Design is located between the crafts of making and the experiences of using. Digital models currently isolate the designer in the closed digital world, taking attention away from these important connections. A new mode of design is necessary in the UK construction industry for it to sustain its competitiveness and address major 21st century issues such as climate change. Engineering research is often focused on tools, either those to add increasingly detailed data to a finite set of building components; or those to encode algorithms for simulating processes and behaviours. Yet Dr Whyte found that the introduction of integrated models on major projects and programmes has not improved effectiveness, but has instead had unintended and negative consequences. In some instances these include generating too much data; making work progress harder to track and displaying designs in ways that make them look reliable before they have been fully tested. There is a need to transform the research field by focusing on effective visualization of design data in both digital and physical design environments.Rapid developments in visual interfaces, largely driven by the gaming and entertainment industries, provide an opportunity to develop more intuitive interfaces, taking 3D digital models out of the 2D screen and making them visible within physical design environments. The aspiration is to make digital models central to the conversation between engineers, manufacturers, fabricators, assemblers, clients and users. There is the potential to sit around a model; to walk around it together; to overlay and interrogate multiple environmental simulations and to compare and contrast design intent with scanned as-built models. The proposed Design Innovation Research Centre (DIRC) will develop new ways of visualizing data for shared design inquiry. The team will scientifically study design activities; and develop novel engineering solutions. DIRC's scientific study team will capture best-practice on major international projects. DIRC's engineering solutions team will create new tools and processes for design innovation. As an open and networked laboratory, the Centre will be the hub of intellectual activity, spanning across disciplines with a virtual and physical presence and nodes in both university and industry. Through inter-disciplinary research and its strong connections with industry, DIRC will be able to react quickly, will operate at the forefront of the research area and will add value by developing skills that are needed within academia and industry. Challenging Engineering funding enables the applicant to bring together and develop a multidisciplinary team of researchers (from engineering, design, ICT, building science and management) to address the challenges of design in the digital economy. The Centre will extend Dr Whyte's trajectory of work, recognizes the importance of shared 3D visualization in decision-making and the need for flexible solutions that do not lock designers into particular approaches too early in the design process. It will thrive through strong research and through deep engagement with industrial partners and associate members. At the end of the Challenging Engineering funding period the Centre will be an internationally-excellent, sustainable, and actively-disseminating, centre of excellence in the UK for 21st century design innovation.

Grounded Energy Modelling for equitable urban planning in the global South (GEMDev) is a partnership between UCL (London), FCPV and PUCP (Lima) and CDRF-CEPT (Ahmedabad), which aims to create new knowledge to ground energy planning tools in the realities of everyday life and energy practices of off-grid communities. Insecure and informal access to energy impacts on all aspects of life for poor communities living in sub-standard housing in the global South. Access to affordable, reliable and safe forms of energy services has particularly profound effects on health and economic opportunities. However, the ways in which these communities access and use energy in their day-to-day lives are poorly understood. The ways in which those practices change when informal settlements are upgraded or relocated are equally poorly understood. As data-driven approaches to energy planning, such as Urban Building Energy Models (UBEMs), gain increasing importance as planning tools, this lack of understanding risks further marginalising the most vulnerable communities as their needs are either entirely overlooked or planned solutions fail to address their needs. UBEMs have been developed in, and widely applied to, cities in the global North to model urban energy consumption on a building by building basis, allowing the assessment of impacts of different energy conservation measures and policies. Such tools are highly attractive to energy planners in the global South, but the complexity of informal settlements is wholly absent from these models at present. GEMDev will use participatory research methods to co-create datasets with marginalised communities to ensure that they are represented in the UBEMs of the future. Engaging these communities in the creation of the knowledge and datasets in order to represent them in energy planning tools is a highly novel approach which not only ensures meaningful recognition, but, through the research process itself, increases communities' capacity and skills, amplifying their voice in the planning processes that have profound impacts on their lives. Lima and Ahmedabad have been selected as the cases for application of the GEMDev project for both methodological and practical reasons. From a methodological perspective, both are global cities characterised by significant inequalities in access to energy and other services but with very different histories of development and policies for addressing the needs of the urban poor. From a practical perspective, we will build on strong existing research partnerships in both cities. The UCL/FCPV partnership in Lima contributes expertise in participatory methods and strong engagement with municipal authorities, while capacity in building energy modelling will be built through an innovative approach between private and public universities, PUCP and UNI. The UCL/CDRF-CEPT partnership in Ahmedabad contributes expertise in energy modelling and the project will build capacity in participatory methods. The strong focus on South-South knowledge transfer is a key example of the equitable partnerships which underpin this project. GEMDev will deliver a robust, co-produced evidence base on energy practices, use of space and urban form in Lima and Ahmedabad. This will be used to not only support the local development of UBEMs for these cities, but also to co-create alternative archetypes of the off-grid city. These findings can inform city, national and regional policies that support the delivery of multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), including SDG7 on energy, SDG11 on sustainable cities and communities, and beyond. The inclusion of partners and stakeholders in developing this proposal will help to ensure the project delivers real and long-lasting change for marginalised, off-grid communities in the global South.

