Royal Danish Horticultural Society and therefore has a good knowledge of the private garden owners, and the opportunities and limitations that a greater involvement in health programs holds.
The private city garden: An unused resource for individual and collective mental health?
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The many physiological and mental health benefits of having access to a garden and/or doing gardening are well documented in research. Both as an individual or community activity, small or large, shared gardening is an effective tool against loneliness and social isolation. A widespread problem in urban areas. The paper intends to discuss models for developing private gardens into a more health-promoting and supporting for community life. A model promoting the social and communal potential of gardening and sharing of the garden in a One Health concept.Private gardens are the most common in Denmark, in opposition to a very limited number of shared or communal gardens. A total of about 1.3 million private gardens are estimated. In cities and their suburbs, private gardens can vary from small individual compound gardens to relatively large garden areas in connection with the private estates.
In a highly individualised society where the actual focus is on the interior design of the home, a high level of mobility in the housing market and an absence of knowledge about practical gardening, both front gardens and the rest of the garden are left unused, typically with a grass lawn and few plants.
The paper will discuss obstacles for developing the private city garden into a One Health focused garden, where the individual, the common and the environmental health are understood and acted on by the garden owners. Understanding some of these obstacles could be the basis for a change in the understanding of the health-promoting effects of an active used and developed garden.
The paper will introduce the garden design concept of ‘The Click-Garden’, where borders between private gardens are softened up by creating a common space, motivating to create shared garden projects and developing social networks as a first step in fighting loneliness and social isolation.
In addition, the project ‘Get a Garden Friend’ will be presented as another project to fight loneliness by sharing a private garden with someone without their own garden.
Learning Objectives
- Developing of an underused ressource (private garden)
P24
Girls in the Hood
Beenish Sarfaraz
Student , Response_Able Futures Program (LUCA School of Art, University of Aveiro, Sheffield Hallam University), Portugal
My name is Beenish Sarfaraz, a designer and researcher from Karachi, Pakistan. I am currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Healthcare and Design, where I am developing ways to apply design as a means of making people’s lives softer, warmer and more compassionate.
My practice spans multiple mediums, including print and publication design, video, illustration and writing. I am particularly drawn to co-creative environments and have had the opportunity to collaborate with individuals who are deeply committed to creating work that is thoughtful, personally meaningful and transformative.
If you would like to learn more about my work, please visit: https://beenishsarfaraz.com/
Mohamed Adkaich
Student, Response_Able Futures Program (LUCA School of Art, University of Aveiro, Sheffield Hallam University), Portugal
Adkaich is a designer from Morocco with a strong passion for travel, cultural exploration, and creative practice. His journey into design began at the age of 15, experimenting with Photoshop to create memes—an early interest that quickly evolved into a lasting commitment to the field.
Over the past six years, he has developed a multidisciplinary approach, working across various design domains and adapting his skills to diverse project needs. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts and Communication Design from Cyprus, where he built a strong foundation in visual design. Seeking to create more meaningful and impactful work, he continued his studies in Belgium, pursuing a Postgraduate program in Space and Service Design.
Through this experience, Adkaich has strengthened his focus on real-world impact. He thrives in international and multidisciplinary environments, contributing to both physical and digital projects that address complex challenges. His practice is driven by a commitment to creating thoughtful, engaging and socially relevant design solutions.
Alejandra Rodríguez Fiscal
Student, Response_Able Futures Program (LUCA School of Art, University of Aveiro, Sheffield Hallam University), Portugal
Hello, my name is Ale, a designer from Mexico with a strong interest in Human-Centered Design and Social Design. I am motivated by a desire to contribute to meaningful projects that create positive social impact.
I view design as a powerful tool for change, especially when rooted in collaboration with communities. My work is grounded in care, both physical and mental health, and in exploring how design can support more compassionate, inclusive systems.
Currently, I am part of the Response_Able Futures Master’s program, where I am deepening my understanding of health cultures and learning to design with care and responsibility for others.
Beyond my professional practice, I value connecting with people, engaging in reflection, and finding joy in everyday moments.
Girls in the Hood
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Are public spaces in Sledderlo as welcoming for girls as they are for everyone else?This project explores how public space in Sledderlo, a southern district of Genk (Belgium), is experienced by young girls and how design can support more inclusive, healthy urban environments. Shaped by migration and home to Turkish and Moroccan communities, the neighbourhood is rich in social and cultural diversity, yet often perceived as remote and stigmatised.
Over several months in 2025, we conducted an arts-based, participatory inquiry involving park walks, creative workshops and conversations with girls, mothers, and community members. Through these engagements, we identified a range of social, cultural and spatial barriers that limit girls’ presence and participation in public space. These include concerns around safety, gendered social expectations, and the absence of dedicated or adaptable spaces; what participants described as a lack of “girl corners”.
Girls in the Hood adopts a co-creative approach to reimagine a more inclusive neighbourhood. Together with participants, we developed proposals for a girl-friendly park intervention alongside organisational strategies to support long-term engagement. These interventions aim to create environments where girls can express themselves, build confidence and develop a sense of ownership over their surroundings.
By foregrounding girls’ lived experiences, this project contributes to broader discussions on equity, wellbeing and participation in urban design. It highlights the importance of designing public spaces that actively support inclusion, social connection and mental and emotional health in diverse communities.
Learning Objectives
- Highlighting marginalised (by gender, by immigrant status perspectives of engaging with public spaces
- Exploring arts-based and participatory methods in urban design
- Using design for creating inclusive and healthy cities
P25
From garden city to healthy city: Reimagining Bengaluru’s dilapidated industrial estates as places of belonging
Ajinkya Kanitkar
Assistant Professor, RV College of Architecture, India
Ajinkya Kanitkar is an Assistant Professor at RV College of Architecture, Bengaluru. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur and Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal. His research interests include urban studies, climate change and sustainable development. His work experience in the field of architecture and urban planning across various domains includes consultancy projects and research work with various organisations. Apart from his academic engagements, he is actively involved in research development at academic and professional forums in sustainable development, net zero energy building, community resilience and creative cultural economy.
Tanishqa Gupta
Student, RV College of Architecture, India
Student at RV College of Architecture, Bengaluru. Focused on exploring innovative architectural design to create dynamic, expressive environments for people. Emphasizes human-centric spaces that encourage interaction and foster a strong sense of belonging, while integrating environmentally responsive, organic design principles.
Mili Paul
Student, RV College of Architecture, India
Student at RV College of Architecture, Bengaluru. Exploring the relationship between people, place, and built form through concept-led design. Interested in designing spaces that are functional, immersive, and environmentally responsive.
Shivani Kalburgi
Student at RV College of Architecture Bengaluru
Shivani Kalburgi is a student of Architecture at RV College of Architecture, Bengaluru. Her academic interests lie in design exploration and iterative processes, with a focus on understanding how design can meaningfully engage with people’s everyday lives. She is interested in research-driven design approaches that bridge creative inquiry with socially responsive and user-centered architectural practice.
Hiranmayi Shankavaram
Associate Professor, RV College of Architecture Bengaluru
Hiranmayi Shankavaram is an Assistant Professor at RV College of Architecture, Bengaluru, specializing in urban management, planning, governance, and resilience. She holds an M.Sc. from Erasmus University Rotterdam and contributes to research, academic collaborations, and editorial initiatives, with interests in inclusive, people-centric urban development.
From garden city to healthy city: Reimagining Bengaluru’s dilapidated industrial estates as places of belonging
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Bengaluru has transformed from a landscape of lakes, gardens, and low-density settlements into a rapidly urbanised metropolitan region. From the 1970s to 2010, the study indicates drastic decline in green cover and sharp increase in built up areas. The Bengaluru Climate Action and Resilience Plan (BCAP), 2023 indicates a 170-per-cent increase in built-up area between 1990 and 2015. Rapid urbanisation in Bengaluru has significantly impacted mobility, environment, and lifestyle. The city remains in the ten worst cities ranking in TomTom traffic indices between 2020-2025 as congested cities globally. At the same time move towards car-dependent living, reducing overall quality of life.Industrial neighbourhoods Minerva mills, Khoday’s and NGEF that once formed the backbone of the city’s growth now stand as isolated landscapes, establishing and supporting adjacent residential neighbourhoods during 1940s-1990s presently remain obsolete defunct non-accessible islands of tree covered patches. Their scale and location positions them at a cusp of redevelopment.
This raises a critical inquiry: How to reactivate these now defunct, potential active public edges to serve as meaningful contributors to a healthy city? Reimagine them not merely as redevelopment sites, but as foundations for rethinking function after decline? The empirical study using the place standard tool to quantify data and FGDs at these sites, this project-oriented research introduces principles of slowness, play, and urban vitality; to respond to diverse contextual needs while fostering interaction, wellbeing, and urban ecology.
Minerva Mills, which is located in the heart of Bangalore’s transit hub, is proposed as a Slow City, which envisions a place where life moves at a calmer pace rooted in memory, identity, and community. We call it an ‘earth-craft studio’ addressing contemporary urban needs that includes urban farming, public shelters and shared learning spaces that create a renewed sense of belonging.
At the NGEF site, our vision is to establish an ‘Urban Vitality Framework’ that integrates regional transit, sports infrastructure, co-learning ecosystems, and immersive experiential trails – anchoring community health to cultivate active lifestyles and collective wellbeing.
At Khoday’s site at Kanakpura Road, Play City is proposed as a vital layer that reintroduces leisure and civic engagement. It seeks to establish five paths that embed playful, interactive, and inclusive spaces as active social landscapes.
In all the three cases, instead of opposing future development, a community-driven urban design approach supports an argument for a thriving healthy city in the public realm.
Learning Objectives
- To understand publicness of spaces in historic urban industrial landscapes
- To understand context specific threads of needs and wants from sustainable urban health
- To propose public space interventions for creation of inclusive, vibrant and accessible public realm
P26
Yarrila Place: A community’s optimism matters
Matthew Blair
Principal, BVN, United Kingdom
Matthew is an architect, technologist and Principal at BVN, acknowledged for his cross-sector expertise and his ability to apply current and novel technologies and future of work knowledge to redefine spaces across industries such as health, education, and science. With a career spanning Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, North America, and the UK, Matthew now leads BVN’s UK Studio, bringing a global perspective to his work. Passionate about driving change, Matthew also steers many of BVN’s transformational and innovation initiatives, collaborating with universities, start-ups, and other architectural practices to expand the boundaries of what architecture can achieve. His work reflects a deep understanding of how insights from workplace design can inform and enhance other sectors, from healthcare to life sciences, creating environments that foster collaboration, adaptability, and human connection.
Yarrila Place: A community’s optimism matters
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Background: Good civic buildings do more than house services. At their best, they are acts of social repair. Coffs Harbour is a regional city of 80,000 people halfway between Sydney and Brisbane. Comparable to Exeter or Inverness, it serves a wide hinterland while carrying persistent challenges: deprivation, economic precarity, and unequal access to services. Its population hugs a narrow coastal corridor where the Great Dividing Range meets the sea, with rural communities facing barriers to employment and services. Average income falls below the state average, affordable housing is scarce, and mental health pressures are pronounced. The Indigenous Gumbaynggirr communities and resettled refugee populations face overlapping vulnerabilities. For decades, council services were dispersed with ageing, undersized facilities. Yet the community never stopped believing something better was possible.Purpose: That belief took 35 years to realise. Proposed in the mid-1980s, the project was abandoned and restarted repeatedly, kept alive by a community that refused to let it go. Yarrila Place, named from the Gumbaynggirr word for "place of light", consolidates a new library, museum and gallery, council services, and bookable community spaces into a single welcoming civic heart. It was conceived and delivered as a community's investment in its own future.
Approach: The project was shaped through sustained community engagement, with the community itself naming the building. Our design approach was guided by the principle of "All Welcome", drawing on the metaphor of the physical harbour: a place of refuge, welcome, and opportunity. An open-air atrium serves as a new town square, blurring inside and out. Public art through "The Track" leads visitors to a rooftop terrace marking surrounding Indigenous locations. Meeting spaces are shared between public and staff. The flood-prone site beside a busy road became a catalyst for a more pedestrian-focused city centre: the community's optimism made physical.
Results: Library and gallery visits are running well ahead of forecast. The building has been recognised through significant architectural awards in Australia. Yarrila Place is already a cross-generational gathering place, delivering social value through improved service access, activated public space, celebrated Indigenous heritage, and community-led programming.
Implications: Yarrila Place shows that community optimism, sustained over time and embedded in design, is not a soft consideration. For regional cities facing complex socioeconomic challenges, consolidating civic investment, designing for inclusion, and trusting communities to lead generates lasting impact. When a community believes in its future, positive outcomes occur.
Learning Objectives
- Understand how a community’s sustained and collective belief in its future, when embedded in civic design, can drive social repair, improve access to services, and deliver measurable social value in regional cities facing socioeconomic disadvantage.
- Understand how a community’s sustained and collective belief in its future, when embedded in civic design, can drive social repair, improve access to services, and deliver measurable social value in regional cities facing socioeconomic disadvantage.
- Understand the role of public architecture in translating collective belief and expectation into physical form - making social ambition visible, legible, and durable within the everyday life of a regional city.
P27
Green Square Public School and Community Spaces: The final piece
Matthew Blair
Principal, BVN, United Kingdom
Matthew is an architect, technologist and Principal at BVN, acknowledged for his cross-sector expertise and his ability to apply current and novel technologies and future of work knowledge to redefine spaces across industries such as health, education, and science. With a career spanning Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, North America, and the UK, Matthew now leads BVN’s UK Studio, bringing a global perspective to his work. Passionate about driving change, Matthew also steers many of BVN’s transformational and innovation initiatives, collaborating with universities, start-ups, and other architectural practices to expand the boundaries of what architecture can achieve. His work reflects a deep understanding of how insights from workplace design can inform and enhance other sectors, from healthcare to life sciences, creating environments that foster collaboration, adaptability, and human connection.
Green Square Public School and Community Spaces: The final piece
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Background: Good civic buildings do more than house services. At their best, they are acts of social repair. Green Square is Australia's largest urban renewal project: a 278-hectare former industrial precinct in Sydney's inner south. Transformed through public and private investment, it will house 61,000 residents and 21,000 workers by 2030, among the highest urban densities in Australia. The traditional custodians are the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, whose presence stretches back thousands of years; 6000-year-old dugong bones discovered during construction speak to a landscape richly inhabited long before European settlement.Purpose: Green Square Public School and Community Spaces is the final piece of the urban vision. Delivered in partnership with the City of Sydney and the NSW Department of Education, the building provides a 600-place primary school alongside dedicated community spaces, sports court, and play areas shared with the public. Navigating the competing requirements of a local council and a state government department, each with distinct priorities and governance frameworks, required sustained positive engagement to deliver a facility serving all users. In a neighbourhood built at speed and density, it is an anchor for a population still becoming a community.
Approach: The design prioritised porosity of use. Relocating the games court from rooftop to ground level made it accessible at a prominent street corner. Through-site pedestrian links embed the school within a broader civic ecosystem. First Nations artist Blak Douglas created the immersive artwork "The Belly of the Feast", referencing the area's Indigenous history. Flexible learning environments support co-teaching and varied student clustering. The fully electric building draws on rooftop photovoltaics, passive design, and biophilic connections from every classroom to the natural world.
Results: Since opening in October 2025, the building has become what the neighbourhood lacked: a shared civic space used by schoolchildren, families, and the wider community throughout the day. The founding principal describes environments that have enabled staff to reimagine teaching and respond to students' diverse needs, with the porous school-to-public interface generating a strong sense of belonging.
Implications: Green Square Public School demonstrates that in high-density renewal contexts, educational infrastructure can simultaneously function as community-building infrastructure. Where density outpaces the natural formation of social cohesion, design that prioritises access, visibility, and shared ownership can accelerate that process. In new communities, generous civic space is not an amenity. It is a health intervention.
Learning Objectives
- Understand how educational buildings in newly formed, high-density communities can extend beyond learning to become shared social infrastructure, fostering community formation, belonging and cohesion during early stages of neighbourhood formation.
- Examine how cross-government collaboration and governance negotiation can enable dual-use public buildings and spaces that balance educational needs with civic access, delivering social value at neighbourhood scale.
- Understand how spatial strategies – porosity, visibility and shared circulation, can operationalise governance agreements, turning policy intent around access and shared use into lived, everyday experience.
P28
Can everyday spaces heal cities? Evidence from a participatory schoolyard transformation in Madrid
Manuel Alméstar Urteaga
Researcher and European project coordinator, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid , Spain
Manuel Alméstar holds a PhD in Urbanism from ETSAM–UPM (Spain, 2025). Trained as an architect and urbanist, he also holds a Master’s degree in Strategies and Technologies for Development (UCM–UPM). His work operates at the intersection of culture, territory, and climate action. He currently serves as researcher and coordinator of several European projects at the Center for Innovation in Technology for Human Development (itdUPM) and as Editor-in-Chief of the Bienal Climática: Art, Industry and Territory, where he promotes processes that connect artistic creation, ecological transition, and urban transformation. His work explores how to design collaborative contexts capable of sustaining cultural projects with territorial impact, articulating financing, governance, and civic participation through a long-term perspective.
His professional trajectory combines institutional practice, coordination of multi-actor ecosystems, and academic production. He has led and facilitated European initiatives focused on urban experimentation, collaborative governance, and systemic change, promoting models in which art functions as a catalyst for public innovation and territorial transformation. In the academic field, his research focuses on institutional innovation, collaborative planning, and co-creation processes among unlikely actors, with particular attention to ecological and social infrastructures as interconnected nodes. His publications include “(Un)Likely Connections Between (Un)Likely Actors in the Art/NBS Co-Creation Process,” “(Re)designing the Rules: Collaborative Planning and Institutional Innovation,” “The Wild City: Collaborative Practices in Urban Renaturing,” and “Schools as Levers of Change in Urban Transformation.
Jaime Moreno Serna
Associate Professor, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
Jaime Moreno-Serna is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management, Business Administration, and Statistics at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). His academic work focuses on production systems, organizational management, and sustainable development, with a specialized research interest in multi-stakeholder collaborations to accelerate transitions toward climate neutrality and social inclusion. He holds a PhD in Organizational Engineering from UPM. His extensive international experience includes roles as a Visiting Scientist at Harvard University (Center for Climate Change, Health, and the Global Environment) and a postdoctoral researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, where he continues to collaborate on Horizon Europe projects. Formerly the Technical Director of itdUPM, he has over a decade of experience designing and managing complex partnerships between academia, public institutions, and the private sector. His professional background also includes humanitarian logistics in North Africa and a dual degree in Industrial Engineering from UPM and ENSTA Paris. Driven by the role of technology in reducing inequality, he integrates qualitative and quantitative expertise to strengthen the university’s mission as a catalyst for sustainable societal transformation.
Can everyday spaces heal cities? Evidence from a participatory schoolyard transformation in Madrid
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Cities facing climate vulnerability, territorial inequality and social fragmentation urgently require place-based strategies capable of delivering measurable improvements in human wellbeing and community resilience. Within this context, school environments are increasingly recognised as strategic urban infrastructures that extend beyond their educational function, acting as everyday spaces where health, social interaction, environmental quality and neighbourhood life converge. However, many schoolyards in vulnerable urban areas remain asphalt-dominated, thermally exposed and disconnected from wider community dynamics. This paper examines how participatory schoolyard transformations can operate as neighbourhood-scale infrastructures for health, social value and urban regeneration in socio-climatically vulnerable contexts.The research focuses on the collaborative transformation of two public school environments in San Cristóbal de los Ángeles, one of Madrid’s most socially and climatically vulnerable neighbourhoods, developed within the European LIFE PACT project (2021- 2025). The study adopts a qualitative interpretative case study approach, combining semi-structured interviews with municipal technicians, teachers, neighbourhood associations, residents and children, alongside participant observation, documentary analysis and audiovisual narrative analysis of the documentary In Praise of the Schoolyard, produced as part of the project’s collective systematisation and community engagement strategy. This methodological approach allows the study to capture not only spatial change but also the social, relational and symbolic dimensions of urban transformation.
Findings indicate that the intervention generated significant impacts across multiple dimensions. Physically, the project transformed more than 30,000m² of school and surrounding public space, incorporating shade, trees, permeable surfaces, accessible routes and climate-adaptive design solutions. Socially, the process mobilised more than 600 participants and 33 organisations, strengthening local networks, community ownership and intergenerational engagement. Qualitative evidence from interviews reveals improvements in everyday wellbeing, perceived thermal comfort, sense of safety, social cohesion and neighbourhood belonging. Importantly, the transformation repositioned the schoolyard as breeding ground for multi-stakeholder interaction, a shared civic infrastructure, extending its value from an educational facility to a catalyst for community regeneration and local health-supportive environments.
The paper argues that participatory schoolyard transformations can operate as micro-infrastructures of public health and social value at neighbourhood scale. By integrating co-design, local leadership, municipal policymaking and community knowledge, the transformation of school playgrounds can strengthen social resilience, support adaptation to climate change, and generate broader urban regeneration effects. This case study offers a framework applicable to cities seeking to connect public health, equity, and sustainable urban transformation through everyday, local spaces.
Learning Objectives
- To critically examine how participatory schoolyard transformations can function as neighbourhood-scale infrastructures that support health, climate resilience and social value in socio-climatically vulnerable urban contexts.
- To understand how qualitative, multi-actor and audiovisual research methods can be used to capture social, relational and symbolic dimensions of urban transformation that are not fully visible through conventional planning evaluation frameworks.
- To identify transferable principles for embedding co-design, local leadership and community knowledge into urban regeneration strategies aimed at improving neighbourhood wellbeing, equity and long-term resilience.
P29
Freely available wellbeing toolkit for children
Michelle Baker
Technical Director Social Value and Stakeholder Engagement , AtkinsRealis, United Kingdom
Michelle leads the social value and stakeholder engagement consultancy service at AtkinsRéalis, providing strategic direction and specialist support to clients and delivery teams. She is experienced in developing and implementing social value strategies, working collaboratively with senior leaders and stakeholders to achieve meaningful outcomes. Michelle is recognised for her inclusive and pragmatic approach, combining confidence in her expertise with respect for the knowledge of others. She has extensive experience delivering social value on complex, high profile projects for major clients. Michelle was selected for the AtkinsRéalis Fellowship Programme in recognition of her professional contribution to social impact.
Catherine Manning
Programme Manager - Impact Reporting , Impact Reporting , United Kingdom
Catherine leads Impact Reporting’s impact practice and is the Programme Director behind MeasureUp, the ground-breaking social valuation tool helping organisations evidence what really matters. With over a decade of experience in social value strategy, she’s known for championing practical, people-led approaches to valuation. Catherine previously held a senior role at The Institute of Social Value and is currently a trustee at Social Value International. She holds a master’s in International Development and is a certified Social Value Practitioner. Recognised as a WISE100 Changemaker Finalist in 2025, Star of the Future finalist in 2022 and a Better Business Network’s Pioneer of the Year 2025 finalist, Catherine supports clients across procurement, valuation research, and impact strategy - working to make social value more meaningful, measurable and equitable.
Freely available wellbeing toolkit for children
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This paper describes work with MeasureUp to support the development of a children’s wellbeing toolkit. This new and freely available children’s wellbeing valuation toolkit has been launched to address a longstanding gap in how social value and wellbeing outcomes for children and young people are measured in the UK. Designed to align with HM Treasury Green Book guidance and emerging wellbeing valuation methodologies, the toolkit supports organisations to better understand, evidence, and quantify the impact of programmes and interventions that affect children’s lives.Across the public, private, and voluntary sectors, there’s growing pressure to demonstrate the social value created by development, infrastructure, and community programmes. While wellbeing valuation approaches are increasingly used to estimate social impact, they have historically relied on adult life satisfaction data. These methods are widely recognised as unsuitable for younger age groups, particularly children under the age of ten. The new toolkit responds directly to this challenge by translating wellbeing economics into practical, age appropriate approaches that reflect children’s lived experiences more accurately.
The toolkit provides a range of accessible, free resources to help organisations map impact pathways, understand wellbeing change, and estimate outcomes linked to children’s activities, targeted wellbeing programmes, and wider community interventions. By enabling clearer links between activities, outcomes, and value, it helps organisations prioritise investment, strengthen funding and procurement submissions, and design programmes that deliver deeper and longer lasting benefits for children and young people.
Children’s wellbeing is increasingly recognised as an area of acute need, with rising levels of mental health challenges and growing demand for support services. Despite this, children’s outcomes remain underrepresented in social value research and valuation frameworks. This initiative seeks to address that imbalance by providing tools that are practical, credible, and usable by organisations of all sizes.
A central principle of the toolkit is inclusivity. By investing in openly available resources rather than proprietary systems, the approach supports a more equitable social value landscape, ensuring that charities, community organisations, and smaller providers are not excluded from measurement, learning, or improvement. The toolkit reflects a broader commitment to responsible practice, collaboration across sectors, and the belief that robust measurement should enable better decision-making, not create barriers to participation.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the limitations of existing social value and wellbeing valuation approaches for children
- Apply practical frameworks to measure and evidence children’s wellbeing outcomes
- Recognise the role of inclusive, open‑access measurement tools in strengthening social value practice
P30
Reimagining historical world heritage site for a lasting legacy
Daniel Reynolds
Principal Landscape Architect, Dar Al Handasah, United Kingdom
Daniel is a landscape architect with over twenty years’ experience leading the design and delivery of major public realm and landscape projects, many of which have received local and international awards. Having lived and worked globally, Daniel has developed extensive expertise across Asia, the Middle East, the UK, and Europe.
He specialises in the delivery of complex, large‑scale projects, including one of the world’s largest new parks in the new capital of Cairo. Daniel is highly experienced in leading multidisciplinary consultant teams and is particularly interested in projects that balance robustness, flexibility, and sustainability.
Known for fostering strong collaboration, Daniel’s professional approach and ability to build trusted client relationships ensure projects are delivered efficiently, on time, and within budget.
Reimagining historical world heritage site for a lasting legacy
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This paper examines the historic core within a recognised world heritage site and explores how lessons from the past have informed a renewed approach to public realm, landscape, sustainable infrastructure, and green mobility. Together, these strategies have repositioned the district as a benchmark for socially cohesive and climate responsive regeneration.The historic core consists of narrow streets and small stone buildings, primarily orientated along routes originally used by pilgrims arriving by boat from overseas. Developed prior to vehicular infrastructure, it evolved as a dense, walkable environment responsive to culture, climate, and movement. Shaded narrow streets supported trade and facilitated comfortable pedestrian movement during summer months.
The core was kept largely intact until modern pressures disrupted this balance. Externally imposed, car-led planning approaches, including new roads, enlarged junctions, increased building heights, and degraded public realm and landscape, undermined environmental performance and liveability. Public spaces were removed for parking, economic activity was fragmented, and communities were erased. Combined with the absence of recognised green and social infrastructure, these interventions reduced comfort, accessibility, and resilience, reinforcing the need for integrated, resource efficient systems aligned with historic environmental and social intelligence.
