Professor Pete Walker, Director of the research Centre for Innovative Construction Materials at University of Bath and Principal Investigator & Co-Director of the Transforming Homes project shares his thoughts and reflections, at the mid way point of the project.
Over the past 40 years I have had the opportunity to participate in, and sometimes lead, several multi-partner research projects. My motivations to do so are largely unchanged: working on interesting and challenging research; making a positive impact; and collaborating with talented and motivated colleagues. Transforming Homes is the most multidisciplinary team I have worked with to date. No surprises that addressing the challenge of transforming housing and homes for future generations is only possible with a multidisciplinary approach, though this of course brings some its own challenges.
On 30th September 2024, one-year since the Transforming Homes Green Transition Ecosystems project started, it was tempting to think “Wow! where have the past 12 months gone?” However, it is perhaps a little too easy to overlook some of our important achievements. Once the official ‘paperwork’ was finally signed off late last year, we recruited an inspiring team of 11 early career research associates across the four GW4 partner universities (Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter), with our research work beginning in earnest from January this year. Working successfully with our partners, residents, and community members in Bristol and Swansea, developing design briefs, is amongst our most notable achievements over the past year. Surveys, performance testing and continuous monitoring, combined with interviews and design workshops, have all impacted the residents of our demonstrator homes; we are extremely grateful for their ongoing cooperation in our research. Our original ambition can now be extended through additional leveraged funding we have secured over the past year.
In April this year, we issued our first monthly newsletter, and with our new website launching later this month, we will start to circulate the newsletter externally. Building our new multidisciplinary team has been greatly strengthened through our regular online huddle meetings, which have included presentations on design research, skills and training, retrofitting research, and public engagement. Our engagement has also included wider work with the Future Observatory (including training activities), the Design Museum and the other Green Transition Ecosystems.
Other achievements to date include: a state-of-the-art technical and policy review; mapping interwar (1920-1940) housing in England and Wales; engaging with a wide range of professional stakeholders in Bristol and Swansea; and information gathering on retrofit skills and training, including an online workshop, and a questionnaire for professional bodies.
Getting to know and working with colleagues, old and new, has been a real pleasure: I thank you all for your hard work, especially Jo Patterson. Whilst we have achieved much in our first year, a great deal remains to be completed over the coming 12 months. Not least amongst these is delivery of the demonstrator home projects in Bristol and Swansea. In our second year we also seek to widen our dissemination activities with webinars and presentations, conduct design charrettes in other interwar estate communities, complete prototype performance tests and modelling, hold further engagement work with residents, communities and professional stakeholders, and undertake further skills and training work.
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This article was initially posted in the Transforming Homes newsletter.
