Kingston University London

Rupert's work will consider how progressive the EU has become - integrating environmental/sustainable development into EVERY policy through article 11 TFEU. He will also question international law, particularly old Treaties such as the Chicago Convention 1944, and explore whether environmental concerns may permeate their text (which frequently does not contemplate such matters) without need for, often unviable, amendment due to customary international law. The work also will involve looking closely at the EU's attempt to regulate international commercial airline emissions through Directive 2008/101/EC. This will have do the greatest financial harm to EU airlines, but will also regulate international airlines. The former displays EU commitment to environmental protection, even where its economic interests are most harmed, but the latter places the Directive in flagrant breach of the Chicago Convention. This makes a selfless act of unilateralism to protect the environment illegal (albeit with limited consequence given international enforcement!); but is this, the current state of affairs satisfying in any event....?

Supervisors: Dr Steven Truxal

Ainoriza Mohd Aini is a third year PhD student and is researching the burgeoning field of sustainable and responsible property investment (SRPI). So far this field has only been researched in developed countries. Focusing on Malaysia, Ainoriza’s research aims to examine to what extent this concept can be adopted in emerging economies (with emerging property market).  The overall aim of the research is to establish a conceptual framework for SRPI and test the framework against the property investment practice in Malaysia.

Conference papers:
“Sustainable and Responsible Property Investment in Malaysia: Setting the research agenda”, presented at European Real Estate Society (ERES) Conference 2009, 24-27th June 2009, Stockholm, Sweden

“Sustainable and Responsible Property Investment in Malaysia” to be presented at PROBE, Glasgow Caledonian University, November 2009

Director of studies: Prof. Sarah Sayce

Ruchit Purohit is a second year PhD student.

Supervisors: Prof. Sarah Sayce and Dr Yamuna Kaluarachchi

Bo Ban is a second year PhD student.

Supervisors: Dr Yamuna Kaluarachchi, Charlotte Harris and Nigel Dubben

Rosie Hornbuckle graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2004 with a first class honours degree in Design. With a strong interest in both practice-based and academic research, Rosie then began working with Jakki Dehn at Kingston University on an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project entitled Creative Resource. 

Rosie received an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award entitled Redesigned Futures which aims to create new models for utilising surplus and waste resources in the design of manufactured products.  The project was based at Kingston University Sustainable Design Research Centre and in collaboration with London Remade.

Supervisors: Dr Paul Micklethwaite and Hugh Smith

John Clarke graduated in Building Surveying in 1992 and worked as a Surveyor for four years. In 1997 he gained a PGCE and taught building technology. His interest in sustainability, education and the built environment grew along with wider environmental issues and in 1998 he gained a Masters Degree in Renewable Energy and Architecture from Nottingham University.

He has worked on a number of low environmental impact buildings in the UK and the Far East and has undertaken research in construction waste minimisation. For 3 years he worked as an Environmental Education Project Officer researching, delivering and developing teaching and learning resources and was Project Manager for the design and production of an eco-building for educational purposes.

Before embarking on the PhD he worked for C-SCAIPE, a centre for sustainable communities in the built environment within the School of Surveying and Planning at Kingston University.

John hopes that the research will lead to a greater understanding of the processes, technologies and methods involved in the production and use of low environmental impact buildings and landscapes and their potential for teaching and learning about environmental issues to encourage sustainable behaviour

The AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award is between Kingston University’s Architectural Design Group, Archilab and the Environment Trust for Richmond upon Thames who are developing the River Centre. John hopes that by applying his research into practice and working with the development team the River Centre will go beyond current environmental building standards and match or exceed other best practice buildings around the World to set new standards in sustainable and architectural environmental design for community and educational buildings.

Supervisors: Dr Steven Pretlove, Director of Archilab in School of Architecture and Landscape and Jenny Pearce, Chair of Trustees for the Environment Trust for Richmond upon Thames.

Monika Wiśniewska is completing the final write-up of her thesis on the subject of how environmental issues are incorporated into the syllabi of vocational-professional courses within the planning occupation. She is focussing upon that knowledge that is constructed (marketed) into the concept of Green Infrastructure. She is sponsored jointly by CEBE, C-SCAIPE and RTPI.

Key drivers for change in syllabi are widely recognised: ‘the market’, universities as centres for innovation, professional associations as owners of a discrete body of knowledge, government as paymaster, and students as ‘clients’ or ‘customers’. However, the relationship between these, as well as the relative power to determine authority, are undeveloped points within this understanding.

Various methods were adopted, but a central part of the work is case studies on four universities teaching planning courses. These are identified as Quality University, Balance University, Process University and Industry University. Each has a different philosophy of approach towards the nature and provision of higher education, although one finding is that each provides actual teaching within the same paradigm. However, students within each university interpret their learning needs separately, and there is a fissure in the understanding of teaching and learning between student and university.

The research suggests that individuals are key drivers for change to syllabi, and proposes a number of ideal types: the Green Champion, the Green Infrastructure Champion, the Green Maverick, the Green Infrastructure Maverick, the Green Technocrat, the Green Antagonist, and the Green Ignorant. Therefore, it is with individuals that change to syllabi comes about. However, quite where this originates from is less clear – evidence ranges variously from a meeting with the Dalai Lama to the RTPI! Professions also have a key role, despite their claims to be removed from the process of creating courses, but there is far less evidence on corporate university structures or the government creating change. One useful social theory to contextualise these ideas is Anthony Giddens’ view of High Modernity, in which all knowledge is contingent and there is no determinant authority; rather, competing and transient authorities vie for control.

Supervisors: Sue Percy, Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), Professor Sarah Sayce, Head of the School of Surveying and Planning at Kingston University, and Chris Webster, Director of the UK Centre for Education in the Built Environment (CEBE); .