Rufopoly is a participatory learning board game enabling players to undertake a journey through a fictitious rural urban fringe called RUFshire, answering questions and making decisions on development challenges and place-making; those answers then inform each player's vision for RUFshire. The encountered questions are determined by the roll of a die and based on primary data collected for a Relu project (2010-2012) about Managing Environmental Change at the Rural Urban Fringe. Rufopoly has been used extensively in early stages of projects and plans such as the pioneering Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership spatial plan and has been used by government, EU project groups, local authorities, business, community groups, universities and schools. It has exposed audiences to issues associated with the delivery and trade-offs associated with planning and environmental issues at the fringe but crucially without the use of complex jargon. We believe that the full potential and impact of Rufopoly has yet to be fully realised. There are several reasons for this: 1. Rufopoly was developed towards the end of our Relu project as an unplanned output for a conference run by Relu in 2011 on 'Who Should run the Countryside?'. Its success prompted its inclusion as an output. 2. There were insufficient funds for it to be successfully tested and integrated with policy and practice communities to maximise its utility as a learning tool as this was never the original intention of the project. 3. It is currently presented as a one size fits all board game of a hypothetical place. More time is needed to explore the potential of Rufopoly to become a generic platform for stakeholders wishing to develop their own versions of the tool to meet their own needs and to fill a widely recognised gap in the effectiveness of participatory tools for improved decsion making. This knowledge exchange project addresses these deficiencies by drawing together the shared knowledge and previous experiences of designers and users of Rufopoly. This informs a series of interactive workshops in Wales, England and Scotland to identify how this kind of game-format can be enhanced into a more effective and multifunctional tool. This will help extend and embed the impact for a range of policy and practice partners in the form of a Rufopoly Resource Kit. By working collaboratively with end users we can identify how Rufopoly can be reconfigured across different user groups and organisations in tune with their agendas and needs. There are four stages to this project: WP1: Review and learn lessons from previous Rufopoly experiences. This involves (1) an assessment of the actual results and findings from past games that were written up and the results analysed. (2) critical assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of Rufopoly from facilitators and core participants. We will draw priamirly from our UK experiences but are also able to secure insights from the international adaptations of Rufopoly from Nebraska (November 2013) and Sweden (2014). WP2: Conduct a series of interactive workshops with different policy and practice audiences. These workshops will be held in England, Scotland and Wales using members of the research team and other participants. The purpose of these workshops is to (1) share results of WP1; (2) assess how the tool could be reconfigured to address the principla needs and challenges facing participants; and (3) prioritise feasible options for a Rufopoly Resource Kit. WP3: Using WP1 and WP2 outcomes, we will design and trial (across our team) the Rufopoly 'Mk2' resource kit and associated materials/guidance. WP4: Launch the Rufopoly Resource Kit and guidance in a live streamed global workshop event. This would; reveal the basic resource kit as co-designed by the team and enable testers of the resource kit to share their experiences maximising knowledge exchange and its range of potential applications.

The retail sector is crucial to the economic health and vitality of towns and cities and is a core component of the national economy, but is experiencing an ongoing period of change and the challenges faced by centres are being met in different ways, with different outcomes. Consumers are behaving, shopping and using urban centres in new and diverse ways and many retailing centres have experienced falling footfall, retailer closures and a rise in empty retail units. In an attempt to reverse the cycle of decline, centres need to be multi-functional places and policy-makers are encouraging more mixed use development. Large-scale mixed-use re-development of obsolete stock, novel temporary land uses, events and public realm works are being used to try to make urban centres more attractive and increase their competitive edge. Yet, not everyone is experiencing the benefits of these changes. Mistrust, tension and conflict can arise from land use changes and become barriers to further renewal and change, limiting the effectiveness of these "town centre first" policies. A recent ESRC-funded study undertaken by researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University blamed these tensions and lack of co-operation as significant contributors to the continued declined of retailing in many centres (Parker, 2015). This project seeks to explore one of the largest stakeholder groups within the sector. The objectives and behaviour of land and property owners, developers and investors are significant to the use and form of retailing centres. The project explores how ownership and the behaviour of this stakeholder group impact on the sector, by exploring issues around changing ownership and use patterns; innovations in design form; the ability of the industry to respond to change; and the ways the group engages and interacts with other stakeholders in urban centres. Thus, it aims to examine how their expectations, perceptions, practices and co-operation help or limit experimentation with new uses, building types and designs. The research will explore issues around: whether retailers and landlords in city centres are becoming more or less diverse; whether new design formats, flexible uses and large scale redevelopments can help struggling centres; the extent to which established practices and procedures in the real estate market encourage or even hinder new uses; and whether stakeholders can work together in better ways for the future health of town and city centres. These issues will be examined using five case study cities over the period 1997-2017: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Sheffield and Nottingham. The project will bring together different data that has not been available previously, to map, measure and identify any links between changes in land and building use, vacancy and ownership over the last 20 years. It will analyse and identify new developments and novel land and building uses and designs and, by talking to developers, designers, planners and occupiers, the researchers will identify the factors shaping these changes and how they impact on cities and shoppers. The project will examine established real estate market practices, such as lease lengths, rent review terms, repair obligations and use clauses to see how adaptable the industry is to change when shoppers and retailers want new and unusual property uses and forms. Finally, the researchers will talk to different centre users, managers and owners to explore how relationships might work well or badly and identify good practice for the creation of new developments and adaptions to the existing building stock to help the retail sector in cities.