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UCL awarded RAEng Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Building Design
23 July 2013
UCL has been awarded one of four Centres of Excellence in Sustainable Building Design, in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Engineering. The new centres will form a national network to demonstrate and exchange best practice in teaching and research for a more sustainable built environment.
The rationale for improving teaching and research in this area comes from an Academy report published last year, The Case for Centres of Excellence in Sustainable Building Design.
The primary aim for the centres at UCL, Heriot-Watt University, Loughborough University and the University of Sheffield, is to enhance the curriculum for undergraduate engineering students, enabling them to experience interdisciplinary, collaborative problem solving to help them unlock their potential for innovation. The centres will also help to provide continuing professional development to engineers already working in the construction industry.
The UCL centre will be a joint centre between two faculties, The Bartlett and UCL Engineering, with Professor Paul Ruyssevelt (UCL-Energy), Dr Ben Croxford (BSGS), Oliver Wilton (BSA) representing The Bartlett, along with CIBSE and RAEng Visiting Professor Jake Hacker from Arup who is currently based at UCL-Energy, and Dr Liora Malki-Epshtein and Professor Chris Wise representing Engineering.
The universities will work closely with the construction industry to develop their engineering and architectural design courses to continue to be as relevant as possible to the work students can expect to do when they graduate. Visiting Professors from industry are a key part of this approach and will be heavily involved in developing the new centres of excellence.