Christopher T. Boyko

Design for Health: The Relationship Between Design and Noncommunicable Diseases

The authors explore the relationship between design and noncommunicable diseases, first by highlighting how design knowledge and practice can have a direct and indirect effect on these diseases. They then review the literature on the link between the physical environment (e.g., dwellings, the neighborhood, cities) and noncommunicable diseases. Last, they illustrate the links between design and noncommunicable diseases by exploring in greater detail how designers and the design of the urban environment can play a positive role in the reduction of noncommunicable diseases.

How to design a city in five easy steps: exploring VivaCity2020’s process and tools for urban design decision making?

Urban designers and planners are increasingly being asked to create and maintain communities that are more socially, economically and environmentally sustainable. In the UK, numerous reports and policy documents have been published, outlining the relationship between sustainability and urban design. To achieve these high expectations, some decision makers have been exploring how buildings and open spaces develop from an idea to finished project and beyond. Knowing who is making decisions, what decision‐making tools are used and whether or not sustainability is considered can help those involved in the urban design process to understand the complexities and trade‐offs about incorporating sustainability into urban design projects. This paper begins by discussing our current understanding about the urban design process. Research conducted as part of the VivaCity2020 project is presented next, highlighting case studies from three major UK cities and what has been learned from understanding urban design processes in practice. The sets of processes are then compared, illustrating that decision makers, the tools and sustainability are not often consistently considered. To this end, a revised urban design process is shown together with a suite of tools, all of which decision makers can utilize and follow to create more sustainable urban design projects.

In Spite of Our "Own" Best Interests: Lessons from an Interdisciplinary Project on Urban Sustainability.

To contribute effectively to academic discourse on urban sustainability, disciplines need to think outside their silos and work together more collaboratively. Although straightforward to posit in theory, the practical realities of bringing together people with different worldviews, languages and skills can be frustrating and lead to loss of motivation. This paper presents the findings from a qualitative study of interdisciplinary team working on an urban sustainability project. Through analysis of archival materials, observations and interviews, a major theme of motivation was uncovered and explored. We conclude with some suggestions for working more effectively interdisciplinary, urban sustainability projects.

Dataset of the livability performance of the City of Birmingham, UK, as measured by its citizen wellbeing, resource security, resource efficiency and carbon emissions

This data article presents the UK City LIFE1 data set for the city of Birmingham, UK. UK City LIFE1 is a new, comprehensive and holistic method for measuring the livable sustainability performance of UK cities. The Birmingham data set comprises 346 indicators structured simultaneously (1) within a four-tier, outcome-based framework in order to aid in their interpretation (e.g., promote healthy living and healthy long lives, minimize energy use, uncouple economic vitality from CO2 emissions) and (2) thematically in order to complement government and disciplinary siloes (e.g., health, energy, economy, climate change). Birmingham data for the indicators are presented within an Excel spreadsheet with their type, units, geographic area, year, source, link to secondary data files, data collection method, data availability and any relevant calculations and notes. This paper provides a detailed description of UK city LIFE1 in order to enable comparable data sets to be produced for other UK cities. The Birmingham data set is made publically available at http://epapers.bham.ac.uk/3040/ to facilitate this and to enable further analyses. The UK City LIFE1 Birmingham data set has been used to understand what is known and what is not known about the livable sustainability performance of the city and to inform how Birmingham City Council can take action now to improve its understanding and its performance into the future (see “Improving city-scale measures of livable sustainability: A study of urban measurement and assessment through application to the city of Birmingham, UK” Leach et al. [2]).

Envisioning urban futures : from narratives to composites

Abstract Design (and design research) have a rich history of developing ways of making possible futures visible and tangible through prototypes, models, scenarios, or visualisations. Less common are platforms that gather multiple perspectives in the same space about possible futures. Thinking about diverse, rather than alternative, futures is particularly relevant in the context of cities. This paper suggests an alternative way of developing future visions for cities, moving away from coherent narratives to more pluralistic composites. Using the Liveable Cities project as a mechanism for exploration, it reflects on how participatory design methods and information visualisation techniques can engage participants in developing visions of urban futures. The paper will describe the details of the approach. It will present a summary of the findings as well as a discussion on the methods, which will include challenges and shortcomings.