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES This Anglo-Brazilian research project takes advantage of the complex and often spectacular legacy of architectural Modernism in both London and Sao Paulo (SP), and examines the public spaces in and around seminal examples of large scale Modernist architecture in both cities. In a social context of growing demand for greater democratic authorship and ownership of the built environment, in particular its public realm, the roles of the architect and of design need wider and deeper examination. The project will use the analysis of work from the 1960s and 70s in both cities as a way of reflecting historically on contemporary public space design, an important contribution to the current debates on 'place-making'. The research teams from London and Sao Paulo will: 1) investigate the role of the architect in the production of contemporary public space in Sao Paulo and London from the perspective of the architect's very different role during the period of High Modernism (1960s/70s) in both cities; 2) examine whether there positive aspects to architectural Modernism in Sao Paulo and London that can be recovered to address the low quality of much contemporary public space in both cities, and 3) explore possible relationships between traditional top-down design in both countries, and the growing interest in the UK in participatory approaches, within the context of the contemporary design of public spaces in both cities? Does greater democracy in the delivery of the built environment increase its quality? its popularity? 4) develop and disseminate a wider and deeper understanding of the relation between the authorship and ownership of public space, post-war and now in both cities. CONTEXT OF THE RESEARCH: Brazil had a 'golden period' of Modernism, the result of a social pact between the architect and society. This period and this pact are long over, and it could be argued that England, apart from a brief interlude centred around the Festival of Britain, never enjoyed a 'golden period', resisting Modernism's often alienating expression in built form. Today there are marked similarities between the two countries: they both have world class financial capitals, London and Sao Paulo, and they both have multicultural populations. They both suffer from a wide divide between rich and poor, and from chronic housing shortages. Most importantly, their cities think about public space defensively, mirroring social segregation with spatial segregation. The desertion of crime-ridden public space in Sao Paulo and its over-surveillance in London are symptoms of urban failure unanticipated by the optimism and egalitarianism of Modernism. The Brazilian and UK teams will therefore select important Modernist and contemporary public space case studies in both cities to investigate the role of the architect in their production, and to discover whether useful knowledge can be transferred between cities in the interests of more 'successful' public spaces - i.e. enjoyed and frequented by the urban population as a whole. APPLICATIONS AND BENEFITS: Architects, urban designers, and developers will benefit from a better understanding of the design of successful public spaces, and will gain a wider perspective on alternative forms of more participatory design that shift the centrality of the designer (and the developer) to varying degrees. Planners and city councils will gain a greater appreciation of the role of design in the creation of public spaces, and of the ways in which the designer can subvert or contribute to their success. Academics will benefit from a cross-cultural comparison that examines the Modernist production of public space in a new way - from the point of view of the designer and design practice. They will also benefit from a view that challenges fashionable ideas about the automatic undesirability of top-down design.

Cities are both major contributors to pollutant emissions and victims of poor outdoor air quality (World Bank, 2010). Poor air quality has a direct negative impact on the environment and on human health which has consequences for economic growth and social care. The World Health Organization estimates that 80% of urban residents will be exposed to pollution above acceptable levels in 2018 (WHO, 2018). Whilst the causes of poor urban air quality vary by context some issues are widespread; in Western Europe 40% of the urban pollution is caused by transport and domestic fuel burning, whilst in China this figure is between 30 and 39% (Karagulian et al., 2015). Decreasing the pollutants from housing and transport is therefore a key priority for cities (Un Habitat, 2015), yet retro-fitting cleaner energy provision to houses and supporting alternative urban transport infrastructure can be both financially costly and limiting to short term economic growth. Urban governments, therefore, need to consider policy and finance mechanisms to both fund and adapt urban housing and transport to limit localised air pollution. Successfully meeting the two topics of this call: 'reduction in adverse environmental impact of cities'; and, 'the provision of safe, affordable and sustainable housing, transportation and basic services', is contingent upon creating a dynamic and responsive relationship between taxation and funding the urban adaptations and service provision. Land value capture (LVC) promises to be a highly efficient and effective urban policy to enable the recovery and reinvestment of value arising from government enhancements to urban sustainability and livability, in particular improving air quality. When practiced effectively LVC offers the potential to instigate a longer term process of investment in the physical environment to support the creation of sustainable communities: a virtuous circle of development and investment. LVC mechanisms are extremely diverse, from the active land assembly of municipalities in the Netherlands, to the use of auctions in China and the negotiated agreement of discretionary obligations in England. Each mechanism attempts to capture a proportion of the uplift in land value from state action (whether assembly, infrastructure provision or planning permission) to reinvest in social and environmental public goods. Yet, each system has been criticized for failing to meet the demands of the 21st century's most pressing issue of delivering economic growth within a context of climatic instability (see e.g. Crook et al., 2016). Capturing a proportion of land values in the development process offers an innovative way of improving housing- and transport-induced poor air quality through investing in urban environments. To do this we will explore two issues in China, the Netherlands, France and the UK: - the impact of air quality on economic activity and quality of life - the impact of alternative land value capture mechanisms for enhancing housing and transportation The adaptation of urban environments in China and Europe is necessary to enhance air quality as a mitigating factor in climate change and improve liveability. LVC is one attractive possibility for governments to fund these adaptations and enhance the economic, social and environmental sustainability of cities. The uplift in land values achieved through planning consent, infrastructure provision and the effects of economic growth may be captured by the state using an array of LVC mechanisms.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.