Hera Antoniades
Faculty of Design Architecture and Building
University of Technology Sydney
Ultimo
Australia

Niloufar Bayat
School of Built Environment
University of Salford
Salford
UK

Sarah Bell
Professor of Environmental Engineering
Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering
University College London
Gower St
London

Robert Cowley
Lecturer in Sustainable Cities
Department of Geography
King’s College London
London

Michael Davies
Professor of Building Physics and the Environment
The Bartlett, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment
Central House
London

Carla De Laurentis
Welsh School of Architecture
Cardiff University
Bute Building, Cathays Park
Cardiff, UK

Tim Dixon
School of the Built Environment
University of Reading, Reading
UK

Malcolm Eames (retired)
Welsh School of Architecture
Cardiff University
Bute Building, Cathays Park
Cardiff, UK

Aliki Georgakaki
Welsh School of Architecture
Cardiff University
Bute Building
Cathays Park
Cardiff, UK

Rajat Gupta
Director of the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development (OISD)
Low Carbon Building Group.
School of Architecture
Faculty of Technology
Design and Environment
Oxford Brookes University
Headington Campus
Gipsy Lane, Oxford

Miriam Hunt
School of Social Sciences
Cardiff University
Glamorgan Building
Cathays Park
Cardiff, UK

Simon Joss
Professor of Science & Technology Studies
Department of Politics & International Relations
University of Westminster
London

Andrew Karvonen
Urban and Regional Studies
KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Stockholm
Sweden

John Kolm‐Murray
Energy Strategy & Advice Manager
Energy Service
Islington Council
London

Simon Lannon
Welsh School of Architecture
Cardiff University
Bute Building
Cathays Park
Cardiff, UK

Derk Loorbach
Professor of socio‐economic transitions
Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (Drift)
Rotterdam
The Netherlands

Anna Mavrogianni
Lecturer
The Bartlett, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment
Central House
London

Peter W. Newton
Centre for Urban Transitions
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne
Australia

Chris Rogers
School of Engineering
University of Birmingham
Birmingham
UK

Graeme Sheriff
School of Built Environment
University of Salford
Salford
UK

Ian Smith
Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance
University of the West of England
Bristol
UK

Will Swan
School of Built Environment
University of Salford
Salford
UK

Jonathon Taylor
Senior Research Associate
The Bartlett, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment
Central House
London

Allan Teale
Faculty of Design Architecture and Building
University of Technology Sydney
Ultimo
Australia

Paul van der Kallen
Faculty of Design Architecture and Building
University of Technology Sydney
Ultimo
Australia

Sara J. Wilkinson
Faculty of Design Architecture and Building
University of Technology Sydney
Ultimo, Australia

Katie Williams
Director, Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments
Architecture and the Built Environment
University of the West of England
Bristol
UK

Hera Antoniades is a Chartered Tax Advisor and a Registered Valuer. She is a member of the Tax Institute, the Australian Property Institute (API), the Australian Institute of Building (AIB), and a Fellow of the Commercial Education Society of Australia. Her industry experience includes specialist engagement with accounting and taxation matters related to the built environment. Her research and publications are focused within the built environment discipline, and include property taxation, forensic trust accounting, occupational licensing, tenancy legislation, strata management, and governance compliance. She is a member of government advisory boards and various professional committees. She is also the President of the Pacific Rim Real Estate Society 2014‐2016, which is an academic society providing a formal focus for property researchers.

Niloufar Bayat is a RIBA qualified architect and has worked on the delivery of numerous new‐built housing projects in the UK. She is currently a researcher with particular interests in low‐carbon housing retrofit and Sustainable Architecture. She is pursuing a doctorate in the School of the Built Environment at the University of Salford focusing on issues concerning the design and construction interface in deep retrofit.

