Research clusters

Our research Clusters are collaborative, theme-based groups that connect staff through shared interests, fostering innovation, discussion, and impactful research.

Four people, three in traditional Chinese dress stand outside in front of a tall wooden block sculpture.

Community Design cluster

The Community Design Cluster (CDC) puts together faculties, students and practitioners in the area to work on community-based design and planning.

A man wearing virtual reality goggles holds an adhesive gun over a brick structure whist a robot arms holds a brick in place ready to be glued.

Design & Digital cultures

A new research and scholarship cluster that is grounded in architecture, visual arts and digital technology.

A building with a pitched roof and a bronze diamond block facade, a metal chimney behind the building.

Environment, Sustainability and Technology in Architecture (ESTA)

Investigating low carbon architecture, the impact of climate change on buildings, innovative material technologies and the operational and embodied carbon of sustainable design.

Experimental Material Ecologies Research Group [EMERG]

Exploring the material ecologies associated with construction materials and to inform the development of sustainable solutions for the built environment.

A man wearing a virtual reality headset sitting in an anechoic chamber.

Health cluster

Bringing together researchers with shared interests in the complex and omnipresent associations between human health and the built environment.

Looking down a Victorian spiral staircase, pictures line the walls.

Heritage cluster

Undertaking research and impact work ,and leading a postgraduate taught programme in heritage management.

1930's brick building with large concrete framed windows on the lower floor and smaller metal framed ones on the second. A Georgian building is visible to its right.

History of Architecture Research cluster

HARC pursues research on the past of the built environment, with the aim of understanding the present, and helping to shape a better future.

A circular metal frame with panels showing different housing typologies.

Housing cluster

Leading a series of research and pedagogic programmes in urban housing, finding different forms in teaching, exhibits, publications and events.

Skyline of Birkenhead showing the tunnel ventilation shafts and town hall, text reading Birkenhead 2040 by students from the University of Liverpool.

Practice and Pedagogy

Celebrating the diverse and rich pedagogic approaches, scholarship and practices the school delivers in its courses and public engagement.

Map of a coastal area showing the affect of climate change over time.

Sustainable cities

Research in the humanities and social sciences with a focus on sustainability and climate change from the scale of buildings to cities.

Three people standing on a arge paved square. A young man rests on his skateboard, a woman pushes a wheelbarrow as a man carrying a brush and pan looks on. In the background is a modern high rise cityscape.

Urban Form and Social Space

Investigating the production and transformation of the built environment and the social and political dynamics of design and planning.

Black and white image of a vintage car and caravan. Photo credit, Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading pulled over in a lay-by with trees behind. A woman stands by the door and a dog looks out from inside the caravan.

Women of the Welfare Landscape project

An AHRC supported project that commemorates the role of women in shaping the post-war designed landscapes of the British Welfare State.