Smart Construction and Impact Assessment (SC&IA)

Contact: ekurul@brookes.ac.uk +44 (0)1865484322

About us

The SC&IA research group undertakes fundamental and applied research, and engages in knowledge exchange activities with an emphasis on dealing with global challenges and the climate emergency. The pedagogic implications of these challenges for the built environment disciplines is another strong theme.

Our activities cover a wide range of specialist and interdisciplinary areas, including:

environmental impact assessment
resilience and adaptive capacity of urban environments
digitalisation and digital technologies
retrofit and refurbishment
distributed and renewable energy systems

Our aim is to provide the industry and policy makers with innovative decision-making tools and solutions for planning, procuring and delivering infrastructure and building projects and services that maximise economic, social and environmental benefits to society. The group has a wealth of expertise in assessing these impacts and benefits for ensuring there is equity and quality of life.

City skyline at night

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Related courses

Research impact

Our experts on environmental impact assessment have pioneered research on the local socio-economic impacts of major power station projects. Resultant insights have included:

increasing focus on socio-economic impacts in the assessments of such projects
use of associated planning techniques and mitigation measures
use of the research by a wide range of stakeholders, including developers, local communities, local authorities and various agencies (e.g. health, education, etc).

Our group leader, Esra Kurul, was one of the co-authors of the working paper on climate change education published by the COP26 Network.

A study led by Professor John Glasson provided a unique insight into the actual local impacts of the early construction years of the Hinkley Point C Project, currently one of the largest construction projects in Europe.

Leadership

Professor Esra Kurul

Professor of Sustainability Transitions in the Built Environment

View profile for Esra Kurul

Membership

Staff

Name	Role	Email
Dr Adeyemi Akintola	Senior Lecturer in Quantity Surveying and Commercial Management	aakintola@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Omar Amoudi	Senior Lecturer in Construction Project Management	oamoudi@brookes.ac.uk
Dr George Blumberg	Senior Lecturer in Built Environment	gblumberg@brookes.ac.uk
Professor Martin Broderick	Visiting Professor & Examining Inspector for National Infrastructure Projects, Planning Inspectorate	mbroderick@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Bridget Durning	Reader in Environmental Assessment & Management	bdurning@brookes.ac.uk
Professor John Glasson	Professor Emeritus in Planning and Impact Assessment	jglasson@brookes.ac.uk
Mr Max Muncaster	Senior Lecturer in Building Services	mmuncaster@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Husein Perez	Research Fellow in Construction Informatics	hperez@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Adrian Robinson	Senior Lecturer in Construction Technology	arobinson@brookes.ac.uk
Professor Joe Tah	Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research and Innovation	jtah@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Graham Wood	Associate Professor in Environmental Planning and Spatial Analysis	gjwood@brookes.ac.uk

Projects

Project title and description	Investigator(s)	Funder(s)	Dates
BIM-Based End-of-Life Planning for Temporary Modular Buildings Funded by the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The Hong Kong government is developing modular social housing to help vulnerable individuals and households transition into long-term housing. Temporary modular buildings (TMBs) are vital for urgent needs like social housing but often create significant waste at the end of their lives. This study aims to find a more sustainable solution by exploring and evaluating the deconstruction of these buildings for reuse and recycling. The research will develop a new evaluation method to assess the economic and environmental benefits of TMB deconstruction, using a statistical model to identify the most influential factors. The project will also create a unique BIM (Building Information Modelling) plug-in to provide a quick and easy tool for assessing sustainability. The results will give planners and project teams the necessary information to make more sustainable end-of-life decisions for these structures.	Dr Jackie Yang	RGCHK	From: January 2023 Until: December 2025

Project title and description	Investigator(s)	Funder(s)	Dates
The Effect of Offshore Wind on the Human Environment (THEOW) Study into the socio-economic impacts of offshore wind on the human environment.	Dr Bridget Durning	EOWDC	From: April 2017 Until: August 2020
Hinkley Point C (HPC) Construction: Monitoring and Auditing Study A study of the strategic effects of the construction of the Hinkley Point C Nuclear Power Station and other Nuclear New Build (NNB) over time.	Dr Bridget Durning	NNLAG	From: November 2018 Until: July 2019
Innovative learning platform for Energy Retrofit (C-mapER) The project focuses on the development of an advanced educational approach founded substantially on a novel application of cognitive maps and meaningful learning activities in designing technological solutions for energy retrofit.	Professor Esra Kurul	European Commission	From: September 2017 Until: September 2019
Envisioning BasES (Buildings-as-Energy-Service) The main aim of the Envisioning BasES project is to develop a toolkit for knowledge integration. The toolkit will envisage buildings as components of future Distributed Renewable and Interactive Energy Systems (DRIs).	Professor Esra Kurul	N+	From: February 2020 Until: July 2020
InClimate: Integrating climate resilience in EU higher education Most countries in the EU are dealing with climate risk management issues but lack a holistic and common approach to resilience. This topic has become one of the priorities of the Erasmus Programme. The InClimate project addresses this by focusing on urban resilience.	Professor Esra Kurul	European Commission	From: October 2020 Until: September 2022
Education for a Sustainable and Resilient Future (E4SRF) The project was led by TED University (TEDU), Turkey. TEDU and Oxford Brookes University (OBU) worked together to develop innovative teaching and learning practices for higher education based on the “Education for Sustainable Development” (ESD) theme. The project: Initiated a digitally enhanced course redesign process aimed to integrate SDGs into existing courses/modules or designed new interdisciplinary courses/modules. Formed a ESD Learning Community composed of a project team and faculty members from TEDU and OBU who redesigned their courses and trained other faculty members on teaching for sustainability. Used innovative teaching methods (poster fairs, interdisciplinary collaborative project, learning communities, service learning, use of an OBU faculty as an online guest speaker). Initiated effective integration of SDGs into curricula in Turkish higher education. One of the key outputs was an e-book outlining the process.	Professor Rajat Gupta, Professor Esra Kurul	British Council Turkey	From: October 2022 Until: October 2024