About us

Our expertise focuses on the ways in which architects and construction firms deal with the challenge of sustainable construction. Project members have extensive experience across multiple areas related to delivering ambitious carbon reduction targets within the built environment.

Professor Libby Schweber (Principal Investigator); University of Reading

Libby is a Professor in the Sociology of Sustainable Construction in the School of the Built Environment at the University of Reading. Her research focuses on issues in the sociology of knowledge, science and technology, including research into the history of statistical reasoning. She has been working on built environment topics since 2008. She is particularly interested in why policies, technologies and management tools fail to deliver as promised. Stated differently, her research focuses on problems of project and firm level implementation and on variations in how teams engage with innovative technologies and sustainability targets. This interest has led to research on the implementation of BREEAM, Policies for Zero Carbon Homes, BIPV, MMC and, more recently, Net Zero Carbon and has been supported by a number of UK Research Council grants, from both the ESRC and EPSRC. She has a particular interest in how innovation travels in project-based industries, multi-disciplinary teams and in standards and standardization. In addition, she has written on the use of theory in Built Environment Research and on social theory more generally. As a sociologist, her work brings a new, theoretically informed approach to both routine and challenging management problems.

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Professor Sonja Dragojlovic-Oliveira (Co-investigator); University of Strathclyde

Sonja has over 20 years research and innovation experience in the sustainability and design sectors having led delivery of complex multidisciplinary innovation programmes and research projects ranging in value from £200K-£29M in the UK and internationally.

Currently Sonja is Professor in Architecture and Director of Research at the University of Strathclyde. She initiated the Radical Architecture Practice for Sustainability network (http://www.rapsresearch.com) in partnership with leading practitioners, educators, policy makers in Sweden, Korea, the Netherlands, Portugal, Austria, and France. 

She has been appointed as a Thought Leadership Specialist Advisor to the Design Council in 2021 and is a board member of the World Green Building Council (SE Europe), as well as advisory member of New European Bauhaus Collective and UKRI Strategic Advisory Committee for Energy. At national and regional levels, SO is academic advisor to the Bristol Housing Festival and sustainability strategic advisor to North Somerset Council as well as Bristol Climate Change Advisory Committee member (https://thebaccc.org/about/). Currently, Sonja is PI on the £586K EPSRC project GLOW [EP/V041770/1], Co-I on the £772K EPSRC project RESIDE [EP/R008434/1] (with Oxford Brookes) and Co-I on the £559K ESRC [ES/W004216/1]project Carbon Artifacts: a socio-material approach to low and net zero carbon building design from concept to handover. 

 

Dr Martin Green (Co-investigator); University of Reading

Dr Martin Green is a Lecturer in Construction Management & Engineering in the School of the Built Environment at University of Reading.

Martin’s research focuses on reconceptualising understandings of the built environment through unpacking how organisations, institutions, and technologies respond and reproduce broader sectoral and societal change.

Martin’s PhD The Practical Integration of Everyday Light, explored socio-natural temporal arrangements in different contexts. Since completing the PhD Martin has been involved in four research projects: the ESRC funded research project Making zero-carbon standard home: understanding project-level innovation in UK house building which analysed the uptake of off-site methods of construction and their diffusion across different regions; the IUK-funded Supply chain integration to deliver off-site solutions for new housing project; the Delivering more for less under the IPI Model research project which examined the implementation of an insurance policy designed to cover the entire construction delivery team; and Transitioning to an automated construction supply chain which developed and explored possible futures involving robotics and automation.

Dr Xinshuang Zhang (Research Associate); University of Reading

Xinshuang is a research associate in the School of the Built Environment at the University of Reading. Her research interests involve sustainable retrofitting, low/zero carbon building design and modelling, modular constructions, energy performance and its impact on occupant quality of life, as well as visualisation and simulation tools for building design.

Xinshuang has worked as an architect in China. She came to the UK in 2011 and completed her master’s degree in environmental design of buildings and obtained her PhD in “Sustainable retrofitting of existing residential buildings at community scale” at Cardiff University. She then worked as a research associate at Cardiff University on a project of “design and build a modular sustainable operating theatre” and a Welsh church renovation project. She also worked as an architectural designer in practice at the same time for a project of designing a modular energy positive house at a community scale. Most recently, Xinshuang has worked as a research associate at Cardiff Metropolitan University on a research project “Optimised Retrofit” to evaluate the possible impact of retrofit measures to dwellings and the impact upon occupant’s use of energy and their health, well-being and thermal comfort.

Dr Heba Sarhan (Research Associate); University of Strathclyde

Heba is a researcher from an architectural background with expertise in relating architecture to spatial practices and culture with a particular interest in exploring architecture through visual representations and participation. Stemming from her former architectural practice, her design-centered research linked design issues to culture, in her PhD, and wellbeing, during her postdoctoral research in the ‘At home with children’ project. Heba facilitated design workshops addressing Net zero carbon and wellbeing supportive design and delivered design guides about home retrofit and design for wellbeing. Her published research demonstrates her expertise in utilising multimodal methods for addressing design issues related to adaptability and wellbeing.

Bridging her architectural and research background with knowledge gained from her masters studies in sustainable architecture at The University of Sheffield, Heba’s current work looks at challenges faced by Net zero carbon architectural practices.

This expertise was transferred to her architectural practice in Cairo and the AHRC-funded design accelerator home retrofit project at The University for the Creative Arts. In this project, Heba brings her knowledge of sustainable architecture design and expertise in qualitative interpretations of visual representations and participatory research.

Sue Flanders (Project Administrator) University of Reading

Sue has previously supported HR projects and programmes for a number of organisations including LloydsTSB and Microsoft.

Although Sue’s background is in Hotel & Catering Management, she has spent the last 20 years in the corporate sector (previously, had the role for 5 years as PhD Programme Manager at Microsoft Research, Cambridge).

Sue’s areas of expertise consists of project management; event planning; management of information, processes and procedures, detail orientated and communication.