Sarah Bell is Professor of Environmental Engineering at University College London (UCL) and Director of the UCL Engineering Exchange, which facilitates community engagement with engineering research. She is a Chartered Engineer who completed her PhD in Sustainability and Technology Policy at Murdoch University in Australia in 2004. Her research focuses on the relationship between engineering, technology and society, particularly applied to the sustainability of urban water systems. She is a Living With Environmental Change Research Fellow, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Robert Cowley is Lecturer in Sustainable Cities in the Department of Geography at King’s College London, and works as Project Coordinator for the ESRC‐funded SMART ECO research programme. Previously, he was the Network Coordinator for the Leverhulme Trust‐funded international research consortium Tomorrow’s City Today ‐ An International Comparison of Eco‐City Frameworks. His PhD thesis, completed at the University of Westminster, explored the public dimensions of conceptualised and implemented ‘eco‐city’ initiatives. He has lectured internationally and co‐authored several publications on eco‐cities and urban sustainability.

Michael Davies is Professor of Building Physics and Environment at University College London (UCL) and the Director of the Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering (IEDE). IEDE pursues a deeper understanding of the part played by choices relating to buildings and the urban environment in tackling some of the greatest challenges facing humankind, in areas such as health, human well‐being, productivity, energy use and climate change. He is also Director of the Complex Built Environment Systems (CBES) Group at UCL, an ESPRC Platform Grant funded group with a major focus on the Unintended Consequences of Decarbonizing the Built Environment. He has published widely and led a series of large, collaborative research projects; the outputs of this body of work have impacted on a range of relevant key national and international policy formulations.

Carla De Laurentis is currently completing an EPSRC doctorate study that investigates how place and context‐specific conditions influence the mobilization of resources, governance capabilities and actor‐networks in energy transitions. She has worked as a researcher for Cardiff University since 2002. Since joining the Welsh School of Architecture in April 2011, she has worked on the EPSRC project Re‐Engineering the City 2020‐2050 Urban Foresight and Transition Management, investigating sustainability transitions at city‐region level. During her research career she has gained extensive knowledge and expertise in innovation, local and regional development and clustering dynamics in high technology sectors (particularly renewable energy, ICT and new media). Her current research interests lie within the study of innovation, energy policy, renewable energy and sustainability transitions. She has contributed to a number of publications exploring the role of regions in the dynamics of innovation and transformation of the energy sector towards sustainability.

Tim Dixon is Professor of Sustainable Futures in the Built Environment at the University of Reading. With more than 30 years' experience in education, training and research in the built environment, he leads the Sustainability in the Built Environment network at the University of Reading and is co‐director of the TSBE (Technologies for a Sustainable Built Environment) doctoral training centre. He led the Urban Foresight Laboratory work package of EPSRC Retrofit 2050 and is currently working with local and regional partners to develop a 'Reading 2050' smart and sustainable city vision which connects with the UK BIS Future Cities Foresight Programme. He is also currently working on a smart cities and big data project for RICS Research Trust. He is also a member of the international scientific committee for the national 'Visions and Pathways 2040 Australia' Project on cities.

Malcolm Eames (now retired) held a professorial chair in Low Carbon Research at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, and was the Principal Investigator for the EPSRC Retrofit 2050 project. With an academic background in science & technology policy and innovation studies, his research interests focused on the interface between: S&T foresight; low carbon innovation; socio‐technological transitions; and, urban sustainability. He previously led the EPSRC’s Citizens Science for Sustainability (SuScit) project and was formerly Director of the BRESE (Brunel Research in Enterprise, Innovation, Sustainability and Ethics) Research Centre at Brunel University.

Aliki Georgakaki is a Mechanical Engineer specializing in energy and sustainability, was a Research Associate at the Welsh School of Architecture at Cardiff University. She has experience in performing techno‐economic assessments on the implementation of new energy technologies. In 2007 she was co‐recipient of the JRC IE Award for Outstanding Scientific Contribution to the Institute for modelling work on ‘The Evolution of the European Fossil Fuel Power Generation Sector and its Impact on the Sustainability of the Energy System’.