Our infrastructure is central to the economic prosperity of the nation and to the flourishing of a stable, yet dynamic, civil society. Its interconnected strands - the energy, transportation, water, sanitation and communication networks that provide access to services and markets and which underpin the securities of daily life - must be not only affordable and reliable but also resilient against threats such as technological uncertainty, environmental causes, economic and political change, and demographic and societal change unfolding in an increasingly uncertain world. FIBE2 CDT will lead a paradigm shift in the approach to infrastructure resilience through the creation of an inspirational doctoral training programme for talented cohorts from diverse academic and social backgrounds to conduct world-class, cutting-edge and industry-relevant research. Our goal is to develop the infrastructure professionals of the future, equipped with a versatile and cross-disciplinary skillset to meet the most complex emerging challenges, harness the full value of existing infrastructure and contribute effectively to better infrastructure decision-making in the UK. The programme's technical focus will exploit high-level interconnected research themes in advanced infrastructure materials, rethinking design & construction, digitised civil engineering, whole-life performance, built environment and global challenges, along high-level crosscutting themes in emerging technologies, performance to data to knowledge, research across scales, and risk and uncertainty. In FIBE2 CDT we offer a radical rethink to deliver innovation for the cross-disciplinary and interconnected challenges in resilient infrastructure. Our 1+3 MRes/PhD programme proposes a new approach to infrastructure research where students from different disciplines proactively forge new training and research collaborations. FIBE2 is inspired by the paradigm of a 3D 'T' shaped engineer embodying a combination of depth and breadth of knowledge, augmented by our new thinking around cross-disciplinary training and research. High level Infrastructure Engineering concepts will be interlinked and related to the detailed technical fundamentals that underpin them in bespoke core and elective modules. Cohort-based learning will bridge across the wider environmental, societal, economic, business and policy issues within the even broader context of ethics, responsible innovation and ED&I. These depth and breadth elements are interwoven and brought together through problem-based challenges using large-scale cross-disciplinary infrastructure projects. Individual student plans will be carefully crafted to harmonise the specificity of PhD research with the need for expansive understanding of threats and opportunities. The development of Resilient FIBE2 CDT students with strong personal, technical and professional resilience attributes is integral to the FIBE2 approach to training and research. The FIBE2 PhD projects will build upon Cambridge's internationally leading research, investment and funding in the diverse areas related to infrastructure and resilience. Our major strategic initiatives include >£60M funding from EPSRC and industry. Our engagements in UKCRIC, CDBB, Alan Turing and Henry Royce Institutes and our world class graduate training programmes provide an inspirational environment for the proposed CDT. The FIBE2 vision has been co-created with our 27 strategic industry partners from across all infrastructure sectors and nine international academic centre partners across the world, who have pledged over £12M. We will work together to deliver the FIBE2 CDT objectives and add new dimensions to our students' experience. The lasting impact of FIBE2 will be embodied in our students acting as role models to inspire future generations of infrastructure engineers and rising to lead the profession through all the technological and societal challenges facing UK infrastructure.

Strategy=======The overall aim of the Cambridge EDC is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of engineering designers and design teams by undertaking research into the theories that will underpin the design methods of the future. These methods will be embodied in software tools, workbooks and publications that support the creation of reliable, high-quality, cost-effective products.Research Themes==============The EDC's is structured under the following research Themes: * Healthcare Design: Design for Patient Safety * Inclusive Design: Designing for the Older and Disabled Users (1) * Process Modelling: Modelling the Design Process * Change Management: Tracking Changes in Products * Design Practice: Understanding Practice * Engineering Knowledge: Capture, Storage and Retrival (1) * Computational Design: Integrated Optimisation Methods and Tools Note (1) These Themes receive zero or minimal support from the IMRC Block Grant.