Landscape and public realm strategies were designed to restore environmental performance, with the secondary effect of celebrating heritage and creating socially cohesive ‘third’ or ‘lived’ spaces. Nature-based solutions, including shaded courtyards, native tree planting, and biodiversity, reduced urban heat islands. Permeable surfaces and reflective materials enhanced thermal comfort. Revived water sensitive practices, including greywater reuse for irrigation, supported resource efficiency in an arid climate. Locally sourced, low-carbon materials, such as coral stone and lime plaster, maintained authenticity while improving microclimate conditions and usability within a dense historic context.
Mobility was essential in restoring the pedestrian character of the historic core. Pedestrianisation of key streets and souqs reduced emissions, enhanced user experience, and reinstated historic context. Cycling infrastructure was introduced at district edges, with public transport connecting peripheral parking. Low-emission logistics solutions further reduced congestion and pollution, supporting a transition to active, low-carbon mobility.
The regeneration of the core depended on activating social and economic systems through markets, cultural events, mixed-use retrofitting, inclusive design, and support for small businesses. By integrating public realm, landscape, mobility, water, and energy strategies, the project demonstrates how historic urban intelligence can shape a resilient, low-carbon environment that preserves heritage while supporting future growth.
Learning Objectives
- Historic public realm integration
- Green Mobility Strategies
- Climate adaptation and resilience
P31
Feeling at home away from home: Building cities we belong to (as new and long-term residents and immigrants)
Helia Taheri
Research & Insights Lead, Arcadis Inc., United States
With 10 years of experience leading mixed-method, human-centric research projects and programs, Dr. Helia Taheri is an award-winning researcher who studies human behavior, experience, sense of belonging, place attachment, and health to inform design. She is leading the Research & Insights in the Experience Design team where she develops inclusive human-centric methods to gather right data in the right time from multiple stakeholders and sources to inform evidence-based design decisions that improve people's lives, benefit business, and support our planet.
Feeling at home away from home: Building cities we belong to (as new and long-term residents and immigrants)
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Background: Cities are increasingly shaped by global and national migration. Today, about 45 per cent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, projected to reach nearly two-thirds by 2050 (UN DESA, 2025). An estimated 281 million people live outside their country of birth (Pew Research, 2022), while billions move within their own countries. As a result, many people no longer live in the city where they grew up. Despite growing emphasis on accessibility, inclusivity, and age-friendly design, urban strategies often overlook emotional connection and place attachment, which are critical to mental wellbeing, social cohesion, and resilience – particularly for immigrants, newcomers, and those temporarily experiencing a city.Purpose: This workshop explores how cities can foster a sense of belonging and “feeling at home” for diverse populations. It aims to translate research on place attachment, wellbeing, and human-centred design into practical strategies for urban design, planning, and policy.
Methods: This 60-minute interactive workshop combines storytelling, experiential mapping, and applied reflection. Participants first share personal experiences of places where they unexpectedly felt at home while traveling or living away from their hometowns. These narratives are analysed through a structured framework identifying sensory, social, emotional, and spatial factors. Facilitators then connect these insights to evidence from place attachment and urban wellbeing research. Participants subsequently apply their professional expertise to map patterns and identify actionable urban design and governance strategies.
Results: The workshop produces a set of practical design cues and participatory approaches that support belonging across diverse users. Key outcomes include:
• a framework linking lived experience to urban design decision-making;
• identification of environmental and social factors that foster connection and comfort;
• strategies to integrate intergenerational, inclusive, and participatory design into practice; and
• participants leave with tools to assess and strengthen both the physical and emotional infrastructure of cities.
Conclusions/Implications: As migration reshapes urban populations, cities must move beyond static definitions of community. Designing for belonging is essential to creating inclusive, resilient, and healthy urban environments. By bridging lived experience with research and practice, this workshop offers transferable methods and actionable insights to help cities create environments where people – whether residents, newcomers, or visitors – can feel at home.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the role of place attachment in supporting well-being in cities shaped by migration.
- Identify key social, emotional, and spatial factors that make places feel like home.
- Apply practical strategies to design inclusive, age-friendly cities that foster belonging.
Theme: Smart cities and digital health
P32
Embodied futures: Empathy-driven human and planetary wellbeing in city design
Natali Ghawi
CEO, NABAD Consulting; Impact Partnerships lead, ReGen Villages, Jordan
Natali Ghawi is the Founder and CEO of NABAD Consulting, an award-winning regenerative strategy and advisory practice advancing people and planetary wellbeing across buildings, communities, cities, and systems. She is a holistic architect, urban planner, and regenerative wellbeing practitioner with experience spanning sustainable cities, healthy buildings, social impact, placemaking, resilience, and experiential learning. Natali’s work bridges strategy, design, and implementation, supporting organisations and communities to translate sustainability, health, equity, and wellbeing ambitions into meaningful, context-sensitive action. She holds a Master’s in Global Development Practice from Harvard University and is accredited as a WELL AP, Living Future Accredited professional, Fitwel Ambassador, EDGE Expert, and Envision Sustainability Professional.
Embodied futures: Empathy-driven human and planetary wellbeing in city design
Abstract Copy
Cities today face complex, interconnected challenges, including climate risks, health inequities, social fragmentation, and unsustainable urban growth. Addressing these pressures requires approaches that place both human and planetary wellbeing at the centre of urban planning and design.This interactive workshop demonstrates how empathy-driven, embodied learning combined with technology-enabled tools can support participants in understanding the lived experiences of communities and the ecological impacts of urban interventions. Drawing on frameworks developed through NABAD Consulting, ReGen Villages’ tech stack platform, and Stanford CCARE’s Design Empathy workshops, the session blends immersive exercises, digital simulations, and participatory methods to explore solutions for resilient, inclusive, and health-supportive neighbourhoods.
Participants will engage in hands-on activities that reveal systemic interdependencies between people, place, and planet. The workshop emphasises co-creation, evidence-based strategies, and cross-sector collaboration to generate actionable insights for urban design, policy, and investment. By placing empathy and embodiment at the heart of decision-making, cities can shift from incremental adaptation towards transformative breakthroughs, fostering equitable, thriving, and climate-resilient urban environments.
Learning Objectives
- Apply embodied and experiential methods to understand the human and planetary impacts of urban design decisions.
- Explore how technology and immersive tools can foster empathy, collaboration, and resilience in city planning.
- Develop practical strategies to integrate health, equity, and ecological sustainability into urban regeneration initiatives.
P33
Quiet Taoyuan Project – safeguarding urban tranquility
Chi-Liang Yen
Director-General, Taoyuan City Government, Taiwan
Chi-Liang Yen serves as the Director-General of the Department of Environmental Protection for the Taoyuan City Government. He holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering from National Central University. His work primarily focuses on promoting net-zero carbon reduction and resource recycling policies. Additionally, he is dedicated to enhancing noise control, implementing AI-based environmental pollution identification, advancing environmental education, and pursuing other initiatives that directly benefit citizens, thereby making Taoyuan City's environment more sustainable and livable.
Hsiao-Wan Wu Wu
Chief, Taoyuan City Government, Taiwan
Formerly served as the Captain of the Daxi District Brigade and the Taoyuan District Brigade within the Environmental Management Department of the Taoyuan City Government.
Recipient of the 2022 National Model Sanitation Brigade Leader Award
Quiet Taoyuan Project – safeguarding urban tranquility
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Background and objectives: Rapid urbanisation in Taoyuan City has escalated noise pollution from modified vehicles, adversely affecting resident wellbeing. To address this, the Environmental Protection Bureau transitioned from traditional inspections to a smart city framework. By integrating AI recognition, sound camera technology, and big data analytics, the city aims to enhance enforcement efficiency and foster a human-centric, health-oriented urban environment.Enforcement and measures:
1. Source control: Successfully advocated for national legislative amendments to the Noise Control Act and Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act, introducing heightened fines and license revocation mechanisms.
2. Advanced technology:
(1) Smart noise maps: Utilising GIS and big data for real-time hotspot monitoring;
(2) AI integration: Equipping police patrol vehicles with AI exhaust pipe recognition to expand inspection coverage.
(3) AI image and voiceprint recognition: A pioneering system developed with National Yunlin University of Science and Technology to precisely identify noise sources in high-traffic scenarios.
(4) Equipment optimisation: Enhancing sound camera duration and enforcement efficacy.
3. Inspections and education: Executing the highest frequency of joint "Environmental-Police" operations among Taiwan’s six municipalities, alongside rigorous shop inspections and car culture awareness programmes in high-risk demographics.
Outcomes and conclusions: From June 2023 to late 2025, the project achieved a 38.2-per-cent reduction in noise complaints and a 6-decibel decrease in environmental noise levels. The collaboration between academia and law enforcement has standardised technical benchmarks and strengthened governance frameworks. Consequently, the project received the 2025 City Governance Excellence Award, the AI Application Excellence Award, and the National Sustainable Development Award, serving as a global model for innovative environmental governance.
Learning Objectives
- The objectives encompass the enhancement of noise control measures.
- The utilization of advanced noise monitoring technologies and inspection equipment.
- The attainment of significant outcomes in the management and regulation of noise pollution.
P34
Guarding our city: Urban monitoring and response system
Chi-Liang Yen
Director-General, Taoyuan City Government, Taiwan
Chi-Liang Yen serves as the Director-General of the Department of Environmental Protection for the Taoyuan City Government. He holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering from National Central University. His work primarily focuses on promoting net-zero carbon reduction and resource recycling policies. Additionally, he is dedicated to enhancing noise control, implementing AI-based environmental pollution identification, advancing environmental education, and pursuing other initiatives that directly benefit citizens, thereby making Taoyuan City's environment more sustainable and livable.
Yuan-Cheng Tsai
Chef, Taoyuan City Government, Taiwan
Currently serving as the Director of the Air Quality Protection Division of the Environmental Protection Bureau of Taoyuan City Government, I have previously held positions as the Director of the Environmental Inspection Division and the Public Relations Office. My primary responsibilities encompass air quality protection in Taoyuan City, including the management of stationary pollution sources, mobile pollution sources, construction-related pollution sources, and the integration of intelligent monitoring systems.
Guarding our city: Urban monitoring and response system
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As a prominent industrial centre in Taiwan, Taoyuan City faces considerable challenges with air quality, stemming from the concentration of manufacturing activities, heavy traffic, and population growth, all of which pose significant risks to the health of vulnerable groups, particularly school-aged children. In response to these challenges, the city government has established the "City Monitoring and Real-Time Response System (CMRS)" with the objective of enhancing industrial pollution control, safeguarding health within schools, and improving the capacity to monitor and respond to fire-related incidents through high-density sensing and automated mechanisms.To execute this initiative, the city government has installed 1000 micro-intelligent air-quality sensors in key industrial zones and has deployed real-time air-quality dashboards in educational institutions, thereby providing precise data and actionable recommendations. In instances of sudden pollution events, the system is augmented by the "Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS)," which is capable of generating dispersion simulation results within ten minutes of an incident occurring, facilitating the rapid dissemination of alerts via platforms such as LINE.
This project has manifested significant outcomes, with the annual average concentration of PM2.5 in Taoyuan City decreasing from 15.4 µg/m³ in 2019 to 11.7 µg/m³ in 2025, reflecting a reduction of 24 per cent. Additionally, it is estimated that by 2026, installation work will be completed in 72 elementary schools, ultimately benefitting approximately 80,000 students. Through the infusion of technology and a commitment to transparent governance, Taoyuan City has not only bolstered its resilience to disasters but has also successfully established a sustainable smart city model with considerable potential for replication.
Learning Objectives
- To gain an understanding of how the deployment of high-density sensors can enhance the efficiency of air quality management within industrial regions.
- To investigate the practical applications of smart city technologies in the realm of environmental protection within educational settings and evaluate their effectiveness in safeguarding the health of susceptible populations, including school-aged children
- To understand the integration of real-time communication tools to augment the city’s emergency response and preliminary warning capabilities concerning sudden pollution incidents.
P35
Social value economics: An AI-driven geospatial framework for evidence-based community investment in healthier cities
Alejandro Quinto
Head of innovation, Communityai, United Kingdom
Alejandro Quinto is head of innovation at Communityai, where he helps translate the company’s social value economics vision into practical product concepts, AI-powered geospatial tools and compelling client-facing narratives. His work sits at the intersection of product design, urban analytics, social value, spatial intelligence and storytelling, with a focus on helping organisations understand communities, identify areas of need, and design more targeted social impact strategies. With a background in architecture, urbanism, spatial data and data visualisation, Alejandro brings together design thinking and geospatial intelligence to turn complex community, health, economic and environmental indicators into practical tools for better decision-making in cities and communities. At Communityai, he helps shape the products, prototypes and narratives that connect public and private capital with local need, supporting the company’s mission to make social value more measurable, place-based and actionable for healthier, more equitable cities.
Paul Polizzotto
Founder and CEO, Communityai
Paul Polizzotto is the Founder and CEO of Communityai. Over a 36-year career as a social entrepreneur, Paul has focused on creating sustainable new funding streams for community organisations and non-profits by harnessing the power of business-to-business and business-to-government transactions. He proved this market-making model, Social Value Economics, through EcoMedia, which he founded in 2001 and sold to CBS in 2010. Under his leadership, CBS EcoMedia directed more than $100 million in new funding and resources to environmental, education, community health and wellness programmes, improving quality of life for more than 60 million people. Paul has since turned his attention to SaaS and AI solutions that integrate social value directly into sales and procurement platforms. His innovations have earned him 16 global patents and multiple awards for social innovation, public-private partnership and community impact.
Social value economics: An AI-driven geospatial framework for evidence-based community investment in healthier cities
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Corporate social responsibility spending in the UK exceeds £1.5 billion annually across FTSE 350 companies, yet only 45–55 pence of every pound reaches communities. Targeting relies on relationships and geography of convenience rather than evidence of need. FTSE 100 community investment has declined 34 per cent in real terms over a decade, while the Procurement Act 2023 mandates social value evidence across £434 billion of public procurement with no affordable delivery infrastructure. The gap between community need and what reaches them has direct consequences for population health and urban wellbeing.Social value economics (SVE) – a framework originated by Paul Polizzotto, whose CBS EcoMedia model (1999–2012) demonstrated that embedding social impact into commercial transactions could generate $100 million in new community funding while simultaneously increasing business revenue – proposes that social value should be funded from transactions, not profits. CommunityAI’s platform operationalises this insight through AI-driven geospatial intelligence. The community life score (CLS) measures need intensity across all 33,755 lower super output areas in England using 41 indicators across five dimensions, drawing on 21 authoritative sources, including the IMD, NHS data, and DWP statistics. A community vulnerability amplifier adjusts scores where population characteristics amplify deprivation consequences.
Rather than extracting social value from corporate profits – structurally capped at 1.1 per cent for 40 years – SVE funds it from commercial transaction value, bypassing the P&L entirely. A cascade SROI optimisation engine, drawing on 1212 verified interventions and a 14,000-row impact matrix, determines optimal intervention combinations using transformer-based AI, with every recommendation traceable to published evidence.
The platform delivers 85–90p per pound to community impact versus the 45–55p sector average, enables real-time measurement, and provides zero-cost access to 5.5 million UK SMEs. Modelling demonstrates 18-per-cent improvement in community life scores through targeted interventions. By connecting geospatial intelligence with evidence-based design, SVE offers a scalable methodology for directing resources where they most improve community health and neighbourhood wellbeing.
Learning Objectives
- Understand how AI-powered geospatial indexing (the Community Life Score) can identify neighbourhood-level health and social need across 33,755 areas, enabling evidence-based community investment decisions.
- Explore how cascade SROI optimisation—modelling compound interactions between health, employment, housing, and environmental interventions—can multiply the social return of community investment by 10–15 times.
- Evaluate the potential of transaction-funded social value—originating from the CBS EcoMedia and Givewith models—as a scalable alternative to profit-based CSR, enabling universal access for 5.5 million UK SMEs.
P36
Beyond technocracy: A process-oriented framework for evaluating responsible AI (RAI) in smart city governance
Kyounghee Cho
Research Fellow, Birmingham City University, United Kingdom
Kyounghee Cho, a research fellow from Birmingham City University, is a scholar of digital governance, specialising in the role of emerging technologies in shaping public policy, urban systems, and democratic processes. She received her PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick, where her research examined the impact of digital transformation on democratic development in South Korea.
Her current research focuses on the governance of artificial intelligence and digital infrastructures, with particular attention to their implications for urban policy, public service delivery, and societal wellbeing. She explores how AI-driven systems are increasingly embedded in city governance, influencing decision-making processes, risk management, and the provision of public goods in areas such as transport, smart cities, and urban innovation.
Beyond technocracy: A process-oriented framework for evaluating responsible AI (RAI) in smart city governance
Abstract Copy
A technology-driven paradigm has long framed smart cities in terms of the adoption and optimisation of digital infrastructures to enhance urban efficiency and service delivery. Within this approach, governance is typically treated as a supporting mechanism for technological innovation, while evaluation frameworks prioritise measurable outputs such as connectivity, performance, and system integration. However, a growing body of scholarship highlights that such technocratic and output-oriented approaches obscure critical governance challenges, including issues of accountability, inequality, and social wellbeing, which cannot be fully captured through data-driven metrics alone. These limitations have become increasingly significant with the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into urban systems, where ethical concerns arise not only from outcomes but from the processes through which decisions are made.This study addresses these limitations by shifting the analytical focus from technological outputs to governance processes. It aims to develop a process-oriented evaluation framework that operationalises Responsible AI (RAI) principles in smart city governance. Specifically, the study examines how principles such as accountability, transparency, fairness, and human oversight can be embedded within procedural governance mechanisms across the lifecycle of AI-driven urban initiatives. To ensure analytical robustness, the study draws on a structured comparative analysis of six major international RAI frameworks – including OECD, UNESCO, EU, and leading global indices – capturing cross-institutional consensus on responsible AI governance.
Methodologically, the study analyses AI-related policy actions undertaken by a public-sector organisation involved in smart city implementation and abstracts them into core governance functions, providing a functional representation of how AI is operationalised within urban contexts. These functions are mapped onto key stages of the AI lifecycle – agenda-setting, design and procurement, deployment, operation, and review – as well as corresponding RAI principles. By integrating abstracted governance functions derived from AI policy actions with lifecycle-based mapping and core RAI principles, the study develops an evaluation framework that enables systematic assessment of how RAI principles are procedurally embedded within governance practices, moving beyond abstract normative commitments towards a more operational and verifiable understanding of responsible AI governance.
The study contributes a novel methodological framework for evaluating governance quality in AI-driven urban systems. It makes governance processes visible and measurable, thereby offering practical tools for policymakers and urban practitioners to assess institutional capacity, strengthen accountability, and embed ethical oversight. More broadly, it supports a shift towards more transparent, equitable, and human-centric smart city governance.
Learning Objectives
- Responsibl AI
- Digital governance
- Smart city procedural evaluation
P37
Is this property environmentally justice? Developing a postcode-level environmental justice index with unique property reference number
Yeunsoo Park
Research Fellow, Birmingham City University, United Kingdom
Yeunsoo Park is a postdoctoral researcher with a PhD in Management from the University of Birmingham. His research interests span business analytics, GIS, geospatial analysis, artificial intelligence, and explainable AI, with a particular focus on developing data-driven solutions to address business and urban challenges. His current postdoctoral research centres on the development of a postcode-level Environmental Justice Index that integrates environmental, health, safety, transport, and food access indicators at postcode and property level to support smarter, fairer, healthier, and more evidence-based urban decision-making.
Chulwoong Park
Research Fellow, Birmingham City University, United Kingdom
Chulwoong Park is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Birmingham City University, UK, supported by the International Science Partnership Fund (ISPF). Dr Park’s research examines how digital technologies are reshaping urban spaces. His work particularly focuses on the responsible use of artificial intelligence in advancing smarter and healthier cities.
Kyounghee Cho
Research Fellow, Birmingham City University, United Kingdom
Kyounghee Cho, a research fellow from Birmingham City University, is a scholar of digital governance, specialising in the role of emerging technologies in shaping public policy, urban systems, and democratic processes. She received her PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick, where her research examined the impact of digital transformation on democratic development in South Korea.
Her current research focuses on the governance of artificial intelligence and digital infrastructures, with particular attention to their implications for urban policy, public service delivery, and societal wellbeing. She explores how AI-driven systems are increasingly embedded in city governance, influencing decision-making processes, risk management, and the provision of public goods in areas such as transport, smart cities, and urban innovation.
Mohammad Mayouf
Associate Professor, Birmingham City University, United Kingdom
Dr Mohammad Mayouf is an Associate Professor in Digital Construction at Birmingham City University, specialising in the Digital Built Environment. His work sits at the intersection of digital innovation, information management, and socio-technical transformation in construction, with particular expertise in Building Information Modelling (BIM), Digital Twins, artificial intelligence, and lifecycle asset information management.
Muhammad Afzal
Associate Professor, Birmingham City University, United Kingdom
An experienced professional with the FHEA recognition. Holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, awarded the "Excellence Thesis Award" for outstanding research. Published research findings in over 100 top-tier journals, patents, books, and conferences with a cumulative impact factor of over 150. Taught highly rated courses in computing, big data management and analytics, data mining, data science, statistics, AI, and mathematics. Received "Merit Scholarship Awards" throughout their tertiary education and have played an active role in student recruiting and admission for universities. Invited speaker and presenter of research in different countries such as the USA, the UK, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Italy, Portugal, and Australia.
Is this property environmentally justice? Developing a postcode-level environmental justice index with unique property reference number
Abstract Copy
Environmental justice is increasingly recognised as a multidimensional and spatially uneven urban issue, yet many existing environmental justice indices (EJIs) remain limited in both methodological design and practical usability. Most are constructed at coarse administrative scales, such as wards or districts, which are useful for broad policy monitoring but insufficient for understanding variation at the level where everyday place-based decisions are made. In addition, existing environmental information is often fragmented across separate indicators or focused primarily on building-level conditions, making it difficult to interpret cumulative neighbourhood-level disadvantage in an integrated and decision-oriented way.This study develops a postcode- and property-linked environmental justice index framework designed to provide a more fine-grained, transparent, and interpretable assessment of urban inequality. The proposed framework integrates multiple dimensions of neighbourhood conditions, including environmental exposure, health access, safety, transport accessibility, and food access, into a single composite index supported by explainable sub-scores. The study also explores the role of adjustable weighting in improving interpretability across different decision contexts.
Birmingham is used as the initial case study. A structured dataset has been developed covering approximately 10,000 postcodes, with 24 linked location-level indicators for each address area. Environmental, health, transport, and spatial datasets are integrated through a reproducible analytical pipeline to generate postcode-level EJI scores. An interactive mapping prototype has also been developed to support spatial exploration, postcode comparison, and user-adjustable weighting. This enables the framework to be examined not only as an analytical model but also as a practical decision-support tool.
The study contributes in three main ways. First, it advances environmental justice measurement by moving beyond coarse area-based analysis to a more spatially refined postcode- and property-linked approach. Second, it provides a transparent multidimensional framework that integrates fragmented indicators into a single interpretable structure reflecting the wider lived environment rather than building-level conditions alone. Third, it demonstrates how fine-grained and explainable environmental intelligence can support more usable outputs for planning, housing, and investment contexts.
The findings show the feasibility and value of constructing a multidimensional postcode-level EJI capable of revealing local variation that broader spatial averages may obscure. More broadly, the study highlights the potential of fine-grained environmental justice mapping to support fairer, more evidence-based, and more context-sensitive urban decision-making.
Learning Objectives
- Critically examine the limitations of existing Environmental Justice Indices based on coarse administrative units.
- Understand the methodological design of a postcode- and property-level Environmental Justice Index, including indicator integration, weighting, and spatial interpretation.
- Discuss the practical implications of fine-grained Environmental Justice mapping for policy, planning, and place-based decision-making.
Theme: Population and neighbourhood health
P38
The health–place nexus: Embedding health in city systems using a place-based approach
Steve Millington
University Professor, Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
Steve Millington is Professor of Place Management at Manchester Metropolitan University and a leading authority on neighbourhood governance, place experience and the institutional conditions that shape healthier urban systems. His publications span vitality and viability, experiential place quality, high street transformation and the governance of collective action. Steve’s work has significantly influenced national practice, contributing to the development of the IPM’s 4Rs framework, the 25 Priority Interventions and national guidance on place‑based policy. He has played a central role in major programmes including the High Streets Task Force, which has informed national approaches to place governance. His recent work advances reframing place as integrative infrastructure and providing strategic tools for policymakers, planners and public health leaders seeking to deliver healthier, fairer and more resilient cities.
Nikos Ntounis
University Senior Lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
Dr Nikos Ntounis is Senior Lecturer and Research at Manchester Metropolitan University, specialising in the organisational, behavioural and governance dynamics that shape the performance and resilience of urban centres. His publications span retail change, high street transformation, place governance, stakeholder coordination and the socio‑spatial dynamics of urban systems. Nikos has played a central role in developing the evidence base for the IPM’s 4Rs framework and the 25 Priority Interventions, and has contributed extensively to national programmes including the High Streets Task Force. His research examines how institutional maturity, partnership structures and local capability influence place outcomes, and he has led multiple studies on centre performance, footfall dynamics and the evolution of town and city centres. His work continues to inform policy, practice and strategic decision‑making across the UK and internationally.
The health–place nexus: Embedding health in city systems using a place-based approach
Abstract Copy
Cities may be shaped by cumulative, interacting infrastructures, yet strategic policy frameworks continue to position “place” as a bounded theme, an add-on, rather than the organising logic through which health, social, economic and experiential outcomes are generated, co-ordinated and sustained. This paper addresses that gap by advancing the health–place nexus as a strategic, infrastructural framework enabling decision-makers to embed place-based outcomes across urban policy, planning and investment. The nexus reframes place not as a policy silo but as the underlying co-ordination mechanism through which healthier, fairer and more resilient urban systems are produced. It proposes a framework that helps decision-makers understand how neighbourhood level governance, capability and collective action shape wider urban health outcomes.The paper draws on conceptual development work undertaken across a national place-based programme and presents a synthesis of insights from the High Streets Task Force for England, a programme that ran from 2019-24 supporting 150 locations. The evaluation provides early signals about the conditions that enable neighbourhood partnerships to mobilise effectively: governance capability, partnership maturity and structured learning systems. These insights are synthesised with theoretical work on social, experiential and health producing infrastructures, alongside the Institute of Place Management's 4Rs framework (repositioning, rebranding, restructuring and reinventing) and its 25 priority interventions, which together offer a practical guidance for strengthening neighbourhood governance and capability.
The analysis identifies three interacting infrastructures that underpin healthier urban outcomes:
1. experience infrastructures (identity, atmosphere, civic life);
2. social infrastructures (governance, participation, capability, institutional maturity); and
3. health-producing infrastructures (environmental determinants, inequalities, wellbeing conditions).
