Academics continue with circular design research

Posted on April 21, 2020 by Gus Sylvester

Nick Gant

Nick Gant, Principal Lecturer in the School of Architecture and Design, has been using technology to continue with a co-learning research consultancy project with creative leaders across 10 African countries. The Circular Design Lab project, commissioned by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the British Council, is continuing by way of open mapping and community connection software on the creative agency Community21. It has been exploring remote community networking across ‘multi-local’ communities for 10 years.

Nick, founder of the creative agency Community21, said:

“As the crisis has unfolded our methods have not changed, whilst access to materials and interactions on the ground in the different countries have changed radically.

During April, I am communicating with networks in Nigeria and Sierra Leone to exchange experiences of the virus’ impact to grassroots sustainable development there.

And last week we were given access to recent images of a project in South Africa where our students and staff have been remotely co-learning how to transform waste into new opportunities for social cohesions, education and cultural engagement, as well as economic opportunities, over the last four years.”

Nick’s colleague Stefano Santilli in the School of Art presented this work, co-developed with Dr Ryan Woodard, last month at Making Futures Conference in the Philippines. His trip was funded by the British Council and he made it back the day before the lockdown.

“We are feeding these findings back through a range of research fora – but our students (on 3D, MA Sustainable Design and Product Design) are benefiting from these ‘live’ projects that explore remote knowledge nets for productive communities of practice too.

We are planning a new open project for students across the school next year which will link students to this network which will enable the testing of remote knowledge exchange to the network including 50 schools across Malawi and Mozambique.”

The COVID-19 induced tourism crisis

Posted on April 9, 2020 by Gus Sylvester

Professor Marina Novelli was invited to comment on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global tourism sector and next steps required to return to some level of normality on 3news radio live in Ghana.

Featuring on Travel Pass with Francis Doku, Professor Novelli gave her expert opinion on the likely implications, scenarios and key considerations for recovery. She reminded listeners that everyone must play their part by observing the social distancing restrictions and staying at home during the lockdown. Decisions to close borders are essential, and although inconvenient, one must remember that:

“This is not a tourism crisis, this is a humanity crisis and we should prioritise health over wealth.”

Professor Novelli acknowledged the difficulty of implementing restrictions, particularly in poorer areas where sanitation and access to water is not readily available. She highlighted the need for a multi-agency taskforce, including ministries, the private sector and third sector organisations, to collaboratively identify specific priorities and urged governments to ring-fence emergency funding to enable coordinated actions.

Although all current quantification of the problem is merely speculative, researchers are looking at ways to stimulate recovery in the short, medium and long-term spanning from six months to two years from the end of the pandemic. Professor Novelli highlighted the primary importance of containing the pandemic and also managing perceptions by responding quickly and implementing directives from the World Health Organization, and by maintaining the presence of destinations in the market place and consumer confidence in destinations’ health and safety. She referenced lessons learned following the Ebola outbreak where countries untouched by the epidemic nevertheless suffered dramatic decreases in tourist numbers – and the need to be prepared for this happening again, at a much larger scale, and taking far longer to return to previous levels.

In addition, Professor Novelli pointed out that the impact on the tourism sector would be far-reaching. For instance, there are studies which indicate that in destinations in developing countries, for every person in direct employment in tourism, there are on average seven who are dependent upon them; any impact assessment should consider this as well as individuals operating in the informal sector, who are often overlooked.

In her concluding remarks, Professor Novelli stressed the importance of the sustainability agenda and about the importance of looking at ways to preserve the resources, both built and natural, which are normally supported through revenues generated from tourism. She pointed out that it will be crucial to mitigate any adverse impact or risk losing the very assets that will attract future tourists.

The global lockdown provides us with an opportunity to rethink tourism. As an Affiliate Member of the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the University of Brighton and Professor Novelli’s message is in line with the UNWTO recommendation to #stayhometoday and #traveltomorrow.

For UNWTO information on COVID-19 and tourism, please visit the UNWTO website.

Listen to Professor Novelli’s full interview on 3news via soundcloud

Putting the circular economy on the map

Posted on January 29, 2020 by Gus Sylvester

In January, Duncan Baker, Senior Lecturer, was featured in the Guardian’s article which discusses the current state of the construction industry which is creating huge CO2 emissions. What if new buildings had to be adapted and reused or built only with materials already available? The article discusses how mindsets are shifting.

Duncan Baker-Brown

While much of mainland Europe is well on the way to reimagining buildings as “urban mines” of potential, the UK is slowly beginning to catch up. Architect Duncan Baker-Brown, who published the Re-Use Atlas in 2017, says the subject has gone from being a niche pursuit to something being discussed at high level in the last year. He says:

“Since Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion, the industry is starting to wake up. National legislation is still way behind, but a lot of local authorities are getting on with it anyway.”

He has been working with Brighton and Hove City Council to instil circular principles into the way local procurement works, and will be running an architectural summer school looking at how waste streams can be harvested from one of the council’s demolition sites and reused.

In addition, as part of the Futurebuild Steering Group, Duncan has helped form the 2020 knowledge programme for this international event in March, aimed at eliminating waste in the construction industry. Find out more about this event and Duncan’s contribution to the debate about making the transition to a zero carbon world by visiting the Futurebuild website.

Responsible Futures WasteZone at EcoBuild

Posted on April 24, 2018 by Research Communications

We live in very interesting times that present many new and emerging challenges that seem to appear on a daily basis. The fact that humankind is having a profound impact on the natural world is not in question. However whether or not we can actually do something to change the negative impact we have on Planet Earth into a positive coexistence is a question that many people are considering but quite understandably quite difficult to solve.

The University of Brighton’s Responsible Futures WasteZone will help you navigate a route away from our current take, make, throw away society towards intelligent closed loop systems where waste is seen as food for either an organic natural ‘bio-sphere’ or the humanmade ‘tech-sphere’.

The WasteZone is a temporary place dedicated to the discussion of the issues & huge potentials of seeing waste as a valuable resource, not a problem. Come and hear talks by experts from worlds as diverse as resource management, cutting-edge design & architecture, politics, product and systems design, as well as a new generation of forward thinking suppliers, urban miners, up-cyclers, hackers and material bankers.

The WasteZone discussions will be supported by an inspirational exhibition of the products, materials and buildings, as well as new digital platforms and films, which are enabling an emergent circular economy and proving “that there is no such thing as waste, just stuff in the wrong place”.

The WasteZone is curated by architect, academic and environmental activist Duncan Baker-Brown famous for constructing Europe’s first permanent building constructed from over 90% material thrown away by others. Known as The Brighton Waste House this project inspired Baker-Brown to write a book published in 2017 entitled ‘The Re- Use Atlas: a designer’s guide towards a circular economy’. Many of the inspiring case studies from this book will be on display in The WasteZone.