Rajat Gupta is Professor of Sustainable Architecture and Climate Change, Director of the multi‐disciplinary Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development (OISD) and Director of the Low Carbon Building Research Group at Oxford Brookes University. He is an appointed member of the EPSRC and ESRC peer review colleges. He also advises government at senior level and is on the boards of several key organizations and task groups internationally and nationally. He has advised UNEP on sustainable social housing, UNFCCC on CDM methodology for energy efficiency measures for buildings, UN‐Habitat on Green Buildings, and the British Council on Cities and climate change. In 2013 he was voted as one of 13 international building science stars and joined the Building4Change’s Virtual Academy of Excellence.

Miriam Hunt is a PhD student at Cardiff University, where her work is concerned with social inclusivity and the museum. She previously worked as a research assistant on the Retrofit 2050 project based at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, during which time she explored sustainability and socio‐technical transitions in the built environments of South East Wales and Greater Manchester, as well as questions of equity in energy systems. Her academic interests include sustainable regeneration, and social and economic development and inclusiveness.

Simon Joss is Professor of Science & Technology Studies at the University of Westminster (London), and co‐director of the International Eco‐Cities Initiative. His research addresses the governance of, and policy for, environmental, economic and social sustainability, with special focus on urban innovation and development. He is the author of numerous research articles and books, including Sustainable Cities: Governing for Urban Innovation (2015). He is coordinator of the Leverhulme Trust‐funded international research network Tomorrow’s City Today: An International Comparison of Eco‐City Frameworks, and co‐investigator of the ESRC‐funded SMART ECO multi‐centre research programme on smart cities.

Andrew Karvonen is Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Studies

KTH Royal Institute of Technology. His research bridges the social sciences and design disciplines by combining ideas from urban planning, human geography, and Science and Technology Studies to explore the social, political, and cultural aspects of urban sustainable development. His 2011 research monograph, Politics of Urban Drainage: Nature, Technology and the Sustainable City, was honoured with the John Friedmann Book Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning.

John Kolm‐Murray is the Seasonal Health and Affordable Warmth (SHAW) Coordinator in Islington Council, working at the interface of domestic energy efficiency, public health and social policy. He has a keen interest in both sustainable energy generation and energy conservation, alongside environmental justice and climate resilience. He has delivered nationally and internationally recognized programmes, particularly the Seasonal Health Interventions Network (SHINE), recognized by the European Commission and OECD. He has played a key role in developing local and national policy on fuel poverty and collaborated with various academic partners on environmental epidemiology and building design relating to extremes of temperature.

Simon Lannon is a Research Fellow at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University who has undertaken research activities that cover the subject of computer modelling of the built environment. The models and tools he has developed are based on building physics principles and are used at all scales of the built environment, from individual buildings to regional energy demand models. As a member of the EPSRC Retrofit 2050 team Simon was a work package leader responsible for translating scenarios into visualizations of neighbourhood case studies predicting future energy use pathways.

Derk Loorbach is Professor of Socio‐economic Transitions and Director of DRIFT, the Dutch Research Institute For Transitions, at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He was amongst the first researchers to develop the concept and approach of transition management for sustainability since the start of his career in 2000. He develops transition management in an iterative way; through constant interaction between theory development and practical application in diverse social settings. It is therefore also an example of a new form of research labelled ‘sustainability science’ which combines fundamental with action research to contribute to sustainable development. Part of this approach is the so‐called transition arena: a small network of selected innovators that reframe complex societal issues and develop alternative strategies that lay the foundations for a much broader governance process. He has been involved as researcher, facilitator, analyst and organizer of these arenas. His main research focus over the last few years has been on Urban Transitions and their Governance. He is series editor for the series Theory and Practice of Urban Sustainability Transitions.