The paper argues that neighbourhood governance functions as a multi-scalar co-ordination mechanism linking community priorities with institutional decision making. Early evidence indicates that structured flexibility, balancing local variation with programme wide coherence, enables more adaptive, health centred delivery across diverse urban contexts. The 4Rs and the 25 priority interventions provide a structured yet flexible toolkit for operationalising this approach. The health–place nexus, therefore, offers a practical tool for embedding health and wellbeing within strategic urban policy areas, including health inequalities, inclusive growth, social infrastructure investment and community-led regeneration. By reframing place as an integrative infrastructure, the framework supports cross-sector collaboration, strengthens institutional capability and provides a theoretically grounded platform for designing healthier city systems. It offers a strategic route for policymakers, planners and public health leaders seeking to translate neighbourhood level mobilisation into city-wide health impact.
Learning Objectives
- Understanding of how the health–place nexus reframes place as an integrative infrastructure that shapes health, social, economic, and experiential outcomes across urban systems
- Insight into how the Institute of Place Management’s IPM’s 4Rs framework and the 25 Priority Interventions can strengthen local capability, partnership maturity and multi‑scalar coordination in relation to place-based health planning.
- Identification of how structured flexibility and place‑based governance can be embedded within strategic urban policy, planning and investment to deliver healthier, fairer and more resilient cities.
P39
Springfield Village: A blueprint for public sector-led urban regeneration
Andrew Simpson
Director, Andrew Simpson Planning Ltd, United Kingdom
Andrew trained in medicine but in the late eighties was diverted into work as a campaigner for better mental health services as a director of Mind the mental health charity. This led to his work in planning improved services for the NHS and thus to a wider role in urban planning.
Andrew focusses on the importance of well-being and sustainability in urban planning. As Director of Estates and Regeneration for South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust, he secured planning permission with a delivery model for the largest regeneration scheme on an NHS site in England at Springfield Hospital, based on a vision of integrated health and social care provision at the heart of a new community. Springfield Village is now substantially complete, representing the largest new neighbourhood in London since the Olympic Village as well as the largest new mental health facility built in the capital in recent times.
Since then, Andrew has been engaged on a number of regeneration projects, aimed at creating new communities that respond to the housing, climate and ecological emergencies and are great places to live, work and play. He was a founder director of Lewes Phoenix Rising, a community development company that successfully promoted the genuinely sustainable regeneration of the last large industrial site in the centre of Lewes, East Sussex. This project is now being taken forward by Lewes District Council.
Andrew lives and works in Lewes, East Sussex
Springfield Village: A blueprint for public sector-led urban regeneration
Abstract Copy
The title is not mine but taken from the Estates Gazette of 1 September 2025, which describes "a once under-utilised NHS site in south-west London [which] has been reimagined into a mixed-use neighbourhood that could become a blueprint for integrated health and housing across the UK". The 82-acre site provides 1200 homes, 33 per cent affordable, a 200-bed mental health facility, all as part of a mixed neighbourhood with shops, employment and a 30-acre park.We started with a purpose: to replace our Victorian asylum buildings, still in use by our patients, with a beautiful therapeutic environment for mental healing. We had the perfect site, located in the heart of our community. But the buildings had £100m of backlog maintenance, and the UK Government was not directly financing capital investment. So we looked to examples of new neighbourhoods built on health and wellbeing: the former psychiatric hospital at Queen Street in Toronto, Bournville in Birmingham, and Coin Street on the South Bank in London. We turned to Jane Jacobs' four principles for diverse communities, and we decided to build for trust, health and wellbeing.
A purpose will only take you so far. You also have to have a procurement strategy that delivers what you want. That means getting planning permission yourself, including detailed permission for the things you care about the most. Taking the planning risk is the first and most important step. And then you need a mechanism for capturing the value in your land to pay for what you want. Not PFI, not design and build, not exchequer finance, but land value capture by controlling the development yourself. You need to be in charge of the development process and ultimately have a role in the management of the site.
You also need resilience. The odds are stacked against you. The planning system requires careful navigation – in this case, two refusals and a final win on appeal. Getting your designs built also needs constant vigilance to resist the "value engineers" who want to reduce costs and quality. And then there's HM Treasury and the Department of Health, neither of whom understand this approach and would rather palm the risk off to a traditional house builder or Homes England.
In the end it's worth it. The results are there for all to see.
Learning Objectives
- Understanding the Value of Public Sector Land
- Planning for trust, health and wellbeing.
- Financial models to realise land value for public benefit.
P40
Developing design recommendations for meditation centres through a mixed-method study
Pearl Doshi
Architect, University College London, United Arab Emirates
Pearl is a building and wellbeing specialist focused on delivering practical strategies that improve how people live and feel in built environments. She holds a background in Architecture from UC Berkeley and has completed advanced studies in Health, Wellbeing, and Sustainable Buildings at University College London, combining environmental science with applied design and development insight.
Her work translates research into real-world impact. She recently published a peer-reviewed paper on healthy building design. In parallel, she is working with Dubai-based developer Al Mizan, contributing to projects that integrate wellbeing principles into residential and mixed-use developments.
Pearl is also the founder of Well Built Healthy Buildings Consultancy, a new practice focused on helping developers and stakeholders implement evidence-based design strategies that enhance occupant health, performance, and long-term value.
Francesco Aletta
Associate Professor, University College London, United Kingdom
Francesco Aletta was born and raised in Naples, where he obtained his Master’s degree in Architecture in 2010 and his PhD in Environmental Design in 2014 at the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli. He worked as a chartered architect in Italy for several years; however, during his PhD he developed a strong interest in the relationship between people and everyday sounds, which led him to pursue an academic career in environmental acoustics.
In 2013, he joined the Acoustics Group at the School of Architecture at the University of Sheffield as a Research Associate, contributing to the EU-funded SONORUS network on soundscape methods. In 2016, he moved to Belgium to work as a postdoctoral researcher at the WAVES Group, Ghent University, where he collaborated on projects including AcustiCare and C3Places, focusing on soundscapes and public spaces.
He also served as a visiting lecturer at Birmingham City University and the Polytechnic University of Turin. In 2018, he joined University College London (IEDE) as a Research Associate, working with Jian Kang on the ERC-funded Soundscape Indices project.
Developing design recommendations for meditation centres through a mixed-method study
Abstract Copy
Meditation is a practice used to cultivate focused attention, emotional stability, and self-awareness. Evidence of its psychological, physiological, and social benefits warrants greater accessibility and further research. This study evaluates meditation centre design by identifying recurring design practices, highlighting the importance of indoor environmental qualities (IEQs), and developing design recommendations for future use. A mixed-method, exploratory sequential design using a scoping case study review, expert interviews, and user surveys provides a holistic understanding of design practices, rationale behind decision-making, and user feedback. Quantitative and qualitative patterns were found across case studies, thematic analysis was conducted on interview transcripts, and user surveys were statistically analysed. The research concludes that effective meditation centre design integrates spatial, contextual, and community-driven practices while prioritising key IEQs to minimise sensory distractions and promote introspection. A hierarchy of IEQ importance was identified – (1) acoustic environment, (2) indoor air quality and thermal environment, (3) biophilic elements, and (4) lighting environment – alongside the influence of materials and colour. These findings were consolidated into comprehensive design recommendations addressing contextual, spatial, sensory, experiential, inclusive, and sustainable strategies. This study provides foundational recommendations and highlights future research opportunities, including direct engagement with meditation centres, longitudinal investigations, and psychophysiological studies.Learning Objectives
- Analyze existing meditation centres to uncover recurring and successful design strategies, and translate them into practical design recommendations.
- Evaluate how environmental factors - such as acoustics, air quality, thermal comfort, lighting, and biophilia - influence the meditation experience.
- Ranking the relative importance of different environmental factors, identifying which have the strongest effect on meditation.
P41
A healthy city… sounds good
Adam Scott
Associate, Hoare Lea, United Kingdom
Adam Scott leads the Southwest Acoustic Team at Hoare Lea, a multidisciplinary engineering consultancy focused on balancing the needs of people and planet. For over 15 years he has delivered practical acoustic advice to support wellbeing for a wide range of projects, including road and rail infrastructure, airports, hospitals and clinical spaces, schools, universities, offices, residential developments, community hubs, data centres, renewable energy schemes and large masterplans. Adam works across the whole project lifecycle, from concept and design, through construction, to in‑use monitoring. This broad perspective has shown him that, in practice, acoustic outcomes are personal and contextual. Consequently, Adam is an avid advocate for inclusive engagement with the right people, so that designs reflect the needs of those they serve.
Gaël Vilatarsana
Associate Director, Hoare Lea, United Kingdom
Gaël Vilatarsana is an Associate Director at Hoare Lea (a Tetra Tech Company), based in Oxford. He holds a Master of Science in Environmental and Architectural Acoustics from London South Bank University and a bachelor’s degree in building services engineering from the University of Northumbria. With over 25 years of experience in the built environment, Gaël specialises in acoustic consultancy to support the creation of sustainable, people‑centred buildings and outdoor environments. In recent years, his work focused on noise impact assessments for large residential and mixed‑use developments with healthy living objectives. Gaël also leads on building services noise mitigation strategies for buildings in high-density urban environments.
A healthy city… sounds good
Abstract Copy
Chronic exposure to noise is a public health issue. In 2018, around 100,000 Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) were lost due to road traffic noise alone. Cities are where noise is most prevalent. So, conventional wisdom has been to simply reduce noise levels to manage health and wellbeing. This approach has shaped how our cities sound for decades, but it is simplistic. We know that noise level (i.e., the physical amount of sound pressure) only accounts for around 30 per cent of how people perceive annoyance. Humans are holistic beings. Health outcomes, in relation to sound, are a function of both the sound itself and how a person perceives the sound, in context. Therefore, if we want cities to be healthier, we need to consider the (non-acoustic) factors influencing the perception of sound. This is soundscape design.Soundscape design aims to make the sound environment appropriate for its usage, in the knowledge that the goal is not, and can never be, silence. For example, reducing road traffic noise does not automatically result in better health outcomes. The right amount of road traffic noise can mask more distinctive and annoying sources, such as neighbour noise, which is a common cause for complaint.
If cities sound appropriate to those inhibiting them, the benefits can be profound. By understanding how sound is perceived, we can enhance wellbeing, support inclusive design, and increase comfort by enabling building occupants to their open windows and connect with the outside world. This facilitates natural ventilation, reduces overheating risk, and supports more sustainable building performance.
A soundscape approach also encourages the introduction of positive sound sources, which are an underutilised tool for making cities healthier. Biophilic (i.e., natural) sound in particular is shown to reduce physiological expressions of stress. Research on the nuances around this can be used to curate sound environments that are more restorative. Therefore, soundscape design should be implemented ambitiously, if truly healthy cities are desired.
This paper provides an organised summary of the relevant research; describes how soundscape design can be implemented on mico, meso and macro scales; and discusses the key practical challenges that need to be addressed, both in design and in policy.
Learning Objectives
- Summarise the evidence linking chronic noise exposure to health outcomes and why considering factors beyond sound level is imperative for acoustic designs to offer real-world wellbeing benefits
- Describe practical soundscape design principles at micro, meso and macro scales, based on an evidenced-based approach.
- Critically evaluate the barriers to soundscape design and formulate actionable recommendations for designers, planners and policymakers
P42
The Wellbeing Practices in Waiting Spaces (WPWS) Framework: Unlocking everyday time for urban mental health
Carolina Cárdenas
Independent Researcher – Urban Wellbeing & Public Space, Independent Researcher, Chile
Carolina Cárdenas is a Chilean psychologist and independent researcher working at the intersection of urban environments, mental health, and human development. Her central question is how everyday public spaces can function as accessible, low-threshold infrastructures for collective wellbeing — enabling people to voluntarily adopt wellbeing practices in the course of ordinary life.
Drawing on clinical and community psychology, early childhood education, and specialisation in complex trauma, she brings a systemic lens to public health that bridges individual behaviour and urban design. Her interdisciplinary training — spanning positive psychology, compassion-focused approaches, and complexity sciences — informs both her therapeutic practice and her ongoing WHO Healthy Cities training.
She has designed and led initiatives connecting art, education, and health, including national academic innovation programmes in Chile and public space interventions across Latin America and North America aimed at democratising access to mental health.
She is the creator of the Training Wellbeing in Public Waiting Spaces (TWPWS) model, a research-through-design framework that investigates how urban public space can be intentionally designed to support mental health at population level. Her research has been prototyped across three European cities and tested with participants in seven countries. Currently based in Santiago, she is piloting the model in the city's public spaces.
The Wellbeing Practices in Waiting Spaces (WPWS) Framework: Unlocking everyday time for urban mental health
Abstract Copy
Every urban day contains repeated intervals of involuntary waiting – platforms, metro cars, waiting rooms – spaces that, unlike parks or wellbeing centres, require no income, no time set aside, and no prior intention. This study examines these intervals as latent infrastructure: spatial-temporal conditions with potential for evidence-based micropractices at population scale, without requiring additional time, cost, or expertise. Over 1 billion people live with mental health conditions, yet 50–85 per cent do not access formal support – a gap shaped not only by clinical provision but by design and access to everyday environments.This paper introduces the Wellbeing Practices in Waiting Spaces (WPWS) Framework, a socio-ecological framework in which the uptake of wellbeing micropractices – grounded in mindfulness, appreciation, and compassion – emerges through the interaction of three components: mobilisable human capacities; spatial-temporal environmental conditions; and low-threshold visual prompts. These prompts take the form of brief prompts displayed on static signage within existing urban infrastructure – for example: "Do you feel tightness in your chest? Breathe in slowly counting to four. Breathe out counting to six. Repeat three times. With each exhale, feel your body release something" – designed to be voluntarily followed or ignored. The central research question asks whether minimal design interventions can transform waiting intervals into opportunities for wellbeing, without prescribing behaviour or requiring prior knowledge.
The study adopts a research-through-design approach across four phases: (1) interpretive phenomenological analysis of therapeutic experience (n=8); (2) situated urban prototyping in public spaces in Amsterdam, Milan, and Barcelona, using a ≥5-second voluntary stop as a low-threshold indicator of engagement; (3) cross-national everyday-use exploration through physical artefacts carrying micropractice prompts (n=41; seven countries); and (4) comparative analysis of contemporary public space interventions.
Urban prototyping revealed a fivefold difference in stopping rates between fixed metro corridor signage in Barcelona (≈5 per cent) and large-format LED displays in high-footfall open spaces in Amsterdam and Milan (≈1 per cent), suggesting that material and situational format – not content alone – mediates attentional engagement. In the artefact phase, 85.4 per cent of participants reported experiential adoption of the micropractice; perceived contribution to emotional wellbeing reached 5.3/7; and 60.9 per cent engaged in spontaneous social diffusion, including sharing artefacts and introducing them into professional settings.
The WPWS Framework reconceptualises public waiting environments as a form of distributed care infrastructure – where spatial inequality and time poverty concentrate – offering a complementary, low-cost pathway to expand equitable access to wellbeing micropractices without modifying existing urban systems, within everyday urban time.
Learning Objectives
- Understand how everyday urban waiting intervals can be reframed as latent infrastructure for wellbeing, and translated into scalable wellbeing micropractices.
- Examine empirical findings from urban prototyping, highlighting the role of situational conditions in the uptake of wellbeing micropractices.
- Identify design principles and ethical considerations for integrating low-threshold wellbeing micropractices into public spaces, supporting more equitable access to everyday wellbeing.
P43
The opportunity for community-led housing on NHS surplus land
Sem Lee
Founder, Director, OURI Labs, France
Sem Lee is an urban strategist, systems thinker, and designer working across public, private and third sector to deliver healthy places. Drawing on their lived experience in poor social housing when first arriving to the country, Sem founded OURI Labs, a health innovation research lab dedicated to shaping healthy, equitable cities that benefit communities and the planet. The practice specialises in participatory research, evaluation, and design, effectively bridging public health and urban planning policy.
Joel Simpson
Researcher, Social Life, United Kingdom
Joel Simpson is a researcher at Social Life and has worked on projects exploring the social impact of a range of housing and neighbourhood development models. He has supported the Southwark Estates Health and Wellbeing project that Social Life led, and helped facilitate the second round of research into public space interventions in the OPDC area along the Grand Union canal. Joel also lectures in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts (UAL), where his work explores how the university can strategically utilise its resources to support housing campaigns in the local area. He has an MSc in Urban Development Planning from UCL and sits on the board at RUSS CLT and in this capacity supported the completion of the mixed-tenure 12 Church Grove scheme in Lewisham.
The opportunity for community-led housing on NHS surplus land
Abstract Copy
NHS organisations hold significant surplus land with potential to improve population health, yet decisions about its future use rarely integrate community insight, spatial context, and health outcomes. Current disposal processes prioritise capital receipts, often overlooking the broader value that community-led development models could deliver for local populations and health systems alike. This project explores how community-led housing on NHS land can support prevention-focused health priorities, offering an alternative approach that aligns land use decisions with the NHS's Ten-Year Plan priorities.Poor housing costs the NHS an estimated £1.4 billion annually, with housing insecurity, overcrowding, and inadequate conditions contributing to preventable illness and widening health inequalities. Black and minoritised communities are disproportionately affected, experiencing higher rates of housing precarity and associated health burdens. Community-led housing offer an adaptable model that addresses these challenges by offering opportunities to remove land from speculation, providing permanently affordable housing, and creating opportunities for community wealth building. However, there remains limited standardised evidence demonstrating how these models deliver measurable health benefits.
We are in the first phase of this research which takes an approach in which qualitative, participatory work with communities defines locally salient needs, values, and risks. This will involve engagement with residents, community organisations, and local stakeholders to understand priorities and concerns that should shape how surplus NHS land is developed. Alongside this, desk-based analysis will link land characteristics to existing evidence on health outcomes, drawing on post-occupancy evaluations and impact assessments from established community-led housing projects in London and England.
The project will develop a social appraisal framework to support NHS Property Services and integrated care systems in evaluating surplus land opportunities. This framework will capture health and social value alongside financial considerations, enabling more informed decision-making for NHS stakeholders. We will work with NHS estates and public health stakeholders to understand current barriers to community-led development and map pathways for releasing land within existing governance structures.
Our findings will be tested through workshops bringing together NHS partners, housing organisations, and community groups, with a focus on South London boroughs where health inequalities are most acute. The project will produce practical guidance for practitioners and commissioners seeking to build the business case for community-led housing on NHS land. By strengthening the evidence base and developing tools for strategic appraisal, this work aims to de-risk land use choices while demonstrating how community-led approaches can contribute to healthier, more equitable neighbourhoods.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the evidence linking community-led housing to health outcomes
- Identify barriers and opportunities for releasing NHS surplus land for community-led development
- Apply a social appraisal approach to evaluate surplus land opportunities
P44
Maternal spaces in Newcastle: Insights into mothers’ embodied experiences and spatial practices
Alanis Burgess
Architectural Designer, P+HS Architects, United Kingdom
Alanis Burgess is an Architectural Designer at P+HS Architects in Newcastle and a Research Assistant to Dr Jiayi Jin within the Gender Inclusive Cities research team at Northumbria University.
At P+HS, her portfolio spans social housing, children’s homes, and large-scale residential masterplanning, with a focus on creating inclusive and supportive environments. Alongside practice, her research explores feminist and inclusive approaches to design, with particular attention to the relationship between architecture, health, and social equity. Alanis is a key contributor to the Maternal Spaces project at Northumbria, investigating how the built environment shapes maternal health outcomes across domestic, clinical, and civic contexts. Her work has been presented at multiple conferences and events, with peer-reviewed publications in the RIBA Journal and Town Planning Review.
Alanis is Chair of the RIBA Young Architectural Practitioner's Forum (YAPF) and represents early career architects on RIBA North East’s Regional Council. She is a committed advocate for equity, diversity, and inclusion, contributing to national EDI initiatives across the profession. Her transdisciplinary approach to practice seeks to advance healthier, more equitable built environments that centre care and lived experience.
Jiayi Jin
Assistant Professor, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Dr Jiayi Jin is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Architecture Department, University of Strathclyde, whose research explores digital urban technologies and creative participation to promote equitable and sustainable cities. She leads several British Academy and UKRI-funded projects, including “Gender-Inclusive Cities”, “Participatory Neighbourhood Planning for the ‘Brown to Green’ Transition in Tyneside”, and “Navigating Urban Ecologies”. Her work focuses particularly on how urban design and planning are conceptualised and experienced through a gender lens. Beginning with an investigation of Newcastle’s City Centre Transformation Plan back in 2021, her research has expanded to explore feminist urban environments and gendered dynamics in urban politics. She works closely with external partners including community organisations, architects, urban planners, artists and local government, employing methods such as gender equity walks, interviews, documentaries, counter-mapping, and GIS/PGIS analysis to foster interdisciplinary exploration and promote more inclusive urban futures.
Maternal spaces in Newcastle: Insights into mothers’ embodied experiences and spatial practices
Abstract Copy
This research examines the relationship between urban design, public health, and gender equity through the lens of maternal care provision in Newcastle City Centre, UK. Despite growing emphasis on place-based health and the Marmot Principles, the city lacks both council-owned public toilets and formal planning policy for breastfeeding or maternal care. These omissions signal a systemic breakdown in the delivery of equitable, preventive health environments at the neighbourhood scale. The research demonstrates how such gaps disproportionately affect mothers and caregivers, constraining mobility, wellbeing, and participation in everyday urban life.A mixed-methods, multi-phase methodology was employed, including a regional survey of parents with young children across North East England, focus groups with parents, and interviews with professionals in planning, design, and public health. Findings identify significant deficiencies in accessible and appropriate seating, alongside a broader lack of publicly available, non-commercial maternal and hygiene facilities, together forming a tangible barrier to perinatal social participation. Crucially, while participants acknowledged the existence of suitable baby-care spaces, these are largely confined to commercial venues such as department stores, limiting equitable access and reinforcing exclusionary geographies of care.
These findings reflect a wider structural neglect of maternal and caregiving needs in planning practice. Although often framed as societal rather than spatial, design, or policy issues, research shows that discomfort in public space can directly deter breastfeeding, with implications for both maternal and infant health outcomes. The reliance on private provision of these spaces further embeds inequalities, positioning care as supplementary rather than integral to urban life.
Framed through a neighbourhood health lens, this paper argues that maternal space and hygiene infrastructure must be recognised as essential components of preventive health systems. In the context of Newcastle's city centre, this study highlights the need to intentionally integrate maternal care into high streets, civic spaces, and community settings, shifting from systemic breakdown to purposeful breakthrough. By embedding care within the public realm, it advances health equity, social inclusion, and more responsive urban futures.
Learning Objectives
- Understand how gaps in urban infrastructure, impact maternal health, mobility, and participation in city centres.
- Evaluate the role of planning policy and urban design in either enabling or constraining equitable access to care, with a focus on the implications of relying on privately provided, commercial spaces.
- Identify strategies for integrating maternal and caregiving infrastructure into neighbourhood-scale planning to support preventative health, social inclusion, and more equitable urban environments.
P45
Midland Met Learning Campus: A place‑based model for neighbourhood health, skills, and social mobility
Ewan Graham
Partner, Health & Science lead, Hawkins\Brown, United Kingdom
Ewan Graham is an architect and the Health and Science lead at Hawkins\Brown Architects. His work crosses traditional sector boundaries and regardless of geographic location focuses on developing healthy and sustainable places that concentrate on improving access to health and reducing health inequalities. He has led some of the most ambitious projects in London that combine health, research and education and speaks openly about the potential for good design and architecture to positively influence health outcomes. His aspiration is to raise awareness of and improve the way designers, contractors, building commissioners and policy-makers consider the impacts of the built environment on population health.
Midland Met Learning Campus: A place‑based model for neighbourhood health, skills, and social mobility
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Background: The Midland Met Learning Campus (MMLC) was conceived as a core component of a wider place-based transformation anchored by the new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital (MMUH) in Smethwick, Birmingham. The project recognises that health outcomes are shaped as much by education, employment and social connection as by clinical care. Its aim is to embed a “health‑creating” ecosystem within the neighbourhood fabric, supporting prevention, early intervention and equitable access to opportunity.Purpose: The project sought to deliver a civic anchor that integrates skills development, community access, health-adjacent learning environments and inclusive public realm. The purpose was to create a pipeline from learning to employment that strengthens local population health and community agency.
Methods: The project was delivered through a multi-sector partnership between Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust and local FE/HE institutions. A blended public funding model tied capital investment to 15 years of socially focused outcomes, including apprenticeships and supported internships. The design leans on flexible learning environments and active travel infrastructure to enhance useability. Wellbeing improvements are delivered through passive design strategies to maximise daylight, biophilia, visual / physical connection to landscape and the insertion of public art. Co-location with MMUH encourages learners to shift between classroom, simulation suites and into hospital wards.
Results: MMLC is now open and aims to support a pipeline of 1200+ learners annually across health and care disciplines, increasing access for groups historically excluded from higher education and NHS careers. Early evidence suggests increased local recruitment into numerous clinical services. The design’s inclusive public realm has strengthened community participation, while sustainability measures (naturally ventilated classrooms, solar PV, ground‑source heat pumps and circular construction systems) reduce operational and delivery carbon.
Conclusions/Implications: MMLC demonstrates how cities can integrate health, education and employment into a unified neighbourhood system of care that addresses wider determinants of health. Its outcome‑linked funding, and position adjacent to a major hospital offers a transferable model for population health improvement, urban regeneration and resilient workforce development. The civic design is intended to represent the openness of opportunities and inclusive nature of the project’s vision.
Learning Objectives
- Place‑based educational infrastructure can function as a health‑creating intervention in deprived neighbourhoods.
- Integrated design and governance links health services, skills and local infrastructure.
- Collaboration is needed to create outcome‑linked, multi-partner delivery models in order to strengthen neighbourhood wellbeing and health equity.
P46
Warneford Park – building on two centuries of healthcare
Robert Dawson
Director, Eric Parry Architects, United Kingdom
Robert joined Eric Parry Architects in 2006 and has over 30 years’ experience delivering high-quality architecture across healthcare, education, life sciences, hospitality, workplace, and the adaptive reuse of historic buildings.
A strong design leader with in-depth technical expertise, Robert drives clear project vision, builds positive client relationships, and steers teams through every stage of design and delivery.
He is currently leading the design team for Warneford Park in Oxford—and led the design development of Granta Park Phase 2, a major life science campus of five flexible workplace/CL2 laboratory buildings set within extensive landscaped grounds in Cambridge. His previous work includes numerous award-winning office and residential projects in London, many involving the retention and extension of historic façades to create contemporary boutique workspace and hotels.
