Architecture and built environment research

The School of Architecture and Built Environment research aims to create new knowledge for an agile, adaptive and responsive built environment. Drawing on the potential of human-centred design, construction and technology, our researchers recognise the need to develop new ways of approaching problems in our highly interconnected and complex world.

Interested in research-level study?

Our researchers explore the role of architects and built environment professionals in shaping the future at a time when digital technology and innovations are disrupting the ways we think, live, work and do business. We also look at ways of adapting the sector's methods of approaching problems, to make an impactful contribution to a socially, economically and environmentally viable future.

Need a supervisor? We can help you find someone suitable across our mix of disciplines and research themes of architecture, planning, urban design, landscape architecture and construction management.

Find out more about becoming a research student with us

Our design framework

Embracing industry-driven, practice-based, and applied research, we have developed a transformative research framework – the Integral Design Framework (IDF) – to identify where we can effectively create impact.

The four areas of impact for the architecture, engineering and construction sector that we have identified for improvement through our research include the following.

IDF Graphic

  1. Products and processes: analysing and improving performance (e.g. around products such as buildings).

  2. People and end-users: improving user experiences through new interactions between people, information, buildings, spaces, and technology.

  3. Society and culture: developing new policies and practices to improve how society and culture operate.

  4. Economy and ecology: developing new services and business models that work within current economic and ecological contexts.

Our researchers also explore the interdependencies across these four areas, with our knowledge and research output often living at the intersection of these ideas.

Research laboratories

Live+Smart Research Lab

The Live+Smart Research Lab is a multidisciplinary research hub that focuses on applied research for a rapidly urbanised world. The vision of the lab is to deliver applied research and concepts that are grounded in achieving healthy, sustainable, adaptive, and resilient outcomes for the future. We leverage impactful research in biophilia and biophilic design, integral whole-systems thinking, regenerative-adaptive design, and scenario planning to make this goal a reality

Learn more about the Live+Smart Research Lab

MInD Lab

The MInD (Mediated Intelligence in Design) Lab is a practice-based and trans-disciplinary research group based in the School of Architecture and Built Environment. The Lab explores how design and technology can innovate for an agile, adaptive, responsive, and intelligent ecosystem.

Through close partnerships with industry and research networks, including the Resilient Urban Ecosystem (RUE) network and the European Institute of Design, MInD Lab researchers explore new models of imagining, creating and operating for a socially inclusive, and economically and environmentally viable built environment

Learn more about the MInD Lab including current projects

HOME

HOME is a research centre with a single core aim of a home for all. Bringing together experts from architecture and urban planning, the humanities and social sciences, and health and social development, HOME seeks to address the causes and outcomes of social polarisation in the built environment.

Learn more about HOME

Architecture Vacancy Lab

Architecture Vacancy Lab examines real and critical gaps in the knowledge and creative practice of architecture and architectural education. Vacancy evokes an approach to this research focus: poetic, practical, provocative and intellectual, with an aim for an intensity of architectural intent. Research projects loosely align with three focal areas in vacant spaces, critical vacancy and research-teaching openings.

Learn more about Architecture Vacancy Lab

Associated research projects

Growing Up In Cities

Growing Up In Cities (GUIC) is a globally expansive research project examining adolescent's perceptions of contemporary urban spaces to better understand the impact the local environment has on their lives.

Learn more about the GUIC project

Contact us

Associate Head of School, Research
Dr Dominic Doe Ahiaga-Dagbui
Ph: +61 3 522 78074
Email Dr Ahiaga-Dagbui