Anna Mavrogianni is a Lecturer in Sustainable Building and Urban Design at the Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering (IEDE), at the Bartlett, University College London (UCL). She has rich experience in architectural design, environmental design consultancy and built environment research and her current research interests include low carbon building and urban design; energy retrofit; building stock energy modelling; indoor environment exposure and associated health risks; the impact of urban heat islands and climate change on energy use, thermal comfort and health. Anna regularly advises Government departments, the Greater London Authority and individual Local Authorities on ways to improve the climate resilience of urban environments.

Peter W. Newton is a Research Professor in Sustainable Urbanism at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne where he leads research on sustainable built environments. He is involved in three Co‐Operative Research Centres: CRC for Low Carbon Living, CRC for Spatial Information, and CRC for Water Sensitive Cities and is on the Board of the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia. Prior to joining Swinburne University in 2007 he held the position of Chief Research Scientist in the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). His most recent books include: Transitions. Pathways Towards More Sustainable Urban Development in Australia (2008); Technology, Design and Process Innovation in the Built Environment (2009); Urban Consumption (2011); and Resilient Sustainable Cities (2014).

Chris Rogers is Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at the University of Birmingham. He researches urban sustainability, resilience and futures, with specific interests in utility services, use of underground space and infrastructure systems’ interdependencies, alongside more specific aspects of pipelines, roads and trenchless technologies. He leads EPSRC’s £10 m Mapping (now Assessing) the Underworld programme, alongside a £10 m programme on future cities, notably the EPSRC‐funded Urban Futures and Liveable Cities consortium grants exploring how future cities might deliver urban resilience. He chairs the Innovation & Excellence Panel and Futures Group at the Institution of Civil Engineers, and is a member of the Foresight Future of Cities Lead Expert Group.

Graeme Sheriff is Research Fellow and Associate Director of the Sustainable Housing and Urban Studies Unit (SHUSU) at the University of Salford. He leads the unit's work on sustainability and has published widely on energy retrofit, fuel poverty, sustainable transport and urban food.

Ian Smith is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance at the University of the West of England. He writes and researches on the processes of urban change on a range of themes from urban regeneration to climate change adaptation responses from the perspectives of regions, communities and neighbourhoods. He led on the work exploring resident responses to the climate change challenge in the SNACC project. Currently he is leading on JPI‐funded work understanding self‐organized climate change responses across Europe (SELFCITY).

Will Swan leads the Applied Buildings and Energy Research Group (ABERG) which he established at the University of Salford in 2011. ABERG is home to the Salford Energy House, a whole test house within an environmental chamber, which has undertaken ground‐breaking work on retrofit and controls. He has a background in industry‐focused research, previously being sustainability and performance measurement lead at the Centre for Construction Innovation before establishing ABERG as a multi‐disciplinary research group. He has undertaken research projects for the EPSRC, EU, Innovate UK and a wide number of commercial clients in the energy and buildings sector.

Jonathon Taylor is a Senior Research Associate in Indoor Environmental Modelling at the Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering (IEDE), at the Bartlett, University College London (UCL). He has a background in biology and geomatics and his PhD examined the long‐term damp and microbial risk in London following flooding by combining microbiological modelling from lab‐based experimentation, hygrothermal building simulation, and GIS mapping. Prior to joining the Bartlett in 2012, he was a Research Associate in Resilient Infrastructure and Building Security in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geomatic Engineering at UCL, where he researched the consequences of biological attacks on buildings using indoor air quality models and laboratory work. He has also worked in industry in both construction and space syntax modelling.

Allan Teale is a registered Valuer/Licenced Real Estate Agent and is an Associate member of the Australian Property Institute (API). He has over 30 years of experience in the property industry, which includes civil works, Commercial/Residential and Industrial Sales and Leasing. He is presently undertaking a PhD where the research focus is Transparency in Governance in the delivery of Transport Infrastructure in NSW by way of Public Private Partnerships. He is also an aboriginal Australian a member of the Wiradjuri people from western NSW, originally from the Nyngan area, in the state of NSW.