Warneford Park – building on two centuries of healthcare
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The Radcliffe Infirmary was Oxford’s first modern hospital when it opened in 1770 and it was the Infirmary trustees who took the initiative to found the Warneford Hospital, which opened in 1826. It was a pioneer in treating mental illness with dignity and was the first “Oxford” hospital to be located in Headington, outside the city boundaries. The Warneford Hospital grew steadily within a pastoral setting that shaped its patient care regimes.Today, the Warneford site provides care for patients in 200-year-old buildings that have changed little since their origins as an ‘asylum’ in 1826. These facilities and the loss of crucial connection to the landscape setting impede the provision of modern standards of care and are poorly integrated with academic departments.
Eric Parry Architects has created a comprehensive landscape-led masterplan for Warneford Park that optimises the site’s potential and re-imagines patient care alongside research in brain health and biomedical sciences. This bold ambition is made possible through a partnership between Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, the University of Oxford, and a local benefactor.
The Warneford Park masterplan aims to transform this “sleeping beauty” into a distinctive modern campus that combines within its heritage and landscaped setting:
• a major new mental health hospital set within a mature landscape;
• a multidisciplinary research building expanding research and teaching space from 3700m2 to 9000m2;
• a large-scale centre for bio-techs, start-ups and pharma companies to develop fundamental research through clinical trials into new treatments; and
• Oxford University’s first college in Headington.
These individual elements are designed to work together symbiotically, so that the output of the campus steadily becomes greater over time than the sum of its parts.
The goal is to deliver world-class patient and community care alongside new research insights into some of the 21st century’s most prevalent and intractable illnesses that are then developed efficiently into new treatments, all the while educating future generations of clinicians and medical scientists in an elegant and stimulating environment.
Local community and patient engagement have led to co-production of the masterplan and hospital design, utilising ‘experts-by-experience’ to inform and make this a user-centred design.
Warneford Park will be delivered over the next decade, beginning with the new hospital and research building, followed by the conversion of the existing Grade II–listed hospital into an Oxford University college.
Learning Objectives
- 1. How the historic and enabling role of landscape can inform the therapeutic care of mental health to support local communities, patient and staff experience.
- 2. How co-production can inform design as a true collaborative process with many voices: from patient and user experience, staff, governance to design and engineering
- 3. In times of increasing inflation and economic uncertainty how strategic partnerships can unlock the viability for health provision to benefit the wider community.
P47
Healthy schools as neighbourhood health infrastructure: A “less is more” strategy for population health and equity
Coen van den Wijngaart
Manager Real Estate Development, member Management Committee, Anculus, The Netherlands
Coen van den Wijngaart is Manager of Real Estate Development at Anculus and a member of its management committee. He specialises in overseeing the development, redevelopment, and renovation of public sector real estate projects, primarily serving educational institutions through delegated client management. Anculus provides strategic portfolio management with a focus on sustainable and resilient infrastructure.
Coen van den Wijngaart holds a degree in Architectural Engineering from Delft University of Technology and an Executive MBA from Vlerick Business School, Brussels. With over 25 years of experience as an architect, entrepreneur, and strategic real estate developer, his expertise lies at the intersection of innovative architectural design, health and well-being in the built environment, and sustainable development. His research and professional interests include the translation of architectural and strategic concepts into healthy, inclusive, and future-proof environments for living, learning, working, and care. His career is marked by a commitment to advancing knowledge and practice in healthy and sustainable public real estate development.
Malak Mehta
Real Estate Advisor, WELL AP, Anculus, The Netherlands
Malak Mehta is a Real Estate Advisor at Anculus, where she contributes to the development of both renovations and new school buildings. Her work emphasizes an integrative approach to creating healthy learning environments, alongside supporting project management processes. She also serves as an advisor for the WELL for the Mind concept and is a WELL Accredited Professional (WELL AP), specializing in holistic strategies for healthy buildings. With a background in architecture and urban design engineering, Malak is driven by a passion for creating spaces that support physical, emotional, and social wellbeing. She has a strong interest in placemaking and place attachment, and is actively engaged in interdisciplinary research at the intersection of environmental psychology and the built environment.
Healthy schools as neighbourhood health infrastructure: A “less is more” strategy for population health and equity
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The built environment is a critical determinant of population health, yet in the Netherlands, approximately 80 per cent of primary school buildings fail to meet recommended standards for indoor environmental quality (IEQ), particularly in ventilation, thermal comfort, lighting and acoustics. These deficiencies are associated with increased absenteeism, reduced cognitive performance (up to 10–15 per cent in poorly ventilated classrooms), and elevated stress levels. At the same time, access to high-quality outdoor environments is strongly linked to increased physical activity, improved mental wellbeing and social development.This paper reframes schools as essential neighbourhood health infrastructure and investigates how place-based design strategies can support prevention, early intervention and health equity. Adopting a “less is more” approach, the research demonstrates how targeted, cost-effective interventions in existing school environments can generate measurable health gains without large-scale redevelopment. Schools are positioned as community anchors, integrating education, public space and local infrastructure, and contributing to accessible, people-centred systems of care.
Through a comparative analysis of two integral child centres in Utrecht – MKC LEF and the Willibrordschool – the study shows how integrated indoor and outdoor interventions improve environmental performance and health indicators. At MKC LEF, enhancements in daylight, ventilation and spatial organisation improve concentration, reduce fatigue and create healthier indoor conditions, while climate-adaptive outdoor design – including green infrastructure and water management – supports physical activity and resilience. The project achieves energy-neutral performance, aligning sustainability with health outcomes.
At the Willibrordschool, flexible learning environments and improved ventilation (Fresh Schools Class B) are combined with a “green-blue” schoolyard that promotes active play, nature interaction and social cohesion. Evidence indicates these interventions can increase daily physical activity by up to 20–30 per cent and support attention restoration and emotional wellbeing.
The research applies a combined assessment framework using the Fresh Schools Standard, the Quality Framework for Educational Infrastructure and benchmarking against the WELL Building Standard, linking building performance to health outcomes. Findings show that targeted interventions – optimising daylight, ventilation and acoustics alongside climate-responsive outdoor design – significantly improve attendance, cognitive performance, physical activity and perceived wellbeing. Importantly, these strategies help reduce health inequalities by improving baseline conditions in underperforming schools.
In conclusion, schools can act as scalable platforms for health promotion. A “less is more” strategy offers a practical pathway to embed prevention, resilience and equity into everyday environments, positioning schools as catalysts for healthier, more inclusive neighbourhoods.
Learning Objectives
- eposition schools as place-based health infrastructure connecting education, community space and local care systems to drive prevention and equity.
- Deploy scalable “less is more” design interventions that unlock co-benefits across health, learning, social cohesion and climate resilience.
- Translate design into population health impact using evidence-based metrics linking space to wellbeing, activity, attendance and long-term outcomes.
P48
A civic campus model: Preventative health and wellness infrastructure at the Barony Campus
Anna Shapiro
Partner, Sheppard Robson, United Kingdom
Anna Shapiro has extensive masterplanning experience across residential led, and higher education and life science regeneration projects. Her architectural interest is on opportunities to unlock civic and cultural potential of built environments. Notable schemes include Phase one of the Earls Court development in west London, the £280m Project Horlicks in Slough, the £700m Med-City Whitechapel Life Sciences masterplan for Barts NHS Trust, and the £200m Dublin City University multi-campus masterplan. Her education portfolio spans academy schools and mixed-use education-led developments, including the £97m Ark EdCity in White City, which combines primary education, residential and workspace, and the £22.4m Stanground Academy in Peterborough. Anna also serves as a course master and design tutor at the Architectural Association's Housing and Urbanism Graduate programme.
Anna joined Sheppard Robson in 2011 and was promoted to Partner in 2021. Anna sits on the Sheppard Robson Design Review Panel, lending her expertise and long-standing fascination with cities to the group that promotes design quality and innovation.
Drawing on her academic and professional experience, Anna works alongside clients, stakeholders, and the project team to engage with the wider community. She believes that every project has the potential to be greater than the sum of its parts.
Ryan McMonagle
Senior Architect, Sheppard Robson, United Kingdom
Ryan is an experienced architect who has worked in the education, office and residential sectors. His recent experiences experience includes retrofit and refurbishment projects. He has developed a keen eye for sustainable design and is a Glasgow lead for Sheppard Robson’s Sustainability Group.
His skills include creating close rapports with clients with good people and communication skills, project management, experience with co-ordination between the client and consultant teams, experience completing complex planning applications, good design/technical skills and completion of the BREEAM Associate training. He is a competent Revit user and is experienced at working with contactors and sub-contractors in the delivery of projects.
A civic campus model: Preventative health and wellness infrastructure at the Barony Campus
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Background: While built environment decisions are widely recognised as determinants of population health, it would be fair to say that most healthy city strategies focus on dense urban contexts and inner-city challenges. However, outer periphery geographies can experience significant health challenges, including social isolation, reduced access to shared civic infrastructure, car dependency, resulting in compromised lifestyle. Educational landscapes in these settings represent under-researched opportunities for built environment to embed preventive public health principles within spatial planning and regional development.Purpose: This paper presents the Barony Campus in East Ayrshire, designed by Sheppard Robson, as a case study in aligning architectural design, landscape strategy, and environmental performance with measurable health and community objectives. It evaluates the civic campus model as preventive health and wellness infrastructure and explores how its principles are transferable to healthy city and neighbourhood-scale design and planning. Barony is a ‘Civic’ campus a through-school with integrated large SEN provision, and other uses extended to multi-generational in the form of shared facilities, congregational and sporting.
Methods: A design performance review following completion, combined environmental metrics, walkability and spatial connectivity analysis, and structured feedback from students, staff, and community users. Indicators focused on access to restorative green space, frequency of outdoor learning, patterns of informal social interaction, and community use of shared facilities.
Results: The campus demonstrates high levels of daylight access and visual connectivity to surrounding landscape, with user feedback consistently associating these qualities with improved mood, concentration, and overall learning experience. Walkable masterplanning and accessible outdoor teaching environments have increased daily movement and informal peer interaction. Shared facilities and permeable public interfaces have strengthened community engagement, repositioning the campus as a local civic anchor rather than a single use institution. Environmental strategies have reduced operational energy demand while delivering biodiverse, accessible green infrastructure that supports restorative experiences and climate resilience.
Implications: The project illustrates how learning landscape can operate as distributed preventative health infrastructure. Its integration of programmatic consolidation, biophilic design, shared social space, and measurable performance criteria offers principles directly applicable to healthy city agenda. Embedding explicit health metrics at masterplanning stage can enable both rural and urban developments to deliver equitable, climate-resilient population health outcomes alongside decarbonisation goals.
Learning Objectives
- Educational campuses as preventative health infrastructure
- Design strategies that support wellbeing and community cohesion
- Embedding health metrics in masterplanning
P49
Breakdown or breakthrough? The future of urban health
Mark Walker
Director, Healthcare, Stantec, United Kingdom
Mark is a senior MEP director at Stantec. He has worked in construction for 40 years, more than half of which has been dedicated to leadership and design in healthcare engineering.
With the industry’s urgent shift towards climate adaptation, he has increasingly concentrated on change management and implementation strategies in pursuit of decarbonisation targets. He has a keen interest in the digital estate for smart operation and maintenance as well as reducing energy and carbon emissions.
Mark is a registered authorising engineer for medical gases with the Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estates Management (IHEEM) and is the current chair of the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineering (CIBSE) specialist healthcare group. In June 2025, he assumed the prestigious role of Vice President of CIBSE. He is a CIBSE board member and a trustee.
Breakdown or breakthrough? The future of urban health
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Health must become a foundational design principle embedded across urban planning, policy, and infrastructure. Cities face a critical moment as climate pressures, widening health inequities, and overstretched healthcare systems intensify the impacts of rapid urbanisation, exposing residents to air pollution, extreme heat, and disease, with the greatest burden falling on the most vulnerable, revealing the limits of current planning, public health, and healthcare delivery models. The Covid‑19 pandemic exposed deep structural weaknesses, reinforcing the need to place health at the centre of urban governance, infrastructure planning, and climate strategy.Yet this moment is equally an opportunity for breakthrough. Emerging healthy city frameworks emphasise multisector, prevention-focused action that connects housing, mobility, food systems, public spaces, and healthcare access. The World Bank’s TIP Framework – Targeted support, Integrated action, and Preparation for future challenges – demonstrates how reactive, fragmented systems can be transformed into resilient ones designed for equity, climate adaptation, and accessible care. Likewise, global evidence shows that sustainable health improvements require co-ordinated action across environmental determinants, non-communicable disease drivers, and the social and structural conditions that shape daily urban life.
Around the world, leading cities are already charting new pathways towards healthier urban futures. Greater Manchester, United Kingdom, has been recognised internationally for expanding smoke-free public spaces to improve respiratory health and reduce preventable disease, earning distinction in the 2025 Partnership for Healthy Cities Awards. In Latin America, Fortaleza, Brazil, strengthened air quality surveillance, driving evidence-based policy and empowering community engagement, while Córdoba, Argentina, has protected thousands of children by restricting ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks – each serving as a global exemplar of city-led health innovation.
Other cities are advancing integrated climate health governance. Bonn, Germany, is implementing citizen-led climate action planning and district-level interventions to mitigate heat and flood risks, demonstrating how participatory governance can reshape long-term urban resilience. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, community-driven “Urban Labs” are pioneering climate-friendly upgrading of informal settlements, creating greener, healthier, and more equitable neighbourhoods through inclusive design.
These examples reinforce the session’s central argument: healthier cities will only emerge when health becomes a core design principle – embedded across policy, planning, investment, and community infrastructure. By reframing today’s intersecting crises as catalysts for innovation and collaboration, urban leaders can shift decisively from breakdown to breakthrough, creating cities that deliver resilient healthcare access, healthier environments, and more equitable futures for all.
Learning Objectives
- Recognise why embedding health as a core principle across urban planning, governance, infrastructure, and climate strategy is critical to preventing systemic urban breakdown.
- Understand how prevention‑focused, multi‑sector frameworks can transform fragmented urban systems into resilient, equitable models that integrate housing, mobility, public space, food systems, and healthcare access.
- Apply lessons from global city case studies to see how health‑led policy, infrastructure investment, and community‑driven action can turn today’s intersecting crises into opportunities for urban health breakthroughs.
P50
Embedding health in the city: Place-based strategies for healthcare campuses
Raymonde Bieler
Urban design Lead, White Arkitekter, United Kingdom
Raymonde is an architect and senior urban designer with professional experience in the UK, Canada, and Sweden. Since joining White Arkitekter, she has contributed to a wide range of projects, from large-scale residential developments in the UK to innovative, landscape-led urban and masterplanning schemes. Her work is driven by a strong commitment to creating healthy, inclusive, and climate-resilient environments. Most recently, Raymonde led the design of healthcare campus masterplans in Dublin and the UK, with a focus on integrating campuses into the town fabric and greening existing estates. She applies evidence-based methodologies, emphasising environmental resilience through strategies such as integrated water management and microclimate analysis. Raymonde brings a sensitive, people-centred approach to design, placing everyday experience and social inclusion at the heart of public space development to support community cohesion.
Shreya Aneja
Sustainability specialist, White Arkitetker, United Kingdom
Shreya Aneja is an environmental designer and sustainability researcher at White Arkitekter, specialising in building physics, circular design, net zero pathways, whole life carbon, and regenerative design. Her work spans the full project lifecycle — from early-stage sustainability strategy through to delivery — translating climate ambitions into practical, evidence-based design decisions, with a particular focus on the relationship between circular material strategies and occupant health outcomes across office and healthcare environments.
Her practice spans office, healthcare and urban design, including active involvement in the new Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff — one of the most ambitious sustainable healthcare projects in the UK — where her work encompasses holistic sustainability measurement, clinical design integration, and pilot testing as part of the current UKNZCBS.
Beyond practice, Shreya contributes to the wider industry as a researcher, speaker, and co-author of sector frameworks, with presentations at international conferences including PLEA 2024 and CATE 2023 and being an active member of the white research lab at White Arkitekter.
Embedding health in the city: Place-based strategies for healthcare campuses
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Healthcare estates are a critical component of cities, yet are often overlooked as integrated parts of the urban and landscape fabric. Traditionally developed through reactive, piecemeal expansion, many hospital campuses remain physically and socially disconnected from their surrounding neighbourhoods, limiting their contribution to wider population health.At White Arkitekter, healthcare campuses are reimagined as integral components of the healthy city – shifting from isolated clinical enclaves towards embedded, place-based systems of care. Drawing on practice-based work, this paper presents a strategic masterplanning approach that aligns healthcare infrastructure with urban design, landscape, and community networks to support prevention, early intervention, and health equity.
Our design approach is informed by research, including Wood for Health, alongside broader studies in healthy urbanism. It emphasises how spatial design can influence physical activity, mental wellbeing, and access to care. This approach is demonstrated through case studies including Velindre Cancer Centre and Karolinska University Hospital. These examples show how estate strategies can improve circulation, optimise land use, and unlock space for publicly accessible green spaces and active mobility. Velindre, which sits in a biodiverse landscape, remains open to the wider community while also enhancing the ecological role of the site by ensuring habitat connection, incorporating native species planting and connections for wildlife. Karolinska illustrates how integration within the city fabric enhances healthcare accessibility, improves patient experience, and strengthens connections to everyday urban life.
These case studies highlight how a human-centred design approach can simultaneously support the wellbeing of patients, staff, and the wider community. By prioritising access to nature, clarity of movement, and inclusive public spaces, healthcare environments can reduce stress and improve recovery experiences. At the same time, embedding campuses within the urban fabric allows them to function as active civic assets – contributing to accessibility to healthcare, mixed-use activity and ecological resilience. Strategically planned healthcare estates therefore have the potential to transform both clinical environments and neighbourhoods, demonstrating an approach to healthier, more equitable cities.
Learning Objectives
- Place-based design strategies for wellbeing
- Applied design principles through case studies
- urban integration - role of landscape, ecology and planning
P51
Urban morphology and emergency response for the prevention of health problems: mapping spatial inequalities in access to ambulances
Ana Maria Girotti Sperandio
Research Associate and Lecturer in the Postgraduate Programme, State University of Campinas, Brazil
Orthoptist, graduated from the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) in 1984. Specialist in Public Health from the University of São Paulo (1988). Master’s degree (1995) and PhD (2001) in Public Health from the University of São Paulo. Postdoctoral degree in Public Health from the State University of Campinas/UNICAMP (2006). Research Associate at the Urban Research Laboratory (LABINUR/FEC/UNICAMP) and Tenured Lecturer on the Postgraduate Programme in Architecture, Technology and the City at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urbanism (FECFAU) at UNICAMP. Principal Investigator of the Research Group on Urban Planning Methodologies and Healthy Cities at FECFAU/UNICAMP and Researcher at the CEUCI Centres - Centre for Studies on Urbanisation for Knowledge and Innovation Areas of knowledge in urban fringes: Guidelines for sustainable implementation supported by information modelling and the CPTEn - São Paulo Centre for Energy Transition Studies. Coordinator of the Urban Planning and Healthy Cities Study Group (GEPUCS - LABINUR/FEC/UNICAMP). Member of the International Geographical Union Commission on Health and the Environment (IGU CHE), Member of the Urban Management and Health Unit at DSSA/FIOCRUZ, Member of the Network of Health-Promoting Universities. She was a Visiting Researcher at the School of Population & Public Health/SPPH (2011–2012) and at the Centre for Geography and Spatial Planning Studies affiliated with the University of Coimbra, Portugal (from 2016 to 2019 and in 2021). She is a member of the Working Group on Health Promotion and Sustainable Development of the Brazilian Association of Public Health. At UniEduk University Centres, she is an Academic Advisor and Editor-in-Chief of Intellectus – Digital Academic Journal. Her research focuses primarily on Healthy Urban Planning and Health Promotion, with an emphasis on: urban planning methods for healthy cities; implementation of health promotion strategies; formation of social and collaborative networks; and healthy public policies.
Yago Henrique Boroto
Master's student, State University of Campinas, Brazil
Architect and Urban Planner, graduated from the São Paulo State University (UNESP). Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Architecture, Technology and the City at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). Completed his final undergraduate project in the field of Urban Planning and Public Policy, entitled “Orla Ferroviária Urban Plan – Araraquara, SP” He holds a technical qualification in Interior Design from the National Service for Commercial Apprenticeship (SENAC SP). He also has over four years’ practical experience in architectural and interior design practices specialising in residential and commercial projects, with a focus on conceptual design, modelling and detailed design. Her professional and academic interests centre on the fields of urban planning, public policy and healthy cities.
Urban morphology and emergency response for the prevention of health problems: mapping spatial inequalities in access to ambulances
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In recent decades, the debate on healthy cities has increasingly highlighted the role of urban, social and environmental conditions as key determinants of health. In a global context marked by rapid changes in urban dynamics – such as urban growth, accelerated demographic transition and worsening inequalities – it is becoming increasingly challenging to ensure the population’s equitable access to essential services, particularly healthcare.Inequality in access to and distribution of these services, particularly time-sensitive ones such as urgent and emergency care, reflects historical dynamics of exclusion and social domination. In Latin American cities, patterns of urban spatial organisation – segregation, road network layout and mobility conditions – tend to reproduce disparities and directly influence the responsiveness of pre-hospital medical care systems, resulting in vulnerable areas unable to respond adequately to healthcare demands.
In this context, the concept of a healthy city emerges as an important theoretical and analytical framework, given the need for co-ordination between urban planning and health promotion in the process of implementing public policies for the adaptation of urban space, in order to serve a population facing growing challenges regarding mobility, accessibility, safety and autonomy.
The study aims to identify and analyse the relationship between urban development patterns and access to urgent and emergency medical services in the city of Campinas, Brazil, focusing on the mobility and ability of ambulances to reach patients, with the aim of identifying the impacts on pre-hospital response times and, consequently, on the process of saving lives.
Methodologically, this is an applied, analytical and explanatory study with a qualitative-quantitative approach, combining a literature review, analysis of socio-economic and health data, and mapping and spatial analysis techniques to identify territorial patterns of accessibility and their correlation with indicators of inequality.
It is expected that the results will highlight territorial disparities in access to pre-hospital care and demonstrate that urban morphology and mobility are directly associated with the response capacity of emergency services. It is also expected that these results will reinforce the notion that health inequalities and outcomes are not limited to individual factors but are socially produced through structural processes and accentuated by the spatial dimension.
By highlighting these relationships, the study aims to contribute to the development of analytical tools capable of guiding public policies and urban planning initiatives aimed at improving access to urgent and emergency medical services, and geared towards building more inclusive, responsive and healthy cities for all.
Learning Objectives
- To understand how urban morphology, transport networks and patterns of spatial segregation influence access to emergency medical services and ambulance response times.
- Identify spatial inequalities in access to prehospital emergency care using spatial analysis and accessibility modelling methods.
- Explore how urban planning and transport policies can improve equitable access to life-saving emergency services and contribute to healthier cities.
P52
Care-full neighbourhoods
Anna Shpuntova
Architectural Designer, Sheppard Robson, United Kingdom
Anna is an architectural designer with a focus on community wellbeing, care infrastructure, and the social dimensions of residential design. Her experience spans residential schemes of varying scales in London and Berlin, with experience in extensive community engagement within council-led masterplans. As part of the academic research at the AA School of Architecture, Anna explored the concept of 'care ecologies', proposing integrated networks of health and care services alongside housing for care workers, families, and multigenerational communities as a means of transforming inner peripheral neighbourhoods in London.
Previously, she had worked in Denmark, contributing to the research publication 'The Urban Health Culture of the Future' which produced interdisciplinary tools and recommendations for working holistically with health and health culture in the built environment. Anna comes from a background of architecture and urbanism working closely together and brings this interrelationship into her work across genres.
Care-full neighbourhoods
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How do we imagine spaces and cities driven by care? Today, by virtue of our growing interest in the very science of who we are as subjects of health, we have generated the widest system of therapies, services and environments associated with health, wellbeing and lifestyle. This system encourages us to think of the emergence of a care ecology, a network of settings, services and stakeholders, which allows us to take personal responsibility for shaping our own care environments and integrating them into our changing lifestyle patterns.Why not shift from seeing care environments purely as machines for service delivery, and start investigating the urban value they offer as potential drivers of neighbourhood transformation? Areas of the London inner periphery that come from an industrial past contain similar conflicts: a broken and irregular fabric, under-utilised industrial heritage, disruptions caused by large-scale armatures. Yet corridors like the one emerging along the river Wandle also offer rich qualities, such as access to an almost rural landscape, layered educational and healthcare infrastructure, all in closest proximity to the central city. This research suggests that such areas become an exciting alternative as a new urban setting for a care ecology and the new kinds of spaces it generates, both at the domestic and urban scale. The scope of the study case project features an adaptable urban strategy for a selected indicative site in one of these inner-periphery areas, alongside a careful exploration of typological starting points that contribute to the proliferation of a care ecology at the scale of urban dwelling.
Care in its extended sense can become a strong driver of urban transformation, supporting the formation of life-long neighbourhoods and fostering intergenerational and intercultural networks. The majority of solutions currently implemented in post-industrial inner-peripheral areas are not viable enough, controlled by market ambitions and restrictions, they tend only to contribute to the fragmented urban fabric. By unfolding the richness of care ecologies as drivers of urban transformation, we can begin to take full advantage of the resources and infrastructure these areas have to offer. Relying on the naturally sub-forming patterns of association, we can build attractive neighbourhoods that cultivate a sense of belonging, shared ownership, and give rise to civic life of a new quality.
Learning Objectives
- Care ecology as a driver of urban transformation - potential
- Care and health as a new way to reimagine housing across generations
- Shift in understanding of 'care'
P53
Rising to the challenge: How vertical hospitals and health science facilities are shaping healthier, denser cities
Bruce Crook
Principal, Architectus Australia Pty Ltd, Australia
Bruce Crook brings over 30 years of dedicated expertise to healthcare architecture, marrying an in-depth understanding of emerging trends with a steadfast commitment to creating safe, healing environments. His career spans Australia, the Asia Pacific, Middle East, India, North America, and beyond, where he has held senior roles across the entire project lifecycle—from business case development and master planning to detailed design, delivery, and commissioning. This breadth of experience allows Bruce to translate complex clinical requirements into architectural solutions that balance form, function, and patient wellbeing.
His portfolio features some of the world’s most innovative health facilities. In Canada, he contributed to St. Catharine’s Hospital and the Toronto Western Hospital Innovation Project, as well as the Halton Hospital PPP bid. In Singapore, he led design efforts for the Outram Community Hospital at Singapore General Campus and a major nursing home research and construction project. His work in India includes the Gorakhpur All India Institute of Medical Sciences precinct and the Asian Heart Institute Hospital in Mumbai. Across Southeast Asia, Bruce has shaped facilities like Gleneagles Medini in Malaysia and multiple RSPI hospitals in Indonesia. He also guided the transformation of New Zealand’s Wellington and Kenepuru Hospitals, demonstrating his adaptability to diverse healthcare systems and cultural contexts.
