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We provide support to particular communities, encourage our staff to share knowledge, expertise and experiences, and bring together the local community, local agencies and academics.
Some of the ways we have done this are:
- Ventilation and thermal comfort for residents
- Moisture in new homes: a guide for occupants
- Somers Town Air Quality
- Care Home Overheating Audit Pilot Project
- Roundtable: Toilet talk
- The Coronavirus Quieted City Noise. Listen to What’s Left
The problem: Upcoming High Speed 2 (HS2) rail works will have impacts for Londoners, with major construction works potentially negatively affecting noise and air pollution levels in residential areas.
Our solution: As part of the Engineering Exchange, Dr Esfandiar Burman has been working with residents of effected buildings, supporting their negotiation with HS2 contractors and providing technical advice on what needs to be done to address the potential risks. Over the summer, residents undertook temperature measurements using a citizen science approach to build up a picture of temperature patterns during heat waves.
Moisture in new homes: a guide for occupants
The UK Centre for Moisture in Buildings (UKCMB) has a guide for new home occupants (supported by NHBC Foundation) that explains where moisture comes from and identifies actions you can take to maintain the right moisture balance in your home.
This is also supported by a Moisture Balance Calculator which allows users to assess whether their homes are healthy which is increasingly important as we are spending more and more time in our homes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Working with a community in Camden to act upon concerns about air quality from construction works. Generating recommendations to inform a community contribution to the planning of further work.
The Somers Town Neighbourhood Forum (STNF) worked with the Engineering Exchange at UCL (founded by IEDE Professor Sarah Bell) to engage community residents in the design and decision making for recommendations to reduce harmful impacts.
Care Home Overheating Audit Pilot Project
A team from UCL IEDE have worked with Oxford Brookes on five London care homes fro the elderly to investigate concerns about the impact of hot summers on older people.
This work, instigated by the Mayor of London, provides simple recommendations so that care homes for the elderly can pland for increasing temperature.
Roundtable: Toilet talk
Professor of Environmental Engineering, Sarah Bell talks to Julian Morrow on Sunday Extra about the design of our sewage system and how this has a huge environmental impact. Would this system be designed differently today? How would it be designed to cope with increasing population and the environmental emergency?
Professor Jian Kang and his team have been measuring sound in Central London locations before and after lockdown. Their data shows that places in London usually buzzing with sound like Euston Station and St Pauls are decibels quieter.
Additionally, Professor Kang and his team have won funding from CIBSE to investigate Home as a place of rest and work: the ideal indoor soundscape during the COVID-19 pandemic (and beyond).