Paul van der Kallen, who originally qualified as a Valuer, holds master degrees in Property Development and Education and is a member of the Australian Property Institute (API). His industry experience encompasses the public and private sectors, including roles with the NSW Department of Planning, NSW Roads & Traffic Authority, corporate real estate and specialist valuation firms. His valuation and consultancy experience includes Sydney CBD, metropolitan commercial and industrial sectors, development site acquisitions and property divestment. He has developed numerous courses for institutional property groups, statutory authorities, professional associations and corporate real estate operators. In 2015 he completed an industry‐training programme relating to the impact of energy efficiency and other sustainability measures on commercial property value in Australia.

Sara J. Wilkinson is a Chartered Building Surveyor, a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and a member of the Australian Property Institute (API). She has worked in UK and Australian universities. Her PhD examined building adaptation, whilst her MPhil explored the conceptual understanding of green buildings. Her research focus is on sustainability, adaptation in the built environment, retrofit of green roofs, and conceptual understanding of sustainability. She sits on professional committees for RICS to inform her research and ensure direct benefit to industry. Her research is published in academic, professional journals and Best Practice Guidance Notes to practitioners.

Katie Williams is Director of the Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments (SPE) at the University of the West of England. She specializes in sustainable urban environments and is known for her work on sustainable neighbourhood design (in relation to sustainable behaviours and climate change adaptation), urban form (compact cities) and land reuse. She has held visiting lectureships in the USA, Thailand, Peru and the Netherlands and has authored over 100 academic papers and reports and edited 3 books on sustainable urbanism. She is a member of the International Advisory Board for The Stockholm Centre for Sustainable Communications and a member of the Board of the International Urban Planning and Environment Association as well as being a REF Panel member for Architecture, Built Environment and Planning for the REF2014.

The world’s cities cannot continue as they are. The planet and its inhabitants are changing at an astonishing rate — and with it our cities must adapt.

Demographic shifts have brought about an explosion in the size of the word’s middle classes. In 2000, there were one billion people on the planet who spent between $10 and $100 a day. By 2013, that number had doubled. It looks set to reach five billion by 2030. And with this new‐found wealth comes increased consumption — of energy, water, food, land and other natural resources. Our cities are magnets for this burgeoning middle class, and they already show the signs of its arrival, accounting for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions and consumption of 66% of the world’s energy.

Those numbers only look set to increase. The best predictions suggest that, by 2050, 70% of the world’s population will be living in urban areas. But while our cities certainly create emissions and demand energy, they are also undeniably a part of the solution. Concentrated centres of population offer potential for efficiencies that the rural and suburban environment cannot, from modern mass transit that beats the motor car to combined cooling, heat and power systems that satisfy the energy needs of entire districts.

Cities in their infancy can embrace this kind of sustainability from the start. But older cities will need to adapt, to re‐engineer themselves for the future. As the editors show in these pages, there are obstacles to be overcome in the process — but they are far from insurmountable.

The efficiencies to which I refer are, perhaps surprisingly, easiest to capitalise upon in some of our oldest cities. Medieval settlements that went on to become some of the world’s most iconic cities — London, Barcelona, Rome — were created with people in mind. Their citizens worked within walking distance of their homes; they shopped in nearby markets; and relaxed in local hostelries and parks. These ways of life were, and still are, inherently positive — they are sustainable, low‐carbon, and promote a healthy lifestyle. The good news is that cities originally built in that state can be returned to it easily enough.

Retrofitting provides us with a chance to refocus cities everywhere back into being developed for the needs of humans. Many of our older cities have already started, though the means through which it is achieved varies. To reduce car traffic in the city, for instance, London is leveraging its market economy to make it prohibitively expensive to drive into the centre of the city; meanwhile officials in Bogotá are achieving similar results by making changes to the hard infrastructure of arterial road networks, replacing five‐lane highways dominated by cars with pedestrian, cycle and bus lanes.