A sought-after speaker at national and international conferences, Bruce has shared his insights on topics such as virtual care, hospital “control towers,” sustainable and flexible healthcare environments, and salutogenic design. Highlights include presentations at the Fifth Estate Tomorrowland Conference in Sydney, the Design & Health World Congress in Canada, and design review panels for NSW Health and Copenhagen University. Through
these engagements, he champions evidence-based design and innovation to improve patient, family, and staff experiences.
Bruce’s approach centres on partnering closely with clients, clinicians, and communities to deliver resilient, adaptive facilities that anticipate future needs. He believes that architecture can be a powerful tool for health promotion—not just treating illness but fostering overall wellness. By integrating technology, biophilic principles, and operational intelligence, Bruce continues to redefine what healing environments can achieve for individuals and the broader community.
Rising to the challenge: How vertical hospitals and health science facilities are shaping healthier, denser cities
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In global cities such as Houston, Hong Kong and London, receiving care on the 30th floor of a hospital is no longer an outlier – it’s becoming the new norm. With health facilities now reaching heights of 140 metres and beyond, the high-rise hospital is emerging as a powerful response to the dual challenges of urban density and evolving healthcare needs.Bruce Crook, a principal at Architectus, has spent his international career designing some of the world’s tallest hospitals, bringing a unique perspective to this vertical evolution. Through ongoing research and benchmarking tours across Southeast Asia, Northern Europe and North America, Bruce is tracking the factors driving this trend: changes in building typologies, the increasing role of digital technologies, and the need for integrated health and science precincts within constrained urban contexts.
As cities strive to use less land, reduce congestion, and enhance public space, vertical development is gaining ground – not just in commercial and residential sectors, but in education, research and increasingly in healthcare. Hospitals are recognising that the vertical typology offers more than just a space-saving solution. It enhances clinical adjacencies, streamlines patient journeys, and provides operational efficiencies, all while delivering expansive views that positively impact patient recovery and wellbeing.
The “taller” trend in health can be traced back to Guy’s Hospital in London, which held the title of the world’s tallest hospital from 1974 until 1990. Since then, towers like the O’Quinn Medical Tower in Houston and the Li Shu Piu Building in Hong Kong have pushed boundaries even further.
These vertical health facilities are more than architectural feats – they are central components of integrated urban precincts. Projects like the Health Translation Hub in the Prince of Wales Hospital precinct in Sydney demonstrate how healthcare can be co-located with translational research, education, residential and commercial developments. This holistic approach not only maximises land use but creates healthier, more vibrant urban communities.
Overall, the vertical hospital typology offers a range of benefits that can enhance patient care, staff efficiency, and the overall healthcare experience. Case studies will include Peninsula University Hospital, New Womens and Babies hospital, WA and UNSW Health Translation Hub.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the key drivers behind the global rise of high-rise hospital developments, including urban density, technological advancements, and the need for integrated health precincts.
- Identify the clinical, operational, and patient wellbeing benefits associated with vertical hospital design, such as improved adjacencies, enhanced accessibility, and positive psychological impacts of elevated environments.
- Explore how vertical healthcare facilities can be effectively integrated into mixed-use urban precincts, supporting co-location with research, education, residential, and commercial developments that are more sustainable, healthier and better connected to
P54
Designing neighbourhood-based city health action plan for MR outbreak response: A localised and multisectoral model from urban Agra, Uttar Pradesh
Ayushi Agrawal
Project Director , John Snow India Private Limited , India
Dr. Ayushi Agrawal is a medical doctor and public health specialist with over ten years of robust experience in the development sector. Her expertise encompasses the strategizing, implementation, and evaluation of large-scale public health programs, with a dedicated focus on immunization, child health, and urban health systems. Dr. Agrawal offers substantial proficiency in epidemiological analysis, health systems strengthening, monitoring and evaluation, and infectious disease modelling. Currently, at John Snow India (JSI), Dr. Ayushi manages the Urban Immunization& Urban Health portfolio to strengthen immunization systems across urban areas of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha. She has been instrumental in driving pilot models to improve health equity in underserved urban areas.
Jatin Bhatt
Senior Program Officer, Urban Health Strategy , John Snow India Pvt Ltd, India
A public health professional with over 8 years of experience, including 5 years dedicated to strengthening urban health systems. Has worked extensively on improving service delivery, convergence, and implementation of comprehensive primary healthcare under NUHM. Experienced in program design, implementation, and health systems strengthening across multiple states.
Amrin Fatma
Program Officer - Research , John Snow India Private Limited, India
Amrin Fatma is a public health professional and researcher with experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating large-scale health programs. Her work focuses on strengthening health systems through data-driven, context-specific solutions, particularly in maternal and child health, nutrition, anemia, and immunization.
Over 3 years, she has expertise in epidemiological analysis, large-scale data management, and monitoring and evaluation, along with experience in capacity building, digital health interventions, and stakeholder engagement with government systems. She has worked across multiple states in India on community-based health programs and contributes to health systems research aimed at improving program effectiveness and sustainability.
Amrin is conditioned about bridging research and practice and advancing localized, bottom-up approaches to improve health outcomes in underserved populations.
Arindam Ray
India Country Lead Immunization & surveillance , Gates Foundation , India
Arindam Ray is a medical epidemiologist with about 30 years of experience in public health
management particularly in urban health care, population studies, disease surveillance and
immunization. Following his tenure under Government of West Bengal, he joined World Health
Organization in 2000. He was National Monitoring and Evaluation Focal Person at WHO
country office, India before joining Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2014. At the Foundation,
India office he looks after new vaccine initiatives, immunization systems, disease surveillance
and modelling, Gavi projects and polio legacy work. He represents the Foundation at the global
urban immunization workgroup,GAVIAsia-PacificRegionalWorkGroup,WHOSEARRITAG, India
Expert Committees on Rota Viral Vaccine, Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine, HPV vaccine,
Typhoid conjugate vaccine and Polio & MR India Expert Advisory Groups.
Sanjay Kapur
Managing Director , John Snow India Private Limited , India
As the Managing Director of JSI in India, Dr. Sanjay Kapur has been instrumental in establishing JSI as a robust public health organization in India. Since 2014 when he joined, he has spearheaded a five-fold organizational growth in terms of programs and operations including raising $38 million new funding from bilateral, multi-lateral and CSR donors, establishing significant new partnerships and alliances with public and private sector organizations, steering organizational system strengthening and establishing membership of key policy and technical committees of Govt. of India. He has also led the establishment and evolution of JSI India’s not-for-profit entity, JSI R&T India Foundation which today has an earnest size of CSR funding and partnerships.
Dr. Sanjay Kapur is a Public Health Specialist with over 25 years of professional experience. Before joining JSI, he was the Team Leader in the Health Office at USAID/India for 14 years managing a team of health professionals and annual budgets in excess of $ 30 Million. His professional career has focused on Reproductive and Child Health, Infectious Diseases including HIV/AIDS, TB, and Primary Health Care. He has participated in the design and review of several National Health Programs, including HIV/AIDS, TB and RCH. He is a member of several Policy and Technical committees of the Govt. of India and is a regular invitee to speak at national and international fora. He is a recipient of the international Michael K. White Memorial award of the US government for his work in the area of ending preventable child and maternal deaths. Dr. Sanjay Kapur is a medical doctor and holds a Post Graduate degree in Public Health.
Designing neighbourhood-based city health action plan for MR outbreak response: A localised and multisectoral model from urban Agra, Uttar Pradesh
Abstract Copy
Measles-Rubella (MR) outbreaks in rapidly urbanising cities expose persistent inequities in immunisation coverage, particularly among populations living in informal, high-density, and high-mobility settlements. These gaps are not only epidemiological but systemic, driven by fragmented governance, limited co-ordination across sectors, and insufficient neighbourhood-level planning. As urban populations grow, centralised and programmatic approaches are increasingly inadequate to ensure equitable access to immunisation services.This paper presents the design and proposed implementation of a city health action plan (CHAP) in urban Agra, Uttar Pradesh, aimed at strengthening MR coverage through a shift towards neighbourhood-based, data-informed, and multisectoral urban health systems. The approach integrates routine surveillance and programme data with field level insights to identify high-risk geographies and underserved populations. It prioritises ward-level micro-planning as the unit of action, enabling more precise targeting and contextualised responses.
A key feature of the model is operationalising through participatory co-creation with stakeholders across health systems, urban local bodies, ICDS, and the education sector, where solutions were shaped, tested, and continuously refined through routine monitoring, structured review platforms, and embedded learning loops, enabling real-time adaptation and context-specific integration within existing service delivery systems. Ward-level resource mapping further supports localised planning by identifying
service delivery points and opportunities for convergence.
The approach integrates continuous review and feedback to enable adaptive planning and strengthen system responsiveness. By embedding decision-making closer to communities, it improves identification and outreach to high-risk populations, enhances interdepartmental co-ordination, and strengthens immunisation service delivery, addressing underlying access and governance gaps through collective action.
This work offers a practical and scalable pathway for integrating health into urban governance systems. It demonstrates how cities can move beyond centralised models by adopting a bottom-up approach to build resilient, equitable, and context-responsive systems aligned with the realities of urban life, ultimately contributing to improved population health outcomes and more inclusive healthy city design.
Learning Objectives
- Understand how systemic and governance-related barriers contribute to inequities in Measles-Rubella immunization coverage in rapidly urbanizing, high-density settings.
- Explore the application of a neighborhood-based, data-informed City Health Action Plan (CHAP) that integrates surveillance data, ward-level micro-planning, and multisectoral coordination to improve identification and outreach to high-risk populations.
- Apply bottom-up, participatory co-creation and continuous learning approaches to design adaptive, context-specific urban health interventions that strengthen immunization systems and improve equitable service delivery.
P55
Designing in between: Liminality as a framework for healthier urban healthcare environments: The case study of the new Municipal Hospital in Lugoj, Romania
Raluca Șoaita
Founder Architect of the TESSERACT Architecture, TESSERACT Architecture, Romania
Arh. Raluca Șoaita is the founder of TESSERACT ARCHITECTURE, the only architecture studio in Romania specialized in the medical sector. Together with her team, she has signed off on over 1,5 million square meters of hospitals and medical clinics, including some of the most significant recent large hospital projects in Romania.
Raluca consistently promotes topics such as the humanization of medical spaces, the optimization of healthcare processes, and sustainable hospital design solutions in the public sphere. In fact, the entire approach of TESSERACT ARCHITECTURE is based on innovation, long-term vision, and a multidisciplinary approach throughout the entire hospital design process for the future of healthcare in Romania.
Raluca has been part of the technical expert team involved in a large-scale World Bank project in Romania, "Healthcare Sector Reform – Improving the Quality of the Medical System in Romania." In addition to her collaboration with the World Bank, she has also provided consultancy and expertise to other major international institutions, including the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), contributing to the development and modernization of healthcare infrastructure across the region.
Minodora Toma
Lead architect, Tesseract Architects, Romania
Designing in between: Liminality as a framework for healthier urban healthcare environments: The case study of the new Municipal Hospital in Lugoj, Romania
Abstract Copy
As healthcare infrastructure shapes urban quality, resilience, and equity, hospitals must be understood as active agents within the urban and social ecosystem. The background of this paper lies in the need to rethink hospitals as spatial, social, and urban instruments capable of influencing communities, economies, and cities.The purpose of this paper is to examine how hospital architecture can operate as healthcare infrastructure, urban strategy, and community framework. It explores liminality as a design lens, positioning the hospital as an “in-between” space – between illness and recovery, city and nature, uncertainty and trust, present deficiencies and future opportunities – through the case of the new Municipal Hospital in Lugoj, Romania.
The methods draw on a multi-layered territorial and urban analysis integrating social, economic and spatial data. Lugoj, a mid-sized city in transition, hosts the third hospital in Timiș County by acute discharged cases and serves a wider catchment area. The region faces demographic decline, ageing populations, and patient migration to larger centres, revealing systemic gaps and the need for new strategies.
The results show how the project redefines the hospital as a catalyst for urban regeneration through medical infrastructure. Located at the urban-agricultural-natural edge, the site transforms a peripheral condition into opportunity, positioning the hospital as a mediator across scales and communities.
Drawing on community-centred design and hospital-oriented development, the proposal extends beyond medical functions to include housing, commercial and hospitality programmes, public green spaces, and cultural-leisure infrastructure, generating economic opportunities and supporting sustainable local communities.
The medical programme was adapted to local needs, including more chronic care, while the spatial structure allows future changes in response to evolving diseases and treatments. Thus, architecture mediates transitions across scales: from urban to natural, from medical efficiency to human-centred experience, and from zoning to spatial continuity.
Beyond healthcare delivery, the project addresses a key challenge in secondary urban centres: attracting and retaining medical professionals. By creating a quality environment, it repositions Lugoj as an urban attractor. At architectural scale, the project integrates landscape through a traversable promenade and develops spaces that support patients, staff and caregivers through orientation and anxiety-reducing environments. The implications suggest that hospitals can act as adaptive systems embedded in urban contexts. Relevant for transitional European cities, Lugoj demonstrates how healthcare investment can drive spatial, social, and economic transformation. In Romania, where rethinking the healthcare system is still at an early stage, the project positions itself as a pioneering, replicable model.
Learning Objectives
- 1. To examine how healthcare infrastructure can function as a catalyst for urban regeneration and community development in secondary cities.
- 2. Understand how integrated, multi-scalar design approaches can connect urban strategy, masterplanning, and human-centred healthcare environments.
- 3. To evaluate how Hospital Oriented Development (HOD) strategies—integrating medical, residential, economic, and public green programs—can drive spatial, social, and economic transformation in secondary cities
P56
Hospitals in the city: Shouldn’t hospitals improve the lives of city dwellers?
David Martin
Design Director, DaMa, United Kingdom
I am a London based architect who has been a design leader working on global projects for 30 years with a focus on design excellence in the healthcare and life science sectors. In the role of Global Design Director for Stantec, I designed many of the firm’s award-winning healthcare, research, and education projects in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and overseas. In addition to leading our UK architectural practice my responsibilities included ensuring design quality over a 5,000 person strong Buildings Practice and prior to that was the Design Director for Anshen Dyer having led the design teams for many significant hospital and academic research projects in the UK.
I am particularly interested in design which creates a memorable sense of place while promoting a sense of clarity, optimism, and engagement. I believe the built environment can and should enrich our lives and have led our most significant projects which integrate a multi-disciplinary approach.
Hospitals in the city: Shouldn’t hospitals improve the lives of city dwellers?
Abstract Copy
It used to be that many would say the only time they had ever been to the hospital is when their child was born; but that isn’t really the case anymore, particularly in our cities. Hospitals should be considered civic buildings, like a courthouse, library or townhall. Shouldn’t the hospital do more than heal patients within? Shouldn’t they also be catalysts for enhanced health and wellbeing at an urban level?This presentation provides three case studies of ‘Hospitals in the City’, demonstrating aspects of urban and architectural design where the health facilities’ urban design and architecture promote wellbeing beyond the front doors, whether in dense city centres, in the periphery or in new development sites.
• Dense city centres – Central Manchester Hospitals, Manchester UK
Jane Jacobs once wrote that “The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any one place is always replete with improvisations.”
Dense city centre sites provide unparalleled opportunities to enhance community cohesion and promote a public realm that improves the lives of city dwellers through a gift back to the city in the form of public court and garden.
• Periphery –The New Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital, Ontario, CA
Given the trend of hospital size increases and parallel lack of sites sufficient to accommodate them, many new-generation hospitals are expanding into periphery areas that are both urban and suburban. Here, we have additional challenges posed by the intersection of the private car and public transportation.
Our hospitals can inspire a civic ground and reconcile transportation modes by embracing the public realm and better integrating the hospital with the surrounding area by creating liminal space, that threshold which provides a calming sense of arrival and identity. The hospital isn’t just where you go when you are sick.
• New Development – Hamdan Bin Rashid Cancer Hospital, Dubai, UAE
New sites present additional opportunities to establish context and positive public realm in the built environment. The opportunity in these urban sites is to establish place an appropriate echo of its wider context – new but with reference and learning from the past to promote wellbeing of the communities served.
Our hospitals must also embed a health landscape so that patients and community are provided direct contact with nature. Nature and public realm can be harmoniously integrated to achieve health in the hospital and health in the city.
Learning Objectives
- How can the design of Hospitals expand its responsibilities to enhance and inform a positive public realm.
- What are elements of urban design have evidenced based research demonstrating they promote health and wellbeing.
- How can urban design for health facilities repair and strengthen 'life in the City' and improve the lives of City Dwellers.
P57
Glasgow’s new front door – Parkhead Integrated Health and Social Care Hub
Richard Mann
Head of Social Infrastructure, AECOM, United Kingdom
Richard has 25 years experience gained while working for client organisations, contractors and design consultants. During this time he has worked in the UK, Europe, Asia and the US, delivering a number of high profile projects across a variety of sectors. He is passionate about good building design. Richard brings the knowledge from the diverse projects he has delivered to ensure process improvement; quality and value driven efficiency in design are at the core of the projects he supports.
Andrew Baillie
Assistant Director, Infrastructure Planning and Delivery, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, United Kingdom
Andrew J Baillie is an experienced Construction and Project Manager with over 20 years in the industry. Currently serving as the Assistant Director of Infrastructure Planning and Delivery at NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Andrew brings a wealth of expertise in managing large-scale capital projects across acute, primary, community, and mental health planning programs. His role involves ensuring projects align with the Strategic Capital Plan and meet the requirements set by various governing committees.
Glasgow’s new front door – Parkhead Integrated Health and Social Care Hub
Abstract Copy
Northeast Glasgow is one of Scotland’s most disadvantaged urban areas, with persistent health inequalities, lower healthy life expectancy, social isolation and poorer quality-of-life outcomes. To transform the assessment and delivery of health and social care services, a new model of service delivery was needed. It was clear early intervention, prevention and harm reduction would provide greater self-determination and choice, shifting the balance of care and enabling independent living for longer across Northeast Glasgow.Parkhead Hub was conceived not simply as a healthcare building but as social infrastructure supporting healthier lives through integrated access to care, advice, social support and community connections.
By bringing together services that address the wider determinants of health – including homelessness, addictions, criminal justice, mental health and social care – Parkhead Hub enables people to meet in the cafe, access support in one familiar, local setting, reducing barriers to care and supporting more equitable outcomes. Through a highly efficient, adaptable building design and by locating multiple services within a single, walkable destination, the project reduces travel demand, supports local access and contributes to lower-carbon models of care.
The building design took the next step in evolving the health hub model pioneered by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Its location at the heart of the community allows visitors to access the multiple services through the single front door. The single front door being a conscious choice, anonymising many of the vital caregiving services to support the entire community: reducing stigma, improving dignity, and encouraging access to support at earlier stages of need.
The design embodies a deep commitment to community collaboration throughout both planning and construction. Patients, local residents, voluntary organisations, councils, and NHS staff actively co-created the Hub, shaping everything from spatial adjacencies to material choices. Young people and community members also played a central role in developing an art strategy that personalises the building and fosters a sense of ownership.
This was supported by an early decision to allocate 1 per cent of the capital budget for this purpose. These extensive consultations ensured the Hub was co-created with the users and staff.
Since opening in January 2025, Parkhead Hub has demonstrated how integrated, community-based infrastructure can improve access, reduce stigma and support healthier urban communities. The project offers a replicable model for how health, social care and civic services can be brought together to address inequality, strengthen neighbourhood resilience and support healthier city living.
Learning Objectives
- Neighbourhood health infrastructure can be a catalyst for wider urban regeneration
- Non-stigmatising civic environment can transform access to support
- Net-zero, low-carbon community facilities can also deliver healthier cities
P58
Reimagining the hospital estate in a spatially and financially constrained environment
Sophie Hockin
Director , The Health and Place Project , United Kingdom
Sophie is a Chartered Town Planner, and in 2025 she was recognised as one of The Planner Magazine’s Women of Influence for exceptional contributions to health infrastructure planning and estates transformation. Sophie has set up the Health and Place Project to bring together her rare cross-sector expertise spanning the built environment, public health, strategy, sustainability and net zero to continue to shape hospital estates to ensure that they are fit for the future. Sophie recently completed an 18 month programme of work with the NHS North East London Integrated Care Board where she has led strategic initiatives to ensure healthcare infrastructure meets population needs. This has included influencing policy agendas, integrating public health priorities, and aligning projects with the NHS 10-Year Plan. Prior to her work with the NHS, Sophie worked in a range of public and private sector roles in planning and regeneration within Central, North and East London.
Reimagining the hospital estate in a spatially and financially constrained environment
Abstract Copy
Hospital estates are increasingly constrained: by the age and condition of their buildings, by their fixed and complex locations, and by long-term investment pressures. At the same time, healthcare managers are actively discouraging unnecessary attendance at hospital sites, seeking to reduce avoidable demand at A&E and prevent people from reaching the emergency department front door when care could be delivered elsewhere. Yet hospital estates are also centres of community – sometimes geographically embedded within neighbourhoods, sometimes culturally central to healthcare workers, and in many cases both. This presents a significant opportunity for hospitals to be reimagined as sites of prevention rather than solely treatment, although realising this shift will require collaboration across sectors and disciplines.Hospitals are, by definition, anchor institutions within their local areas. While employment and procurement benefits are often prioritised and well understood, the wider potential of the estate itself, particularly in terms of environmental performance, social value, and place-based impact is frequently under-explored. What if hospital estates could become health and wellbeing hubs in their own right? NHS estates face long-term financial and spatial constraints, raising questions about whether embracing a stronger anchor institution role could help ease pressures on local trusts. There are also opportunities for meanwhile uses that support local economies, including space for start-ups and community activity, while bringing under-utilised assets back into productive use.
Hospital estates also have the potential to act as beacons for social prescribing. Many hospital sites include significant areas of green space, sometimes of high biodiversity value and sometimes underused or degraded. These spaces offer opportunities for activities such as gardening, mindfulness, and community groups, alongside apprenticeships and skills development within estates management, areas where workforce need is well recognised. Through social prescribing, hospital land and buildings could be better utilised in ways that support health and wellbeing while potentially remaining cost-neutral in terms of maintenance.
The final part of the paper explores these opportunities through a case study: St Leonard's Hospital in Hackney. Deeply valued by the local community and required to remain in healthcare use, but significantly constrained. By working collaboratively across the health service, local authority, and third sector, there is an opportunity to develop St Leonard's as a true anchor institution – delivering substantial social value for the community alongside cost savings for the local NHS system.
Learning Objectives
- Demonstrate how hospital estates can function as anchor institutions that deliver community impact and social value
- Evaluate the role of re‑purposed hospital estates in supporting prevention‑focused population health strategies
- Explore how integrated, health‑centred estate management can unlock spatial, environmental, and financial efficiencies
P59
Co-designing adolescent-safe pathways to healthcare through schools, health facilities, and adolescent-friendly spaces: How neighbourhood health models can shape healthy communities
Mable Kipenda
Director, Urban Health 360, Zambia
Dr. Mable Kipenda is Director of Clinical Research and Health Programs at Urban Health 360 and CEO and Founder of Kambo Health Initiative. She is a medical doctor and public health specialist with over seven years of experience advancing health systems, research, and policy in Zambia and across Sub-Saharan Africa. Her work focuses on adolescent health, sexual and reproductive health, maternal health, and evidence-informed urban and community health programming. She has contributed to national health strategies, policy documents, and qualitative research in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, and has presented at regional and global platforms, including the Medical Women’s International Conference. Dr. Kipenda is a Mandela Washington Fellow and Chevening Scholar, recognised for leadership in public health and health systems strengthening.
Yonette Thomas
Founder and CEO/Visiting Associate Professor, Urban Health 360, United States
Dr. Thomas is the founder and CEO of UrbanHealth360, an INGO focused on bridging the divide between the science of urbanization, health, and wellbeing and the involvement and activities of local communities. In addition to leading UrbanHealth360, Dr. Thomas is the Founder and Chief Strategist of Strategic Transitions LLC, an organization established to provide professional development and strategic leadership training to professionals and academics at every level. She is currently a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Justice at the Rutgers University School of Public Health. She was a Dean’s Senior Scholar at the University of Memphis School of Public Health. She was a founding board member and inaugural executive director of the International Society for Urban Health, science advisor for urban health to the New York Academy of Medicine, vice president for research compliance at Howard University, and the chief of Epidemiology at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health. She held academic positions in the Department of Public Health, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences and the School of Pharmacy at Howard University. She is a member of the boards of US-based Women’s Economic Imperative (WEI) and the Kenya-based LVCT Health. Her scholarly publications range in focus from the social epidemiology of drug abuse to urbanization and health and the intersection of environment, social context, and health dynamics.
Co-designing adolescent-safe pathways to healthcare through schools, health facilities, and adolescent-friendly spaces: How neighbourhood health models can shape healthy communities
Abstract Copy
Background: Zambia’s adolescents represent a quarter of the population, yet many experience risky behaviours that remain unidentified until health problems escalate. The Zambia Demographic and Health Survey (ZDHS) data show that 28 per cent of teenage girls experienced pregnancy, 70 per cent of adolescent girls never used contraceptives, 18 per cent of boys have multiple sex partners. Structured risk assessment in routine care in places such as health facilities, schools, and adolescent-friendly spaces remains a challenge.HEEADSSS is an evidence-based framework that covers “Home, Education, Eating, Activities, Drugs, Sexuality, Suicide, and Safety.” It is designed to take a comprehensive adolescent history and identify both protective and risk factors. It helps providers elicit health issues that often go unaddressed on routine visits. This tool has been adapted and implemented in countries across diverse contexts to assess health risks and social challenges. For example, in Australia, HEEADSSS identified adolescents at risk of chlamydia, detecting infections in 40 per cent of the screened population. In South Africa, it increased detection of adolescents at high risk of ART non-adherence from 21.6 per cent to 71.8 per cent. Although its use is still limited, the approach strengthens adolescent healthcare and facilitates appropriate referrals to necessary health services.
Aim: To describe a scalable neighbourhood health model that expands the HEEADSSS approach in Zambian schools, health facilities, and adolescent-friendly spaces, which would equip guidance teachers and healthcare providers with a structured method to recognise risk factors and strengthen early intervention for adolescents in urban environments.
Methods: This policy brief outlines a pilot implementation approach that was used through healthcare provider training on the HEEADSSS approach, an internationally recognised screening tool. Conducted in two provinces of Zambia, it combines service quality assessments and record reviews to assess interventions and referral patterns. It adapts HEEADSSS for local priorities and integration into health, school, and adolescent-friendly spaces.
Results: Post-implementation assessments demonstrated improved clinical practice and a systematic screening of adolescents with better documentation and appropriate referrals for health issues. This model highlights how standardised screening tools in neighbourhood spaces enable earlier support for adolescents whose needs are otherwise missed during routine health consultations.
Call to action: Integrate HEEADSSS into National Adolescent Health Guidelines to create healthy urban environments and strengthen the urban ecosystem. Incorporate the HEEADSSS assessment into all adolescent care entry places and formalise it within national service delivery protocols to ensure consistent screening across neighbourhood health facilities. Expand training for providers on this model and actively engage communities and schools.
Learning Objectives
- To demostrate how standardized screening tools in neighbourhood spaces enable earlier support for adolescents
- To understand how neighbourhood health models can shape healthy communities
- To demonstrate linkages across schools, health facilities and adolescent health spaces for a healthy urban environment
P60
Air pollution exposure and risk of emergency department visits for lower respiratory infections in children: A scoping review
William Pickett
Professor, Brock University, Canada
Dr. Pickett is a Professor of Epidemiology and Senior Research Fellow in the Brock University (ON, Canada) Department of Health Sciences. He is co-principal investigator of the Canadian Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Study. He is trained as an epidemiologist, and has longstanding interests in the health of children, rural and agricultural health, violence and injury prevention, and the determinants of health. He has supervised approximately 100 students and trainees to the completion of degree requirements and has taught epidemiological methods at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Dr. Pickett holds grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research as primary and co-investigator, as well as a major contract from the Public Health Agency of Canada. He is interested in MSc and PhD candidates who wish to receive training in epidemiology and the population health sciences.
Terrance Wade
Professor, Brock University, Canada
Dr. Terrance is a Professor of the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences at Brock University (ON, Canada). His research takes a population perspective, focusing on the social and structural determinants of mental and physical health and behaviour across the life course with an emphasis on children. His work is interdisciplinary in nature linking social determinants to physiological development.
Samantha Hajna
Assistant Professor, Brock University, Canada
Dr. Samantha Hajna is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences at Brock University (ON, Canada). Dr. Hajna’s research is focused on understanding how the environments in which people live shape their health behaviours and impact their health – with the overall aim of generating epidemiological evidence that can be used to inform the design and delivery of interventions that promote public health. With expertise in the application of GIS to health research and interests in real-time monitoring of health behaviours (using wearables), physical activity, and the prevention of chronic disease risk, Dr. Hajna’s work spans a range of disciplines, including health geography and physical activity, environmental, and clinical epidemiology.
Hong Chen
Assistant Professor, University of Toronto, Canada
Dr. Hong Chen is an Assistant Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto (ON, Canada). The goal of his research is to investigate the health effects of exposure to environmental risk factors, particularly ambient air pollution, extreme weather, urban greenness, and environmental noise. He is also interested in evaluating the effectiveness of environmental health policies and programs using causal inference methods. His research is aimed to be policy-relevant and contribute to better decision making and actions to achieve environmental exposure reduction and disease prevention.
Angelo Ilersich
MSc Student, Brock University, Canada
Angelo Ilersich is a Master of Applied Health Sciences student at Brock University (ON, Canada) who has worked in health statistics and epidemiological research. As an epidemiology student, he recognizes the overlap between municipal design and policy and the social determinants of health. He has experience in health education and advocacy through his work with SickKids and Immunize Canada on the design and video presentations of programs to reduce child vaccine hesitancy. His experience at the Niagara Region Public Health in poverty reduction informs current municipal health equity programs. He has been awarded the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Undergraduate Student Research Award and Canadian Institutes of Health Research Canada Graduate Research Scholarship for his ongoing work in improving the linkage of geographic air pollution data with at-risk populations in Canada and the United Kingdom.
Air pollution exposure and risk of emergency department visits for lower respiratory infections in children: A scoping review
Abstract Copy
Lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) account for 25 per cent of hospitalisations among Canadian children <5 years and cost the healthcare system CAD $100–300 million/year. Paediatric exposure to ambient air pollutants has been linked to increased emergency department (ED) visits for respiratory diseases. The link between air pollution exposure and LRTI-related ED visits in children remains unclear.Thesis: We aimed to synthesise past research on the associations between ambient air pollutants and LRTI-related ED visits in paediatric populations by approaches used, key findings, and important gaps.
Methodology: We performed a scoping review of studies published before 2026 on the associations between ambient air pollutants and LRTI-related ED visits in paediatric populations. To be included, studies had to be peer-reviewed, published in English in Embase, Emcare, Healthstar, or Medline, and conducted on paediatric populations (<=18 years). After abstract and full-paper screening, relevant studies were classified by pollutant type and ED LRTI diagnosis (e.g. bronchitis, pneumonia, any). Approaches, findings and gaps were then compared across studies.
Results: We identified 230 records: 12 met inclusion criteria, and in seven, authors analysed children <5 years separately. Analyses generally controlled for age, sex, and regional temperature and humidity. Over half (58 per cent) examined exposure to only one air pollutant. Most (75 per cent) found at least one air pollutant was associated with LRTI ED visits, with larger effects generally observed in children <5 years or in early life than in older children (e.g. particulate matter on pneumonia-related ED visits: <=1 years, OR=1.13 [95 per cent CI 1.03–1.24]; 2-18 years, OR=1.03 [95 per cent CI 1.02–1.05]). There was marked heterogeneity in urbanicity of study area, choice of co-variates, pollutant collection timescales, and scale or completeness of analysis. New standardised satellite datasets show promise of accurately measuring air pollution within home neighbourhoods. Greenness was not accounted for in any of the 12 analyses despite preliminary evidence that living in greener neighbourhoods may mitigate LRTI risk and thus, also, LRTI-related ED visit risk.
Conclusions: Most studies demonstrate positive associations between ambient air pollution and paediatric LRTI-related ED visits. However, there is need to model more pollutants, stratify by additional co-variates, and harmonise approaches to better define the effects of residential exposure during early life. Research should also evaluate if residential greenness modifies the effects of ambient pollutants on LRTI-related ED visits. Results may help identify neighbourhood-focused pathways for reducing LRTI-related ED visit risk.
Learning Objectives
- Participants will understand the current state of literature identifying different pollutant families believed to contribute to lower respiratory tract infection-related emergency department visits in children.
- Participants will learn how the air pollution-respiratory disease pathway is being recharacterized using new research approaches, which include new environmental measures and greater data linkage, targeting early life.
- Participants will understand how the results can inform the maintenance of urban greenspace to mitigate risks.
P61
Breakdown or breakthrough: How community engagement can shape global health security
Yonette Thomas
Founder and CEO/Visiting Associate Professor, Urban Health 360, United States
Dr. Thomas is the founder and CEO of UrbanHealth360, an INGO focused on bridging the divide between the science of urbanization, health, and wellbeing and the involvement and activities of local communities. In addition to leading UrbanHealth360, Dr. Thomas is the Founder and Chief Strategist of Strategic Transitions LLC, an organization established to provide professional development and strategic leadership training to professionals and academics at every level. She is currently a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Justice at the Rutgers University School of Public Health. She was a Dean’s Senior Scholar at the University of Memphis School of Public Health. She was a founding board member and inaugural executive director of the International Society for Urban Health, science advisor for urban health to the New York Academy of Medicine, vice president for research compliance at Howard University, and the chief of Epidemiology at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health. She held academic positions in the Department of Public Health, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences and the School of Pharmacy at Howard University. She is a member of the boards of US-based Women’s Economic Imperative (WEI) and the Kenya-based LVCT Health. Her scholarly publications range in focus from the social epidemiology of drug abuse to urbanization and health and the intersection of environment, social context, and health dynamics.
Greg Williams
Senior Lecturer in Public Health, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom
Greg Williams is a Senior Lecturer in Public Health at The University of Manchester. He is also Vice-President of the Global Health section of the European Public Health Association, Global Lead for Europe for UrbanHealth360, and a Member of the Faculty of Public Health through Distinction.
As well as his teaching-focused role, Greg is a keen researcher and has a background in public and urban health research with multiple peer-reviewed publications from local, national and international research projects. He has worked on and managed projects that have ranged from urban health indicator data collection to healthy ageing interventions, through to the evaluation of programmes aimed at reducing health inequalities.
Greg is a member of multiple international networks and has also been on the organising/scientific committee of the International Conference of Urban Health, the International Festival of Public Health, the European Conference on Urban Health and the European Public Health Conference.
Srikanth Kondreddy
Director, MS in Global Health and Sustainable Development, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, Indiana University Indianapolis, United States
Dr. Srikanth Kondreddy is a global health policy researcher, advisor, decisionmaker and educator with a deep knowledge of the global health landscape—issues, initiatives, and actors. He is a mission-oriented (turning knowledge into action) with a strategic vision —advising the UN agencies, multilateral health organizations, federal health agencies, global health think tanks, and not-for-profit organizations.
He founded Health Attaché Inc., a health diplomacy consultancy based in Ottawa, Canada, and is also a founding member and director of research and policy at Urban Health360, a not-for-profit global applied research institute based in Maryland, USA. He is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa, and a Scientist at Bruyere Health Research Institute in Ottawa, Canada. He is also a Senior Fellow at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Knowledge Translation and Health Technology Assessment in Health Equity, Ottawa, Canada. Earlier, he worked for the World Health Organization, United Nations Office of Project Services, Stop TB Partnership, Global Affairs Canada (Global Health and Nutrition Bureau), Public Health Agency of Canada (Office of International Affairs for Health Portfolio), Indian Council of Medical Research, Public Health Foundation of India, and Population Council, among others.
He has research and teaching interests in global health policy, global health governance and global health diplomacy. His global health research program focuses on two pillars: 1) global health governance, and 2) global health diplomacy - built on multidisciplinary research partnerships and collaborations from India, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, the USA, the UK, the Caribbean region, several countries in Africa, and multilateral health agencies, including the WHO. Currently, researching the political economy of global health, international cooperation in health, global health governance frameworks, pandemic treaty, international health regulations compliance, and global health security, among other areas.
He is actively engaged in research-to-action networks to drive policy impact. He is a founding member of the Global One Health Network. This interdisciplinary research-to-action network intends to strengthen Canadian leadership in improving the global governance of infectious diseases and AMR. He is also a member of a working group on Global Health Security and Universal Health Coverage – a collaboration between Georgetown University and the University of Edinburgh that explores the interlinkages and divergences among Global Health Security, Universal Health Coverage, and Health Systems Strengthening. He is a frequent contributor to global health policy discussions and a member of various policy engagement networks, including the Think 20, a G20 policy engagement group.
He received over $5M in research grants as a principal investigator/co-investigator from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Swiss Network for International Studies, the Worldwide Universities Network, the Global One Health Network, the Steinberg Foundation, the WHO, and the JN Tata Endowment. He published in high-impact journals such as The Lancet, Health Policy and Planning, Globalization and Health, BMJ Global Health, and Canadian Public Administration, among others. He published over 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers, policy briefs and reports. He is an Associate Editor for the Annals of Global Health, an Academic Editor for PLOS Global Public Health, and an editorial board member for the BMC Public Health Journals. He is also a peer reviewer for more than a dozen global health journals.
He received several awards and honors, including the prestigious "JN Tata Scholar" Award in 2014, the 'Hillman Award' from the Canadian Society for International Health in 2017, and other awards from the International AIDS Society, the Eastern Sociological Society, the J N Tata Endowment, the Indian Council of Medical Research, and the University Grants Commission.
He holds a PhD in Anthropology (health policy focus) from the University of Pune (National AIDS Research Institute), India, and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Global Health Governance from McGill University, Canada, and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Global Health Governance and Global Health Diplomacy from the Global Health Centre, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland.
Christine Greenhalgh, Senior Lecturer in Public Health, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom
Christine Greenhalgh
Senior Lecturer in Public Health, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom
Christine Greenhalgh has a background in environmental science and environmental policy and regulation. As a Lecturer in Public Health, Christine brings expertise in sustainability and environmental aspects of public health. She focuses her teaching on the climate and biodiversity crises and their impact on health. Christine is an experienced qualitative and mixed methods researcher in a wide variety of subjects including sustainability, decision theory, vaccination uptake, community interventions, and more. She is also an experienced PhD supervisor for students studying a wide variety of public health issues.
Arpana Verma
Clinical Professor of Public health and Epidemiology, The University of Manchester Director of Manchester Urban Collaboration on Health (MUCH) , The University of Manchester, United Kingdom
Prof Arpana Verma has been an active member of the Manchester’s Conference Ambassador Programme for many years, having been involved in many meetings and events in Manchester over the years.
Prof Verma is Head of the Division of Population Health, Health Services Research and Primary Care at The University of Manchester. She is Director of Manchester Urban Collaboration on Health (MUCH), a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre and Honorary Consultant in Public Health at Public Health England.
International Festival of Public Health
The International Festival of Public Health takes place in Manchester every year. The festival brings together hundreds of delegates from a wide range of fields and stages of their careers to attend plenary lectures from special guest speakers in the world of public health.
The first edition of the festival was held in Manchester in 2012 and the tenth edition took place at The University of Manchester in July 2022. Arpana Verma has acted as Festival Chair since the event’s inception.
The festival offers first-rate plenary lectures as well as a wealth of other sessions, including Special Sessions that have been arranged by experts around a particular topic, and parallel and poster sessions where delegates are able to present their own work.
11th International Conference on Urban Health 2014 (ICUH)
Prof Verma Chaired the 11th International Conference on Urban Health (ICUH), which took place at Manchester Central Convention Complex from 4-7 March 2014. It is the annual conference of the International Society for Urban Health (ISUH), a global non-governmental organization solely focused on advancing urban health and health equity by addressing the broader determinants of health.
The conference was hosted by the University of Manchester and attracted more than 1,000 participants from across the world to exchange insights, intelligence and knowledge on global urban health issues. Delegates included scientists, practitioners, policy makers and community organisations spanning sectors, disciplines and geographic boundaries. The theme of the conference was “Crossing Boundaries: Partnerships for Global Urban Health”.
Prof Verma was the principle investigator (PI) of the European Urban Health Indicator System project (EURO-URHIS 2) and is also the president of the European Public Health Association section on Urban Health. She is also PI on a number of health service research projects, primarily in hepatitis C and blood borne virus prevention, infection control, immunisation including MMR and HPV vaccine.
Prof Verma is also an expert for WHO, which has led to several publications. She also holds an honorary consultant post at Public Health England.
Breakdown or breakthrough: How community engagement can shape global health security
Abstract Copy
Strengthening community action is one of the key action points in the Ottawa Charter for the fullest attainment of health in society. Community engagement is essential to community action against public health threats and to ensuring global health security. Common interests, common ecology, and common social system or structure characterises communities. These characteristics, qualities, and processes within the community affect both health behaviours and health outcomes, addressing outbreak preparedness and response. However, communities are often not aware of or informed about the mechanisms and frameworks available to guide their responses to health threats. For example, the International Health Regulations (IHR), an essential framework for global health security, requires countries to designate or establish responsible authorities and maintain core capacities for surveillance and response. Communities are encouraged to participate in these efforts by providing information and support to their local authorities.Communities contribute to global health security by ensuring that their public health systems are strong enough to identify and contain public health events before they spread. The evidence suggests that communities in several countries lack awareness of the IHR. This lack of knowledge is particularly prevalent in non-health sectors, where the regulations are not widely understood. Further, the evidence also suggests that increased awareness will help improve IHR compliance, thereby enhancing global health security. This issue is further compounded by the fact that resource-poor settings do not always have the capacity to comply with the IHR.
In addition to awareness and capacity challenges, compliance with the IHR faces contextual factors that need to be considered within communities. Some of the mechanisms triggered because of the IHR can bring additional risks and complexities that can hinder effective implementation and can be exacerbated by other global stressors such as climate change, cost-of living, and trust in authorities. Therefore, community engagement can enable breakthroughs for global health security and failure to engage communities with global issues can lead to a breakdown in global health security. This applies not only to global obligations such as the IHR, but to the contextual and capacity issues it relies on that can be more visible at a community level.
Panellists will discuss how community engagement at local levels can influence national perspectives that lead to global shaping and describe specific approaches, opportunities and challenges for enhancing global health security through community engagement.
Learning Objectives
- 1. Understanding how cities and municipalities can improve place-based approaches to public health threats through community engagement and action can impact global health security.
- 2. Identify partnership structures that can make communities more aware of and informed about the mechanisms and frameworks available to guide their responses to health threats.
- 3. Explore potential models for engaging non-health sectors particularly urban planners, in linking IHR mechanisms to city designs.
P62
Air quality and student attendance: Investigating the impact of pollution on public school attendance in New Delhi’s vulnerable communities
Mehul Rai
Sustainability Consultant, (ex) Cushman & Wakefield, United Kingdom
I am an architect and researcher specialising in neuroarchitecture, wellbeing, and sustainable design, working at the intersection of the built environment, public health, and urban systems. My work focuses on translating evidence-based research into practical strategies that improve the performance, resilience, and user experience of buildings and cities.
I recently worked as a Sustainability Consultant at Cushman & Wakefield in London, advising on climate risk, net-zero strategy, and ESG performance across real estate portfolios, with a focus on enhancing both environmental outcomes and occupant well-being.
I hold a Master’s degree in Health, Wellbeing and Sustainable Buildings from UCL, where my research examined the impact of air pollution on school attendance in vulnerable communities. My broader research interests focus on school design as critical social infrastructure and on developing healthier, more equitable urban environments.
Air quality and student attendance: Investigating the impact of pollution on public school attendance in New Delhi’s vulnerable communities
Abstract Copy
Air pollution poses a critical challenge to achieving healthy, equitable cities, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations in rapidly urbanising regions. While its health impacts are well established, less is understood about how environmental exposure shapes access to essential social infrastructure such as education. This study investigates the relationship between air quality and school attendance among socio-economically disadvantaged primary school students in New Delhi, one of the world’s most polluted megacities, positioning attendance as a measurable indicator of community impact, social value, and neighbourhood health.A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining quantitative analysis of daily attendance records from over 1600 public primary schools with air quality data from 40 monitoring stations across the city during the 2023–2024 academic year. The study adopts a multi-scalar, place-based framework, analysing patterns at city, neighbourhood (within 2km of monitoring stations), and school levels. Spatial modelling techniques, including geostatistical interpolation, were used to estimate localised exposure, alongside temporal analysis across daily, monthly, and seasonal variations. This approach enables a more nuanced understanding of how environmental risk is distributed across urban systems and experienced unevenly by different communities.
The findings indicate a weak but consistently negative relationship between air pollution levels and student attendance. While statistical correlations are modest, temporal patterns reveal reduced attendance during peak pollution periods, particularly in winter and during severe air quality events that trigger school closures and behavioural responses. Disproportionate impacts are observed among girls and students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, highlighting how environmental exposure reinforces existing inequalities in access to education and wellbeing. These findings reflect the complex, multi-factor nature of urban health challenges, where environmental, social, and behavioural dynamics intersect.
This research contributes to the healthy city design and planning agenda by demonstrating how environmental conditions influence the performance and resilience of social infrastructure at the neighbourhood level. It highlights the need for integrated, cross-sector responses - linking air quality management, school design, urban planning, and public health systems - to deliver measurable improvements in population health and social value. In the context of rapidly growing cities, the study underscores a critical choice between urban “breakdown” and “breakthrough”: whether environmental risks continue to exacerbate inequality, or are addressed through co-ordinated, health-centred urban transformation. By framing school attendance as a proxy for environmental justice, the study supports more inclusive, evidence-based strategies for healthier, more resilient cities.
Learning Objectives
- Understand how air pollution influences school attendance in vulnerable urban populations, and how this relationship reflects broader inequalities in health, environment, and access to education.
- Evaluate how different spatial and temporal scales (daily, monthly, neighbourhood-level) shape the interpretation of environmental health data in urban contexts.
- Apply a systems-based and place-based perspective to identify integrated urban planning, design, and policy interventions that can mitigate the impacts of air pollution on social infrastructure.
Theme: Healthy working environments
P63
From breakdown to breakthrough: Applying cultural intelligence to build healthy working environments and social value workshop
Marsha Ramroop
Founder Director & Author, Unheard Voice Consultancy Ltd, United Kingdom
Marsha Ramroop is a global award-winning organisational inclusion strategist, Founder Director of Unheard Voice Consultancy Ltd and author of Building Inclusion – A Practical Guide to EDI in the Built Environment, which won accolades at Business Book Awards.
She has been named in the Top 100 Inspirational D&I Leaders of 2025 and in The Built List of Top 100 influencers in the Built Environment.
She has formulated a culture and behaviour change methodology which has been recognised as successful with international prizes, from the International Federation of Training and Development Organisations, and with two Brandon Hall HRD Gold Medals.
As well as running Unheard Voice, which was shortlisted for D&I Consultancy of the Year 2024, Marsha works part-time as the Executive Director of EDI for Building People CIC, a hub that’s pulling together EDI resources and insight, as well as career pathways for underrepresented groups in the built environment.
Marsha originally had a 30-year career in broadcasting including 20 years at the BBC. Whilst working at the BBC, she led inclusion efforts across the Midlands and developed a pioneering inclusive recruitment pilot for presenting staff, and an inclusive reporter scheme.
She was the inaugural Director of Inclusion and Diversity at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) where she ran RIBA Radio, a live week of radio programming about inclusion for the profession reaching 10-thousand listeners worldwide.
Building Inclusion: A Practical Guide to EDI for Architecture and the Built Environment, came out in Autumn 2024, published by Routledge, the first book of its kind for the sector, and has been awarded Highly Commended in the Business Book Awards 2025, and a Finalist award at the Goody Business Book Awards 2025.
She wrote and was lead facilitator behind the Diversity & Inclusion Charter for the motorsport, Formula 1, delivered through the Royal Academy of Engineering.
She works with the Cultural Intelligence Center, the global headquarters of cultural intelligence (CQ) as one of their published and highlighted thought-leaders on impactful organisational change, as well as a worldwide trainer and facilitator.
Marsha is a Chartered Member of the CIPD (Chartered MCIPD). She holds the Ministerial Public Appointments of Non-Executive Director at both the Joint Nature Conservation Committee - which seeks to protect the biodiversity of the UK, and the Marine Management Organisation - which protects the UKs seas. She was also the Vice Chair and is a Fellow of the Institute of Equality and Diversity Professionals (FIEDP), an institute which strives to verify and set standards for the growing vocation of EDI practitioners. She also sits on the International Advisory Council of the Institute of Business Ethics, and is also a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA).
From breakdown to breakthrough: Applying cultural intelligence to build healthy working environments and social value workshop
Abstract Copy
Healthy City Design 2026 positions health as foundational to resilient and prosperous cities. However, healthy homes, neighbourhoods and infrastructure are delivered by systems of people. Persistent cultural dysfunction in the built environment sector and society – including bias, underrepresentation, weak psychological safety and fragmented inclusion efforts – limits both workforce wellbeing and community trust. Without addressing sector culture and societal dysfunction, ambitions for healthy cities risk structural contradiction.Purpose: This interactive workshop equips participants with a practical framework – Cultural Intelligence (CQ) – to diagnose and strengthen the behavioural conditions required for healthy working environments and meaningful social value delivery. CQ is the capability to work and relate effectively across difference, and comprises four capabilities: drive; knowledge; strategy; and action. The workshop demonstrates how these capabilities can be operationalised across policy, procurement, leadership and community engagement systems.
Format and methods: Participants will work through a structured, applied sequence:
1. System mapping: Using the Attract–Retain–Create–Engage model, developed for the book “Building Inclusion” and applied to a major UK infrastructure delivery strategy, attendees identify where workforce culture influences design quality, safety, retention and community outcomes.
2. Bias Interruption Lab: Facilitated exercises illustrate how unhelpful bias cycles become embedded in organisational systems and how CQ mitigates these dynamics.
3. Policy-to-practice translation: Small groups test how CQ can be embedded into recruitment standards, leadership behaviours, procurement criteria and stakeholder engagement frameworks.
4. Application planning: Participants develop a short implementation roadmap tailored to their own organisational or city context.
The workshop is designed for interdisciplinary audiences including planners, developers, policymakers, public health leaders and investors.
Expected outcomes: Participants will leave with:
• a behavioural lens for assessing whether their organisations support psychologically safe, healthy working environments;
• a structured method for linking workforce inclusion to measurable community impact and social value;
• practical tools to embed inclusive leadership standards, transparent metrics and cross-sector accountability; and
• an implementation template aligning CQ behaviours with healthy city objectives.
Implications: Healthy cities require healthy systems. By treating cultural intelligence as core infrastructure rather than peripheral training, leaders can strengthen workforce resilience, improve delivery quality and enhance community legitimacy. This workshop moves beyond awareness into application, enabling participants to translate inclusion from aspiration into operational capability that supports equitable, resilient and economically productive urban futures.
Learning Objectives
- Diagnose organisational culture through a health lens
- Apply the Cultural Intelligence (CQ) framework operationally
- Translate inclusion into measurable urban impact
P64
The facts of light
Ulysse Dormoy
CEO, Atrium Ltd, United Kingdom
Ulysse Dormoy is a highly experienced professional in the lighting industry, boasting over 35 years of expertise. His journey began during the era of analogue systems, and he has been a witness to the transformative shift to today's digital landscape.
Recently, his focus has shifted to a personal passion: the profound impact of light on human physiology. With an interest going beyond the well-known circadian rhythm, Ulysse explores how our increasingly indoor lifestyles might be limiting our exposure to the full spectrum of light, potentially affecting our health and wellbeing.
Ulysse's quest to uncover the deeper implications of light also extends to its integration within our built environments, exploring how architects, lighting designers, and interior designers can leverage light's full potential. His goal is to enhance daily life through strategic lighting solutions that can optimise routines, improve quality of life, and promote overall wellbeing.
The facts of light
Abstract Copy
This presentation examines the vital connection between light, health, and wellbeing, questioning what light is and emphasising how contemporary lifestyles have greatly reduced our exposure to natural daylight. The presentation traces our transition from ancestral, full-spectrum light exposure to today’s predominantly indoor, artificial environments, which often lack the beneficial wavelengths found in sunlight – particularly infrared and ultraviolet. It explores the physiological effects of light on circadian rhythms, hormone regulation, and cellular health, highlighting the risks of “light malnutrition” and the need to design spaces that prioritise both human and environmental sustainability. The talk advocates for creating environments that actively promote health by integrating high-quality, human-centric lighting and green spaces, ultimately urging architects and designers to treat light as a fundamental component of wellbeing.Learning Objectives
- The importance of the vital link between light & life
- How human physiology responds to light beyond vision
- How can the built environment support human health considering the lighting environment
P65
Designing for wellbeing under security constraints: Adapting biophilic principles for a windowless workplace
Archontia Manolakelli
Project Architect + Senior Design Researcher, AtkinsRealis, United Kingdom
Archontia Manolakelli is a UK-registered Architect and Researcher in Behavioural Science. Her work sits at the intersection of design delivery, applied environmental psychology research and complex systems analysis. Working across workplace, education, civic and defence environments, she leads projects and supports design teams with research-led, evidence-based and human-centred approaches from briefing and concept development through to design delivery and post-occupancy evaluation.
She studied at the University of Manchester School of Architecture, where she completed her thesis under Dr Ray Lucas, and has undertaken further training in environmental psychology at Cornell University. She holds an MArch and a BA(Hons) in Architecture, as well as an MSc in Psychology. Her academic research interests include psychometric scale development, biometric methods for studying the effects of biophilic design, quasi-experimental approaches using digital technologies, personal space as a function of contextual and interpersonal influences, and neurodiversity requirements for post-pandemic offices.
Designing for wellbeing under security constraints: Adapting biophilic principles for a windowless workplace
Abstract Copy
Workplace wellbeing guidance often assumes access to daylight, views, planting, artwork and spatial variety. However, some high-security environments operate under constraints that exclude many of these measures, including windowless conditions, highly controlled material palettes, and intensive work patterns. This creates a significant challenge for healthy workplace design: how can environments support wellbeing and performance when conventional restorative features are unavailable?This paper presents an evidence-informed design approach developed for a highly constrained secure workplace in which windows, artwork and plants were not permitted. In response, biophilic design principles were translated into two feasible architectural interventions that could operate within security requirements: the use of timber wall panelling as a natural material strategy, and artificial skylight features designed to simulate sunlight conditions within principal shared spaces. The project explores how salutogenic and biophilic thinking can be adapted, rather than abandoned, when working within restrictive operational settings.
The paper has two aims. First, it documents the design rationale, constraints analysis and intervention development process used to embed wellbeing-supportive qualities within a tightly controlled environment. Second, it outlines a planned three-arm experimental study intended to evaluate the cognitive implications of the design. The proposed study will compare: (1) the secure workplace design with the two interventions; (2) an otherwise identical secure environment without the interventions; and (3) a standard office environment used as a benchmark condition. Cognitive performance measures will be used to examine whether the adapted design strategies offer measurable benefits relative to a non-intervention secure setting, while also clarifying how far such benefits approach those associated with more typical workplace conditions.
Although performance data are not yet available, the project already demonstrates a transferable methodological contribution: a structured route for translating healthy workplace principles into environments shaped by non-negotiable security and operational constraints. For designers, clients and public-sector organisations, the work highlights the importance of moving beyond binary assumptions that secure environments must necessarily exclude wellbeing design. Instead, it proposes a pragmatic evidence-generating model for designing healthier, more supportive workplaces under conditions of constraint.
Learning Objectives
- Understand how security and operational constraints can limit conventional workplace wellbeing strategies
- Identify ways biophilic design principles can be adapted for highly controlled work environments
- Apply a comparative evaluation framework for testing the wellbeing and cognitive-performance implications of constrained workplace design interventions
Theme: Sustainable infrastructure and green mobility
P66
The push to mitigate construction-related greenhouse gas emissions across A4 & A5 lifecycle stages
Blake Jackson
Director, sustainability, NORR, United States
Blake Jackson is an architect working at the nexus of sustainability, wellness and resiliency, who serves as the global Director, sustainability for NORR. NORR is a 750-person integrated architecture, interiors, planning and engineering company, headquartered in Toronto, with 14 locations in the US, UK, and Canada. Blake has 25 years’ experience in the AEC industry, holding a Bachelor of Architecture from Kennesaw State University in Marietta, Georgia and a Master of Architecture in Sustainable Environmental Design from the Architectural Association Graduate School in London. Blake is a prolific author, speaker, and educator on topics affecting the built environment. He currently serves on the advisory board for the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s Interior Design Program, and he is a former vice-president, advocacy for the Boston Society of Architects. Blake was recognised in 2015 by BD+C Magazine as a top '40 Under 40' AEC professional. He was named a LEED fellow by the USGBC in 2021, and he is a 2024 recipient of the AIA Young Architect Award.
The push to mitigate construction-related greenhouse gas emissions across A4 & A5 lifecycle stages
Abstract Copy
Approximately 20 per cent of UK emissions come from embodied carbon associated with construction, which are often overlooked completely. While no single piece of UK legislation mandates tracking and reporting of construction lifecycle stages, A4 (transport to site) or A5 (installation and construction) requirements for such are driven by policy, standards, and voluntary frameworks. These include:• London Plan (Policy St 2) that requires a whole building lifecycle assessment (wbLCA) for all “referable” planning applications (Stages A1-5), i.e., residences >150-units, commercial >15,000-m² and tall buildings (thresholds vary by location), and sensitive land development.
• Building Regulations (Part Z) could mandate (second reading in House of Commons, 26 March 2026) reporting embodied carbon of stages A4-5, across the UK, for all “major” projects: commercial >1000-m² or residences >10-units.
• 2019 Streamlined Energy & Carbon Reporting (SECR) requires “large” companies (205+ employees/+£36M annual turnover) to report GHGs annually, which indirectly involves A4-5.
• The UK Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) 2027 will use tariffs to align imports with domestic sustainability standards to encourage circularity/fair competition.
• Voluntary standards, like BREEAM and the UK Net-Zero Carbon Building Standard, require reporting (A1-5) lifecycle stages through the use of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) – EN 15804.
While necessary to decarbonise, tracking A4-5 presents challenges for contractors, which must collect and report all onsite construction activities, including fuel consumption, vehicle types, distances traveled for deliveries, energy use, waste, and fuel for machinery. This presentation explores how that can be accomplished, time and cost-effectively, utilising the catalyst of embodied carbon to drive transparency, sustainability, and accountability at a time when the data is within our grasp, particularly through leveraging AI tools to support seamless integration with bet practices, which have been around – and utilised globally in green buildings – for decades. Examples of this include:
• use of tools, like One Click LCA, to consider transportation and manufacturing emissions in design and specification, as well as scope A1-3 lifecycle stages;
• use of tools like QFlow to monitor real-time A4-5 outcomes on projects;
• EU requirements for digital EPDs for all construction materials, by 2028; and
• the Corporate Social Responsibility Directive (CSRD), encouraging total supply chain management and Scope 3 reduction.
With pressure from all sides and standardised reporting mechanisms making it easier to account for carbon in procurement, designers, manufacturers and builders who rapidly adapt to this transition to a low-carbon economy will thrive.
Learning Objectives
- Participants will learn about key legislation in the UK, and internationally, which supports decarbonization of construction processes, which are roughly 20% of UK total emissions.
- Participants will learn about voluntary standards, which support carbon accounting in construction, which can be leveraged to support compliance with UK, and international, protocols.
- Participants will gain a deep insight into the A4 (transport to site) and A5 (installation and construction) lifecycle stages of construction projects, as well as strategies to mitigate both.
P67
Breakdown or breakthrough? Measuring urban habitability in climate-vulnerable, data-scarce cities in southern Brazil
Karol Diego Carminatti Baumgärtner
Professor, Brusque Educational Foundation University Centre (UNIFEBE), Brazil
Karol Carminatti Baumgärtner is an architect and urban planner with a PhD in Architecture and Urbanism. He is currently a visiting researcher at the Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation (GCHU), University of Oxford. He is also a professor in Brazil and an urban planning consultant, working with municipalities on climate adaptation, spatial planning and territorial development strategies. His research integrates urban form, climate exposure and governance capacity, and he is the developer of the FORMA framework, a multidimensional methodology designed to operationalise urban habitability and resilience in climate-vulnerable, data-scarce contexts, with a particular focus on Southern Brazil.
Breakdown or breakthrough? Measuring urban habitability in climate-vulnerable, data-scarce cities in southern Brazil
Abstract Copy
Small and medium-sized cities are increasingly exposed to climate risks, socio-spatial inequalities and infrastructure fragilities, yet they often lack integrated analytical tools capable of translating spatial evidence into actionable public policy. While large metropolitan regions benefit from advanced modelling systems and greater institutional capacity, thousands of municipalities operate with limited technical resources and fragmented datasets. This condition is particularly evident in Southern Brazil, where rapidly urbanising cities face intensifying heat stress, flood exposure and uneven spatial development without comprehensive decision-support systems. In this context, the central question becomes whether these territories are experiencing systemic breakdown or whether they can achieve methodological breakthrough.This paper presents a multidimensional approach to measuring urban habitability in climate-vulnerable, data-scarce cities through the integration of environmental systems, urban form and governance capacity. The proposed methodology builds on the FORMA framework (Framework for Operational Resilient and Multi-dimensional Assessment), structured around four analytical dimensions: Geoform (natural and environmental systems); Socioform (urban morphology and spatial accessibility); Form of Governance; and Form of Participation. This structure enables multi-scalar assessment, ranging from street-level environmental exposure to municipal-scale institutional performance.
Methodologically, the framework combines spatial configuration analysis, remote-sensing data and climate exposure metrics into a composite Urban Habitability Index. Indicators such as land surface temperature, vegetation coverage, slope and hydrological exposure are integrated with morphological measures of accessibility and density, alongside governance and civic engagement indicators. A pilot application in small and medium-sized cities in Southern Brazil demonstrates how this approach identifies morpho-climatic vulnerability clusters and mismatches between environmental risk and institutional response capacity under both current and projected climate conditions.
Preliminary findings indicate that environmental exposure, spatial configuration and governance capacity are deeply interdependent, producing uneven distributions of health risk and adaptive potential. By structuring these relationships within a transparent and replicable methodology, the framework supports municipalities with limited data infrastructure in transitioning from reactive planning approaches towards evidence-informed territorial strategies.
By translating interdisciplinary knowledge into measurable indicators capable of informing zoning codes, climate adaptation policies and public investment priorities, this research proposes a paradigm shift, moving cities in contexts of institutional fragility from scenarios of breakdown towards structured trajectories of resilience.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the challenges faced by climate-vulnerable, data-scarce cities in integrating urban form, environmental exposure and health into planning processes.
- Analyse how spatial configuration, climate exposure and governance capacity interact to produce unequal patterns of urban habitability and health risk
- Apply a multidimensional, indicator-based approach to support climate adaptation strategies, zoning codes and evidence-informed territorial decision-making.
P68
Planning the urban forest: Trees as critical Infrastructure for resilient, healthy cities
Kenton Rogers
Co-founder, CEO, Treeconomics, United Kingdom
Kenton Rogers FRGS, MSc For Eco, MICFor, is a chartered urban forester with more than 30 years’ experience working across commercial, urban and community forestry projects in the UK, Europe and North Africa. He holds a Master’s degree in Forest Ecosystem Management and is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Kenton is co-founder of Treeconomics, an employee-owned social enterprise headquartered in Exeter that specialises in urban forest assessment, valuation and strategic management across the UK and Europe.
He led the first valuation of an urban forest in the UK in Torbay in 2011, helping to demonstrate the economic and societal benefits of urban trees, and later delivered the UK’s first urban forest masterplan in Birmingham, setting out a strategic framework for long-term urban forest planning and investment.
Kenton has written widely on the role and benefits of trees and urban forests in creating healthier and more resilient places to live and work. He was a contributing author to the urban chapter of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment and to the Springer Handbook of the Urban Forest, and most recently co-authored the Tree Care Manual, published this year.
He has provided expert advice on tree valuation and urban forest planning for organisations including UNESCO, the World Bank, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Forest Research, the Trees and Design Action Group, and House of Commons committees. He has also presented internationally on the social, environmental and economic value of urban trees, including giving a TEDx talk on the benefits of trees.
Planning the urban forest: Trees as critical Infrastructure for resilient, healthy cities
Abstract Copy
Background: Cities worldwide face rising temperatures, worsening air pollution, biodiversity loss and growing inequalities in access to nature. At the same time, urban populations are increasing and development pressures are intensifying. While the benefits of urban trees for climate resilience and public health are widely recognised, they are rarely planned or managed with the same strategic intent as other forms of urban infrastructure. As cities confront the challenge of whether urban systems face “breakdown or breakthrough”, the urban forest offers a powerful but underutilised pathway towards healthier and more resilient urban environments.Purpose: This paper explores how cities can move beyond opportunistic tree planting towards strategic urban forest planning, integrating trees into long-term planning, investment and governance frameworks that support healthier communities.
Methods: The presentation draws on practical experience from the development of urban forest strategies and masterplans in cities including Birmingham and Belfast, alongside international experiences in Europe, the US and further afield. These projects combine spatial analysis, urban forest assessment and ecosystem service modelling, all underpinned by comprehensive stakeholder involvement and community engagement, to evaluate urban tree resources and identify where investment can deliver the greatest environmental benefits for both the immediate and long-term future.
Results: The projects demonstrate that strategic urban forest planning can reveal significant inequalities in tree canopy cover and access to green infrastructure within cities. By integrating tree planning with wider urban systems – including transport corridors, housing developments, public spaces and climate adaptation strategies – cities can better target investment to areas where trees provide the greatest benefits for heat mitigation, air quality, mental wellbeing and community cohesion.
Implications: Treating the urban forest as critical urban infrastructure enables cities to align environmental, health and social objectives within a single planning framework. The experience of these projects suggests that urban forest masterplanning, supported by data, valuation tools and community engagement, can help cities move from fragmented tree planting programmes towards co-ordinated strategies that improve population health, strengthen climate resilience and create more equitable access to nature.
Ultimately, planning the urban forest is not simply about planting more trees – it is about establishing a legacy: designing cities where people, nature and infrastructure work together to support healthier urban futures.
Learning Objectives
- Understanding what makes the Urban Forest, and how they function as critical infrastructure supporting public health, climate resilience and social wellbeing in cities.
- Identify practical approaches to planning and managing urban forests at city scale, drawing on case studies from Birmingham, Belfast and international projects.
- So what?? Evaluate how strategic urban forest planning helps cities target investment, address inequalities in access to green infrastructure and deliver long-term societal benefits.
P69
Co-designing resilient neighbourhoods in Houston, Texas, USA: A cross-sector governance approach to community-driven green infrastructure
Garett Sansom
Associate Professor, Texas A&M University, United States
Dr. Garett Thomas Sansom, DrPH, MPH, is Director of the Together for a Better Tomorrow Research Program and Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health. His work focuses on environmental health, community resilience, environmental justice, and the ways neighborhoods, infrastructure, and exposure burdens shape health outcomes. He also serves as a faculty member in the Texas A&M Interdisciplinary Program in Toxicology.
Dr. Sansom’s research emphasizes community-engaged approaches to addressing environmental contamination, disaster recovery, water quality, greenspace, and healthy neighborhood development, particularly in historically overburdened communities. He has led and collaborated on projects supported by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, and Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas. His scholarship includes more than 40 peer-reviewed publications spanning environmental exposure assessment, community health, resilience, and sustainable cities.
His work is grounded in building practical, community-informed strategies that connect research, planning, and policy to improve environmental conditions and support healthier, more resilient cities.
Lindsay Sansom
Research Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University, United States
Dr. Lindsay Sansom is the Co-Director of the Together for a Better Tomorrow Program, a Faculty Fellow in the Center for Health and Nature, and a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at Texas A&M University School of Public Health. Her research examines how environmental conditions, public spaces, and community systems shape health, resilience, and social connection. Grounded in community-engaged and practice-based methods, her work has focused on water security, environmental health, rural park access, and the role of greenspace in supporting community cohesion. She has led and contributed to interdisciplinary projects with communities across Texas, including colonias along the U.S.–Mexico border and historically under-invested urban neighborhoods. Her current work explores urban parks as social infrastructure and examines how community spaces can strengthen well-being, belonging, and collective capacity.
Co-designing resilient neighbourhoods in Houston, Texas, USA: A cross-sector governance approach to community-driven green infrastructure
Abstract Copy
Urban planning and environmental health initiatives often aim to improve resilience, equity, and wellbeing, but many remain expert-led and fail to embed communities meaningfully in decision-making. As a result, they frequently produce findings and plans that do not advance towards implementation or generate lasting local value. This challenge is especially important in neighbourhoods facing cumulative burdens from environmental contamination, flooding, ageing infrastructure, and long-term underinvestment. In Settegast, Houston, Texas, our team is using a cross-sector governance model to co-design a community-driven green infrastructure (CDGI) project intended to support healthier and more resilient neighbourhood development.This work examines whether structured governance can improve the relevance, legitimacy, and implementation potential of healthy city planning. Rather than treating engagement as a final consultation step, the project uses governance structures to shape priorities, interpret findings, connect project components, and support action-oriented planning. Methods centre on two linked structures: a community advisory board (CAB) and a community-academic-government (CAG) group. The CAB elevates resident perspectives, lived experience, and neighbourhood priorities. The CAG brings together academic representatives from three universities, community members from four organisations, local residents, and government participants from city, county, and state levels. In parallel, the project developed a community science programme in which residents participate in assessing environmental contaminants in soil and air, alongside a cumulative health effects report designed to synthesise environmental and health-related burdens in an accessible and action-oriented format. These efforts are intentionally integrated. Findings, priorities, and interpretations from the CAB, community science activities, and cumulative reporting are brought into the CAG to guide planning discussions, refine green infrastructure strategies, and strengthen alignment across sectors.
Preliminary results suggest that this multi-level governance model moves the project beyond traditional outreach towards shared decision-making and implementation-oriented planning. The linked CAB and CAG structures have helped identify locally meaningful resilience goals, elevate resident concerns about environmental burdens and neighbourhood infrastructure, strengthen cross-sector co-ordination, and improve the practical relevance of proposed green infrastructure strategies. Governance should be understood as part of the infrastructure of healthy city design, not as an optional supplement. In environmentally burdened communities, structures that connect residents, organisations, universities, data generation, and public institutions may help convert stalled planning into more equitable, trusted, and actionable urban transformation.
Learning Objectives
- Describe how CAB and CAG structures can support co-design in neighborhood resilience planning.
- Assess how integrated, community-led planning approaches can support healthier, more equitable, and more resilient neighborhood development.
- Explain how resident engagement, community science, and cumulative health reporting can be integrated into green infrastructure planning.
P70
From evidence to urban practice: Integrating mental health into urban green space planning
Corinna Patetta
PhD student, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Corinna Patetta (1997) is an architect and a teaching assistant at Politecnico di Milano. She is a PhD candidate in the research field of nature-based solutions and human health in cities. Since 2022 she is part of the Forestami project research group exploring the topics of ecosystem services, urban forestry plan and the relation between urban green spaces and people’s health and wellbeing.
Maria Chiara Pastore
Associate professor, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Maria Chiara Pastore (1980) is a Researcher in Urban Planning at Politecnico di Milano. Pastore’s research interests are mainly focused adaptive planning in relation to Urban Forestry, urban biodiversity. She is scientific director of The Project Forestami and leader of the Italian Project called “Biodiversity”, a national project funded by the Italian Ministry of Research, specifically on Urban Biodiversity.
From evidence to urban practice: Integrating mental health into urban green space planning
Abstract Copy
The growing mental health crisis in urban environments influenced by rapid urbanisation, climate change, and the Covid-19 pandemic has brought renewed attention to the role of urban green spaces (UGS) as nature-based solutions to promote healthy urban living and wellbeing. A growing body of evidence demonstrates the positive relationship between urban green spaces and mental health outcomes, considering the environmental, ecological, cultural, and social value of nature and its impact on reducing stress, depression, improving mood, and enhancing social cohesion. Despite this in-depth knowledge, the translation of these principles into urban planning and design practice remains fragmented and limited. Moreover, despite the proliferation of European and international policies and programmes acknowledging the role of green spaces in supporting health and wellbeing, few of these instruments provide operational guidelines, spatial criteria, or measurable indicators to effectively guide planning and design processes.Building on this scenario, the research identifies critical gaps and enabling conditions for defining a design-oriented framework to promote, prevent, and treat mental health in urban contexts. It aims to understand how health discourses are translated into the planning and design of urban green spaces by identifying shared principles and scalable and transferable actions.
The study adopts a qualitative methodology, combining policy analysis and the exploration of selected European practices, including large-scale regeneration projects and neighbourhood-based interventions.
Findings highlight that while accessibility, proximity, and availability of green spaces are consistently recognised as key determinants of mental health, qualitative spatial characteristics such as diversity, safety, sensory experience, and opportunities for social interaction are less systematically addressed in planning processes. The research also reveals the importance of interdisciplinary governance, participatory approaches, and the integration of health impact assessment tools, although these remain unevenly implemented across contexts. Moreover, tensions emerge between environmental, social, and economic objectives, including issues of green gentrification, maintenance, and long-term management.
By developing a narrative of urban green spaces and health integration, the research advocates for a shift in perspective, recognising UGS as public health infrastructure. By bridging the gap between scientific evidence, policy ambitions, and design practice, this research aims to develop a framework that supports planners and policymakers in operationalising mental health within urban green space strategies, fostering more inclusive, resilient, and health-promoting cities.
Learning Objectives
- Healthy urban environment
- Nature-based solutions
- Urban practices
P71
Investigating the implementation of school street interventions: Facilitators, barriers and outcomes in two English cities
Ahmadreza Faghih Imani
Associate Professor, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Dr Ahmadreza Faghih Imani is the Teaching Fellow in Urban Sustainability and the co-convenor of the Urban Sustainable Environments (USE) option of the MSc in Environmental Technology at the Centre for Environmental Policy. He has more than ten years of academic experience, has published more than 30 articles in top-tier journals, has successfully collaborated with a number of different research groups, has made significant impacts and contributions to the field working on industry and government projects, and have volunteered within the research community (as an active member of TRB Standing Committee on Bicycle Transportation, and as a reviewer for several academic journals).
Audrey de Nazelle
Associate Professor, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Audrey de Nazelle is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre of Environmental Policy. She is co-chair of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) Policy Committee, and outgoing chair and founder of Imperial's Network of Excellence on Air Quality (NExAir). She is an expert in risk assessment and exposure science. Her research is at the intersection of environmental sciences, health behaviour, transportation, and urban planning. Her work aims at guiding decision makers towards health-promoting built environments and policies. It involves novel and holistic approaches to assessing behavioural, environmental and health impacts of urban plans and policies. Dr de Nazelle leads studies on transport and health and on societal engagement through digital technology. She is also a collaborator on the EPSRC-funded project Managing Air for Green Inner Cities (MAGIC), and on MRC-funded projects on active travel (METAHIT and TIGTHAT).
Isabella Ferguson
Master's student, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Isabella completed her Master's degree with Distinction at Imperial College London in 2025.
Investigating the implementation of school street interventions: Facilitators, barriers and outcomes in two English cities
Abstract Copy
Rising car use on the school journey represents a pressing public health concern, linked to declining independent mobility, reduced physical activity and heightened exposure to road danger. Policymakers are increasingly introducing interventions to encourage active school travel; one such measure is the school street, which reallocates road space outside primary schools during pick-up and drop-off times and has significant potential to reduce motor traffic at the school gate. Recently, school streets have proliferated across the UK, yet little is known about the factors that determine whether schemes are implemented successfully, unsuccessfully or not at all. This study aims to develop a deeper understanding of the perceived facilitators, barriers, and outcomes of School Street implementation, with the intention of informing a more inclusive and sustainable rollout at a national scale.To this end, a cross-city case study comparison of Bristol and Manchester employs a mixed-methods design. Semi-structured interviews with 16 participants, including seven local authority staff and nine school representatives, were conducted and combined with contextual school-area variables.
Findings show that the effectiveness of school street implementation depends less on scheme design than on the institutional and social conditions in which it is embedded. Legal and bureaucratic processes, constrained staff capacity and parental resistance often inhibit delivery, while adaptability, interdepartmental collaboration and committed champions create conditions for progress. Reported benefits extend beyond traffic reduction to perceived improvements in street environments, children’s confidence and school community cohesion, yet these outcomes are uneven and often assumed rather than systematically evidenced. This study contributes to the literature on school street implementation by developing a framework as a practical tool for policymakers and practitioners and by highlighting that equitable and sustained rollout requires sensitivity to local context.
Learning Objectives
- Perspectives on active travel to school
- Barriers and facilitators for School Street implementation
- Benefits of School Streets
P72
Actions for public health in infrastructure projects
Ben Cave
Director, Ben Cave Associates; University of Groningen, UK
Ben Cave is a board chair and infrastructure specialist with over 20 years’ experience advising governments, multilateral institutions, financial organisations and the private sector on health, regulatory and environmental risk in major projects. He was elected, and then served as, President of the International Association for Impact Assessment. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Liverpool and is completing a PhD across the faculties of spatial sciences and law at the University of Groningen.
Ed Kirton-Darling
Senior Lecturer, University of Bristol, United Kingdom
Ed Kirton-Darling is a solicitor (non-practising) and Senior Lecturer in the University of Bristol Law School. His research is socio-legal, and includes focus on the ways in which law, legal processes and the practice of law interact with housing and social welfare (understood broadly) as well as the law relating to investigations into contentious deaths. He previously practised as a civil liberties solicitor and worked for the Law Commission of England and Wales.
Actions for public health in infrastructure projects
Abstract Copy
Statement: From the sewers and parks of 19th century Manchester to the global extraction of minerals and fossil fuels, infrastructure has always underpinned a healthy and prosperous city life. As the global population grows, delivering and managing infrastructure in ways that are healthy, that respect human rights and enable communities to prosper is pivotal to whether society breaks down or breaks through.Infrastructure spans all determinants of health, from the physical, social and environmental to the commercial and legal determinants of health. How can public health experts work with community leaders, commercial developers, architects and engineers and contribute to making infrastructure healthy?
Ex-ante assessments, such as environmental impact assessment and health impact assessment, are used, across the world, to improve a project’s performance across its whole lifecycle and they identify actions for a range of factors, including the protection and promotion of human health.
Methodology: We conducted a global scoping review of the actions for public health identified in ex-ante assessments conducted on infrastructure projects. These actions are negotiated between the regulator and the often private-sector proponent, and they must be secured over the lifetime of the project. This typically involves sectors other than health.
We asked what ‘actions’ are put in place to protect and promote public health in the design, construction and operation of infrastructure projects. We examined how they are validated; who is identified as beneficiaries; and who is involved in identifying and framing these ‘actions’, e.g., project proponent; assessment team; health authority; affected population, etc.
Results: Actions for public health span all project stages. Prior to consent, actions include changes in design and input to public inquiries. During construction, there is the management of environmental effects and, during operation, there are opportunities for employment. Community engagement was noted as adding value across the project lifecycle. Opportunities for mitigating adverse effects and for enhancing health benefits are reported.
Conclusions and implications: This review contributes to improving the effectiveness of the consideration of health in ex-ante assessments. It also maps the actions and the regulatory and other frameworks that are used to validate them. This adds a micro-level perspective to our understanding of how to mitigate, and adapt to, the changing climate. It brings a perspective from ex-ante assessment to the governance of healthy cities and adds to the fields of public health law and the legal and commercial determinants of health.
Learning Objectives
- Actions for design and management of healthy infrastructure
- Improving effectiveness of health, and other, impact assessments
- Governance for public health
P73
Streets for people: Breaking barriers to successful urban pedestrianisation
Zanna Buckland
Researcher, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Zanna Buckland is a researcher in sustainable transport policies and urban planning, with a master's degree in environmental policy from Imperial College London. She has presented a poster on barriers and challenges in implementing pedestrianisation projects at the 2024 Urban Transitions conference, and is currently working on continuing this research, with a focus on public health co-benefits.
Emily Wall
Researcher, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Emily Wall is a researcher in active transport and urban planning, with an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London, where she specialised in urban environments. Her research focuses on the planning, governance, and implementation of active travel interventions, with particular interest in stakeholder engagement and collaboration between local authorities and partner organisations. She currently works as a Graduate Sustainability Consultant at Citisense, supporting research for active travel projects and policy initiatives that enable more sustainable urban mobility.
Dena Kasraian
Assistant Professor, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Dr. ir. Dena Kasraian is an Irène Curie fellow and a tenured Assistant Professor at Urbanism and Urban Architecture group of the Built Environment Department, Eindhoven University of Technology. She has an established expertise in architecture, urban design and planning, and transportation and a strong interest in conducting interdisciplinary research that bridges these fields. Her work focuses on the interactions between the following areas, using both quantitative and qualitative methods: the built environment (urbanization, land use, public domain, transport infrastructure, and urban green infrastructure) and human behaviour (travel behavior, perception, active lifestyles, and play behavior).
Audrey de Nazelle
Associate Professor, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Audrey de Nazelle is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre of Environmental Policy. She is co-chair of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) Policy Committee, and outgoing chair and founder of Imperial's Network of Excellence on Air Quality (NExAir). She is an expert in risk assessment and exposure science. Her research is at the intersection of environmental sciences, health behaviour, transportation, and urban planning. Her work aims at guiding decision makers towards health-promoting built environments and policies. It involves novel and holistic approaches to assessing behavioural, environmental and health impacts of urban plans and policies. Dr de Nazelle leads studies on transport and health and on societal engagement through digital technology. She is also a collaborator on the EPSRC-funded project Managing Air for Green Inner Cities (MAGIC), and on MRC-funded projects on active travel (METAHIT and TIGTHAT).
Ahmadreza Faghih Imani
Associate Professor, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Dr Ahmadreza Faghih Imani is the Teaching Fellow in Urban Sustainability and the co-convenor of the Urban Sustainable Environments (USE) option of the MSc in Environmental Technology at the Centre for Environmental Policy. He has more than ten years of academic experience, has published more than 30 articles in top-tier journals, has successfully collaborated with a number of different research groups, has made significant impacts and contributions to the field working on industry and government projects, and have volunteered within the research community (as an active member of TRB Standing Committee on Bicycle Transportation, and as a reviewer for several academic journals).
Streets for people: Breaking barriers to successful urban pedestrianisation
Abstract Copy
Cities are central to global sustainability transitions, yet many remain car-centric. Addressing urban challenges such as air pollution, congestion, noise, climate vulnerability, and impacts on quality of life and safety requires moving away from car-centric approaches to design and governance. Pedestrianisation – reallocation of street space to prioritise pedestrians by restricting or removing motor vehicle access – offers environmental, social, health, and economic co-benefits. While many cities, particularly in Europe, are progressing rapidly towards fewer cars, UK cities are lagging behind, hindered by political, institutional, commercial, and logistical barriers.This paper investigates these barriers, and strategies that enable successful pedestrianisation schemes, through a systematic literature review of 36 peer-reviewed articles and 22 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in UK projects. The literature was analysed for barriers, facilitators, and strategies related to pedestrianisation, with recurring concepts identified and organised into six inductively derived themes. Interviewees were identified from those directly involved in pedestrianisation schemes in UK cities. In-depth interviews capture firsthand perspectives of councillors, council officers, and external delivery partners on the political priorities, resource constraints, commercial pressures, and community engagement practices that shape pedestrianisation outcomes.
Thematic analysis integrated findings under three domains: political will and leadership; institutional arrangements; and evidence base and practice. Within these themes, the interviews were compared with the literature to identify alignment, contradiction, and emergent findings.
Political will and public support proved critical. Interviewees consistently emphasised that opposition from residents, businesses, or vocal minorities can stall projects, but also that increased consultation, strong leadership, clear vision, and visible benefits can overcome resistance. Mistruths and misconceptions emerged as a more prominent challenge in interviews than in the literature, highlighting the need for more effective communication and visualisation tools, as well as a robust evidence base.
Barriers to pedestrianisation are a complex mix of political cycles, resource structures, and social perceptions. Strategies combining strong political leadership with adaptive management and inclusive communication appear most promising for overcoming barriers and accelerating delivery of pedestrianised urban areas. This research also reinforces and extends literature on the socio-political side of active travel policy. It highlights that successful pedestrianisation depends not only on design and funding but also on building trust, managing opposition, and communicating co-benefits.
This paper concludes that barriers are more often socio-political than technical, shaped by leadership cycles, resources, and public perceptions. It provides guidance for policymakers, planners, and advocates looking to expand pedestrianisation measures.
Learning Objectives
- Synthesising the literature on benefits of and barriers to implementing pedestrianisation schemes
- Understanding the perspectives of councillors, policy officers, and other key stakeholders and enablers of pedestrianisation
- Compiling recommendations for accelerating and ensuring success of future pedestrianisation projects
P74
The role of nature-based solutions in enabling climate resilience and climate justice in cities
Ashley Bateson
Head of Sustainability, Hoare Lea, United Kingdom
Ashley is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Environmentalist. As Head of Sustainability at Hoare Lea, he leads technical excellence in the sustainability consultancy service. Ashley has specific expertise in resource efficiency, resilience, decarbonisation, and how design impacts health and wellbeing. Ashley is a past Vice President of CIBSE and is active in the CIBSE Sustainability Group and sustainable cooling working group. He chairs the Buildings Services Engineers Declaration of the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency. He has contributed to publications, conferences and industry guidance for RIBA and the UK Green Building Council. Ashley is a registered industry specialist advisor for the UK Ministry for Housing and Local Government (MHCLG).
The role of nature-based solutions in enabling climate resilience and climate justice in cities
Abstract Copy
As climate change intensifies, cities face mounting pressures from extreme heat, flooding, biodiversity loss, and widening health inequalities. Nature-based solutions (NbS), such as urban parks, gardens, green roofs, permeable landscapes, and river restoration, are increasingly recognised as critical interventions for building climate resilient and equitable urban environments. This presentation examines how NbS can simultaneously strengthen climate resilience and advance climate justice, drawing on emerging evidence, international case studies, and lessons from urban planning practice.NbS enhance climate resilience by reducing multiple climate risks while providing co-benefits for health, wellbeing, and biodiversity. Urban greening strategies help moderate rising temperatures, mitigating urban heat island effects and reducing heat-related illness. Green corridors support ecological connectivity and flood mitigation. These interventions are often more adaptable and cost-effective than hard infrastructure alternatives. Yet their contribution extends beyond risk reduction: NbS can improve air quality, increase physical activity, enhance mental health, and create more liveable public spaces – making them a vital component of healthy, climate-prepared cities.
However, the distribution of these benefits is often uneven. Vulnerable communities, who are typically most exposed to climate hazards, frequently have the least access to high-quality green space and face risks of green gentrification when improvements occur without community involvement. Integrating climate justice principles into NbS planning is therefore essential. This includes participatory design processes, governance models that empower local communities, and equitable investment strategies that prioritise underserved areas. Such approaches ensure that NbS deliver not only environmental gains but also social and economic benefits that address long-standing disparities.
This presentation explores how cities can embed climate justice within NbS strategies, illustrating effective models from diverse contexts. It highlights examples where community-led greening, co-designed flood management, and nature-based retrofits have strengthened resilience while enhancing social equity. The analysis demonstrates that NbS can become powerful tools for urban transformation when integrated into holistic planning frameworks that align health, climate, and social objectives.
The presentation concludes with recommendations for policymakers, planners, and public health leaders on scaling NbS in ways that reinforce both climate resilience and justice. These include embedding health equity in NbS funding criteria, enhancing cross-sector governance, and developing metrics that capture social as well as environmental outcomes. Taken together, these insights underscore the potential of NbS to support healthier, fairer, and more climate adaptive cities.
Learning Objectives
- How nature can be used to increase climate resilience in cities
- How access to nature is linked to wellbeing and climate justice
- How nature can reduce health disparities in cities
P75
The first thing that is needed for a healthy city
Jack Skinner
Managing Director, Inspired Construction & Interiors, United Kingdom
The first thing that is needed for a healthy city
Abstract Copy
The first thing that is needed for a healthy city is for it to be realistic. It cannot be so expensive, with so much unusable space (from a economics perspective) that it would not be beneficial to make such a city. With that established, we can begin to explore certain areas.Taking inspiration from Copenhagen, one of – if not – the world’s most environmentally friendly cities in the world, major influence in its structure is the discouragement of powered transport – more specifically, cars. This could be taken to the next level, with a transport system being composed of small self-powered vehicles travelling short distances on small, roads, which is a benefit in that it reduces space that is used for a larger road, with those roads being made out of a bright coloured stone, preferably one that can be sourced from the area near the city, as this would reduce transport emissions. The bright colour of the roads would allow for more sunlight to be reflected off of the city, causing the city to stay at a more comfortable, and cooler temperature, as more light is reflected by a bright coloured material than a dark-coloured material. For the longer journeys across the city, where travelling by bike is not a viable option, there would be an underground system consisting of small maglev trains in depressurised tubes, allowing for extremely rapid transport across the city, with extremely low sound pollution and no local emissions.
The next, possibly more important, part is the layout of buildings and how transport links between them. What could be done is a more vertical city, with towers being the main building choice rather than smaller three- or four-storey buildings, allowing for a higher space-use efficiency, and for larger and more numerous green spaces across the city – in itself, a major environmental benefit. As always, efficiency or energy use would be the greatest contributor to a more positive impact, as less energy used means less energy needs to be sourced, or that the energy that would have previously been used for other tasks can now be sold, stored or used to positively impact the environment in the city. This, therefore, would mean that the aforementioned underground system would be quite sparse, with large areas between stops, to allow for an efficient, fast and clean transportation system for all.
Learning Objectives
P76
Reimagining urban nature: Mayfield Park and the role of living infrastructure in health-led city regeneration
Catherine Dixon
Marketing Manager , Landsec , United Kingdom
Catherine Dixon is a senior professional at Landsec with experience in large-scale regeneration and placemaking projects. Based in London, she works across complex urban developments, helping to shape projects that combine commercial, social and environmental value. She is particularly interested in the role of public space, landscape and community in creating successful places.
Reimagining urban nature: Mayfield Park and the role of living infrastructure in health-led city regeneration
Abstract Copy
As cities continue to densify, the integration of meaningful green infrastructure is increasingly critical to supporting public health, climate resilience and social wellbeing. Located in the heart of Manchester, Mayfield Park is the city’s first new public park in over a century and forms the centrepiece of a 24-acre regeneration project that places landscape at the core of urban development.This paper presents Mayfield Park as a practice-based case study in designing urban green space as essential civic infrastructure. Delivered through a public-private partnership, the project transforms a formerly industrial brownfield site into a biodiverse, accessible and socially active landscape that reconnects people with nature in a dense city centre context.
The design approach is grounded in three key principles: ecological restoration, social inclusivity, and long-term adaptability. Extensive habitat creation, including meadow planting, wetland edges and tree canopy establishment, supports urban biodiversity while improving air quality, mitigating heat and managing surface water. At the same time, the park prioritises accessibility and inclusivity through step-free routes, integrated play, and flexible social spaces that encourage year-round use by diverse communities.
A key innovation in the park is the integration of emerging technologies to support landscape management, including AI-enabled tree monitoring systems trialled through the relocation of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show’s Gold-medal winning Avanade Intelligent Garden. This enables real-time assessment of tree health and supports more responsive, preventive maintenance strategies – demonstrating how digital tools can enhance the performance and longevity of urban green infrastructure.
Since opening, Mayfield Park has become a vital new public space for Manchester, supporting physical activity, mental wellbeing and social connection, while acting as a catalyst for wider regeneration. The project illustrates how landscape-led development can deliver measurable health, environmental and economic benefits when embedded early in the planning process.
The findings highlight the importance of positioning green infrastructure, not as an afterthought but as a primary driver of urban regeneration. Mayfield Park offers a replicable model for cities seeking to create healthier, more resilient and more equitable urban environments through integrated landscape design.
Learning Objectives
- To explore how landscape-led regeneration can improve health, wellbeing and social connection in dense urban environments.
- To understand the role of biodiversity, tree planting and green infrastructure in creating more climate-resilient cities.
- To examine how emerging technologies, including AI-enabled tree monitoring, can support the long-term management and survival of urban green infrastructure.
P77
Landscape-led urbanism and its benefits for healthy cities
Andrew Tempany
Technical Director, Stephenson Halliday (An RSK Company), United Kingdom
Andrew Tempany FLI FRSA, Technical Director of Landscape Design at Stephenson Halliday, an RSK Company, is a specialist in strategic landscape thinking and nature-based and regenerative design approaches. In a career which has spanned twenty four years, he has worked on landscape projects at every scale. This ranges from landscape led planning and design for some of the UK’s largest infrastructure projects, to research projects, award winning landscape scale green and blue infrastructure strategies, tourism and visitor experience projects in outstanding designated landscapes and conservation design for nationally significant historic parks and designed landscapes. More recently he has developed interests in evaluation of the benefits of nature-based solutions to incentivise investment in them for resilient futures that deliver on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and in thought leadership to promote the regenerative design agenda for healthier, more equitable futures and in healthcare settings
Lynne Houlbrooke
Associate Director, Stephenson Halliday (An RSK Company), United Kingdom
Lynne Houlbrooke CMLI, Associate Director of Landscape Design at Stephenson Halliday, an RSK Company, is a specialist in landscape led masterplanning, design and delivery, advocating Nature-based approaches. With more than twenty years in the industry, Lynne is highly experienced in co-ordinating work for multifunctional environments to deliver sustainable and high-quality landscapes. She understands the vital role of health and wellbeing, communities and co-design, and the need for a regenerative approach within the current climate. With her creative mindset, she positively develops the strategic direction of projects to deliver landscape led visions for schemes and to integrate and connect humanistic environments with nature to promote and support health and wellbeing
Josh Cunningham
Landscape Assistant, Stephenson Halliday (An RSK Company), United Kingdom
Josh is an apprentice landscape architect at Stephenson Halliday. He holds a Masters of Research in Landscape Geography and is a former editor of Landscape, the Journal of the Landscape Institute.
Landscape-led urbanism and its benefits for healthy cities
Abstract Copy
By 2050 almost 70 per cent of the world’s population is projected to live in cities. With increasing urbanisation comes not only a host of problems in terms of health, quality of life and increasing disconnectedness from nature and the systems needed for our survival; it also creates an opportunity to recast the city from being part of the problem to part of the solution, through landscape-led urbanism and city planning. To do this, we need to position landscape not just as an aesthetic layer but as a primary framework for structuring and organising cities and regions.At the core of this shift is process-led systems thinking, and an understanding that urban, economic and social infrastructure are inherently linked. In these terms, both the system itself and the process of its coming into being are fundamental to health outcomes for people and planet.
Landscape provides a multifunctional, integrated and collaborative approach to urban planning, design and stewardship, founded in place and community, that creates resilient, healthy systems for the long term. It is the very framework that defines where and how we live and the quality of the lives we lead.
At a regional, river catchment scale, landscape planning sets the parameters of natural flood management and green-blue infrastructure networks, shaping land-use decisions that mutually enhance social, environmental and urban systems. At a human scale, landscape design channels the neuroaesthetics of perception, process and experience to inspire ‘micro-awe’ (per Lucy Jones) and delight in the everyday places we live our lives. Across all scales, digital technologies offer increasing opportunities for integration, from assessment to ongoing management and care, while dovetailing with human creativity and connection at every stage of the process.
This thinking is essential to our practice: At an urban nature reserve close to London (details public by conference), natural resource modelling combines with public engagement and accessibility design to transform the connection between nature, people and place. At Kodak Aperture Works, closed-loop urban greening interventions enmesh natural systems into residential life, supporting microclimate regulation and community wellbeing.
Throughout, landscape provides a process-led framework for realising multifunctional, meaningful environments that deliver health outcomes alongside a range of socio-ecological benefits. Through integrated, collaborative working and by considering landscape as a system, we have an incredible opportunity to transform cities into solutions for mental and physical health, rather than the problems that they could otherwise turn out to be.
Learning Objectives
- Systems Thinking
- City Resilience
- Benefits of Landscape Led Approaches
P78
Transforming deserted urban areas into healthier public parks: A collaborative approach in historic Cairo
Tarek Elsheikh
Director, Housing and Building National Research Center, Egypt
Prof. Dr. Tarek El-Sheikh
Director, The Urban Training and Studies Institute -UTI – National Housing and Building Research Center-HBRC
Dr. Tarek El-Sheikh has 33 years of experience in Policies and Strategies of Urban Development formulation, training, advisory services and projects implementation in Various Arab States (Jordan, Iraq, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia). Dr. El-Sheikh gained his Ph.D. in Planning in 2004 from Cairo University after research studies in University of Karlsruhe, Germany and master’s degree in development administration and planning with Commendation from University of Bristol in 1996 and master’s degree in architecture engineering from Cairo University in 1994.
Dr. El-Sheikh is currently The Director of the Urban Institute for Training and Studies and was before that The United Nations Secretary General Representative Resident Coordinator to the State of Kuwait, before, he was Resident Representative of UNDP and United Nations Resident Coordinator to the State of Kuwait (2018), He was the former Director of Future Saudi Cities Program for two years (2014-2017) in Riyadh KSA. Acting Regional Director for Arab States of UN Habitat (2013-2014), Cairo. The Director of the Sub-Regional Office for Gulf States of UN Habitat in Kuwait (2009-2013). He was the Housing Sector Lead in the UN Country Team of Iraq (2007-2009). He joined the United Nations as Capacity Building Expert at UN Habitat Jordan (2004-2007). Prior to Joining the UN, he worked as Associate Professor at the Housing and Building Research Center in Cairo Egypt.
Dina Mahmoud
Technical Coordinator, Housing and Building National Research Center, Egypt
Dr. Dina Mahmoud is the Technical Coorinator For Programmes and Advisory Projects at the Urban Training and Studies Institute. She has been envolved in supervising the review teams of the Institute of mega projects in Egypt. Parks, Mega Malls, gated communities, high rise business districts, the Parliment of Egypt, etc. She is also envolved in the technical committee for the firefighting and preparation of the codes updates. She has been working Assistant Lecturer in Shorouk Academy in Egypt (2007-2011) and joined UTI (2013). She holds Ph.D. (2025) Matariya, Helwan University in Urban Sustainability and quality of life.; Msc. (2015) Mtariya, Helwan University with the focus on Housing; Bsc. Architecture Engineeering (2007) Matariya, Hilwan University.
Transforming deserted urban areas into healthier public parks: A collaborative approach in historic Cairo
Abstract Copy
This research investigates the strategic transformation of deserted urban zones into public parks in Cairo’s high-density context, focusing on Al-Azhar Park and Al-Fustat Hills Park. Utilising an interdisciplinary mixed-methods approach, the study evaluates how collaborative, bottom-up strategies and community engagement facilitate the reclamation of 500-year-old landfills and informal settlements. The methodology integrates the "Sustainable Pathways" framework, which prioritises green orientation, pedestrian tracks, and integrated movement corridors.Findings demonstrate that these "green lungs" are vital for healthy city design, acting as catalysts for environmental resilience by reducing mean radiant temperatures by up to 28 K. Beyond climate mitigation, the research highlights the profound community impact and social value of these spaces. By weaving heritage restoration, such as the Ayyubid Wall, into modern recreational design, these interventions foster social justice and placemaking. This approach specifically empowers marginalised groups, including women and children, by establishing physical "safety determinants" that encourage the appropriation of public space.
Furthermore, the study explores how sustainable infrastructure can be maintained through a creative investment model where park-generated revenue supports maintenance and local community socio-economic gains, ensuring long-term social and environmental vitality. Ultimately, the research positions public parks as evidence-based tools for achieving Egypt Vision 2030, transforming neglected areas into healthy, connected, and socially cohesive urban nodes building on the tourism economy of cultural heritage sites and associated cultural centres and advancing climate action for healthier environment.
Learning Objectives
- ● Evaluate how green orientation and integrated pedestrian tracks contribute to sustainable mobility and healthier urban movement networks.
- ● Analyze the social value of participatory design in creating safe, inclusive public spaces for women and children in dense historic districts.
- ● Assess nature-based planning strategies that mitigate the Urban Heat Island effect to improve public health and environmental resilience.
P79
From concrete to calmness: Integrating biophilic urbanism in densely populated cities for health and wellbeing
Sujata Govada
Founding Director, Institute for Sustainable Urbanisation, Hong Kong
Dr. Sujata S. Govada is an award-winning, qualified urban designer, certified urban planner and registered architect in India with over 35 years of experience having worked on a diverse range of projects in Hong Kong, US, Philippines, India and the region. She is the CEO and Managing Director of UDP International, an award winning global boutique practice based in Hong Kong since 1994. UDP International has won 16 major planning and design awards including Central Harbourfront Master Plan, Graham Street Urban Regeneration Alternate Proposal, Harbourfront Connectivity Study in Hong Kong, the Clark Green City Master Plan in the Philippines, Naya Dharavi Master Plan and IT Master Plan in India. UDP International is Innovative by Design leveraging award- winning smart and sustainable design and planning using a collaborative place-making approach with a focus on People, Place and Planet. Some of her recent and current projects include the ADB Metro Rail TOD Project in Bengaluru and Urban Design and Architectural Guidelines for Amaravati in India; Smart Cultural Precinct @ Central, Kai Tak Sports Park and several Planning Projects in Hong Kong; large waterfront master planning, campus planning, tourism and mixed use development projects in the Philippines and a Balanced land use plan for a Marina District in the US.
Dr. Govada is the Founding Director of the Institute for Sustainable Urbanisation (ISU) which she set up in 2014 in Hong Kong. She has undertaken Smart City Research leading to the Hong Kong sections in Springer publications “Smart City Smart Economy” (2016), “E- Democracy” (2017), “Smart Metropolitan Region” (2018), “Smart Environment for Smart Cities” (2019), “Smart Living for Smart Cities (2020) and Smart Mega Cities” (2021). ISU has also undertaken local initiatives such as the Smart Cultural Precinct (SCP) engaging the local community with a vision to develop a walkable Cultural Precinct in Central in Hong Kong. Over the last two years Dr. Govada has been involved with RHEA International Workshops and was instrumental in getting universities in Hong Kong, India and the US to participate as well. She has gained a reputation as a thought leader in shaping smart, sustainable, resilient, liveable and walkable communities and cities around the world.
Dr. Govada was an Adjunct Faculty at the Department of Urban Planning and Design, the Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong (HKU); the School of Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK); and the Urban Design & Regional Planning Program at City University of Hong Kong. Dr. Govada taught courses and studios as part of the master’s program in Urban Design at CUHK that she also helped to start. She also taught several Urban Design, Placemaking, Physical and Transport Planning courses, Urban Design studios and Planning workshops including thesis supervision in the Urban Design and Urban Planning Programs at HKU. She is a Global Trustee of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and the 2015 President of the Hong Kong Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA Hong Kong). She is the Founding Vice President of the Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design (HKIUD), which she was primarily responsible for setting it up in 2010. Dr. Govada was also a former representative of the Harbourfront Commission in Hong Kong working towards the enhancement the Hong Kong harboufront. Dr. Govada was also an advisor for World Bank on their Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Study focused on design, planning, development, implementation and scaling up of TOD based developments around the world.
Bethany Ma
Research Associate, Institute for Sustainable Urbanisation, Hong Kong
Bethany is a Research Associate and Planning and Development Assistant with experience in management reporting, business intelligence and strategic analysis. Her work bridges data analytics and academic research, focusing on integrating sustainability principles into urban planning and development practices.
Passionate about multidisciplinary learning, Bethany’s research explores emerging themes such as climate change and urban resilience, neurourbanism, affordable housing and public–private partnerships. She is deeply interested in how ecological science, urban history, socio-economic dynamics and technology intersect to shape more sustainable and equitable cities. Outside her research, she is an active volunteer advocating for poverty alleviation and environmental awareness.
As a freelance graphic designer and writer, Bethany sees creativity and communication as key drivers for social and environmental change. Her pursuit of academia stems from a desire to merge critical thinking, aesthetic sensitivity and data-driven insight - using creative and analytical approaches to advance sustainable urban planning. She holds a BBA in Management (CSR & Sustainability) and Accounting, and an MSc in Environmental Science and Management, both from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
From concrete to calmness: Integrating biophilic urbanism in densely populated cities for health and wellbeing
Abstract Copy
Amid growing concerns about health and wellbeing in densely populated cities, the adoption of biophilic design has gained momentum among practitioners and academics worldwide. Nature-based solutions and the accessibility of blue-green infrastructure have emerged as crucial pillars of healthy urban living and sustainable development. It is therefore imperative to explore the underlying mechanisms and strategic opportunities for implementing biophilic urbanism principles to enhance citizens’ physical and mental wellbeing. Adopting a literature review methodology, this study consolidates research from biophilic design and planning, environmental health and urban morphology through comparative synthesis. Through an interdisciplinary lens, it examines how both the aesthetic and ecological integration of natural landscapes into the urban fabric can alleviate stress and promote wellbeing in high-density environments.Focusing on the core elements of biophilic urbanism, such as rural–urban integration and nature-based solutions, the paper analyses how urban density, architectural form and planning influence human health. Using Hong Kong’s Harbour Metropolis and Northern Metropolis as key illustrative cases, the research highlights a strategic shift toward biophilic paradigms. The Harbour Metropolis showcases the revitalisation of waterfronts as restorative blue corridors within a compact urban core; while the Northern Metropolis exemplifies a “landscape-led” approach to rural-urban integration, where wetlands and agricultural land are woven into emerging urban form. The reviewed literature suggests that such rhythmic and spatial complexity in public realms yields measurable improvements in psychological restoration, social empathy and environmental awareness.
Integrating these insights, the paper argues that these metropolitan areas, with their proximity to waterfronts, urban parks and country parks, can function as sanctuaries that mitigate the “grey-space” stressors of dense urban living. Accessibility – redefined through pedestrian permeability, transit-oriented development and the 15-minute city framework – emerges as the key determinant of cumulative health benefits. Through this synthesis, the review identifies guiding principles for evidence-based urban planning: prioritising nature integration and equitable connectivity to enhance the collective value of shared spaces.
Ultimately, the study underscores that fostering restorative neighbourhoods requires recognising nature as both environmental and psychological infrastructure that can harness substantial social benefits. By emphasising the principles of biophilic urbanism, it advances a holistic model for how thoughtfully designed, permeable natural landscapes can nurture health, resilience and wellbeing in rapidly urbanising societies.
Learning Objectives
- To examine the role of biophilic urban design and planning in creating healthier, more resilient and sustainable urban environments.
- To analyze Hong Kong’s Harbour Metropolis and Northern Metropolis as illustrative cases that demonstrate how blue-green infrastructure, nature-based solutions and rural–urban integration can promote health and well-being.
- To identify evidence-based planning principles that advance biophilic urbanism as a framework for restorative and sustainable city development.