In cities developed after the arrival of the motor car, things are not so easy. Modern cities were rarely developed with humans in mind — one need only look to North American cities like Huston and Los Angeles, where dispersed housing and amenities demands motorised travel. Here, the sprawl and traffic congestion represents a different series of retrofitting challenges that need to be overcome, in order to urbanise areas that are closer to the suburban in feel, creating walk‐able and cycle‐able downtown areas that feel as if they were designed for citizens themselves. That might require any combination of approaches, from redeveloping large industrial complexes and building higher density housing, to re‐wilding overly developed districts to re‐introduce green space and encourage healthier lifestyles.

Retrofitting these newer cities may be difficult, but it is certainly not impossible. As this book points out, though, if our cities are to adapt to the needs of the future, a more systemic approach is required — and that starts with governance. Traditionally, urban development has paid little attention to global issues: planners focused on local impacts, national government on larger‐scale economic concerns. But we now live in a globalised world where local and global issues are inextricably linked. More than ever, there is a need for both national government and city administrations to work together, thinking of cities not as a series of discrete services — energy, transport, healthcare and so on — but as a constellation of systems that must work together, with policies and regulations in place to encourage them to do so.

To achieve this will also require a dramatic change in the way cities are developed, from the skills and practices required to undertake the work to the way new initiatives are chosen and managed during their deployment. It will require city administrations, national governments, businesses and academia to work together, to turn cutting‐edge research into practicable products and services that can help improve cities. It will need new skills, from data science to ethnography, to be enlisted alongside more traditional urban development approaches like town planning and civil engineering. And it demands inscrutable economic analysis and forecasting, to ensure that future developments represent the kind of investment opportunities that external bodies are willing to pursue.

None of this is straightforward, and in this book we see just that: the light and dark of urban development, both now and in the near future. Some chapters reveal the promising work being carried out in cities across the world; others point out that retrofitting is still often hindered by needless complexity and conservatism. Ultimately, of course, we need to ensure that these kinds of learnings are fed back into the system as quickly and efficiently as possible, helping shape current and next best practice for urban development so that cities everywhere know what works and what does not.

Fortunately, many cities are waking up to this need. That is perhaps best demonstrated by an increasing number of urban innovation centres — such as Future Cities Catapult, of which I am Chairman of the Board of Directors. At these organisations, city administrations, researchers and businesses can come together, to share experiences, identify best practice and imagine and develop the cities of the future. They can reflect on the kinds of works described in this book, ascertain what the best approaches are, and champion them around the world. That way, our cities can be adapted in a way that makes them work more effectively — for all of us.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning

Albert Einstein (1879–1955)

This book is the culmination of a four year programme of research called ‘Re‐Engineering the City: Urban Foresight and Transition Management (Retrofit 2050)’ (2010‐2014). Funded under the EPSRC Sustainable Urban Environment (SUE) programme, the EPSRC Retrofit 2050 programme was led by Professor Malcolm Eames at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University in the UK. The EPSRC Retrofit 2050 research aimed to advance and explore both theoretical and practical understandings of the systems innovation and transition that will underpin a shift towards sustainability in the built environment between 2020 and 2050.The academic project partners comprised Cardiff University, University of Reading, Cambridge University, Salford University, Durham University and Oxford Brookes University. Non‐academic partners included Tata Colours, Arup, Core Cities, RICS, Defra and BRE Wales. Regional collaborators included Cardiff, Neath Port Talbot and Manchester Councils, the Welsh Government, Environment Agency (Wales) and Manchester City Council.

The EPSRC Retrofit 2050 research also drew on, and synthesised, findings and expertise from UK and international contexts. This came to fruition through an international conference (‘Retrofitting Cities for Tomorrow’s World: Urban Sustainability Transitions to 2050’) on the 12th and 13th of February 2014, held at the Wales Millennium Centre Cardiff Bay, which showcased work emerging from the project, alongside contributions from invited experts in the UK and internationally.

This book highlights and explores some of the innovative and diverse ways of imagining and re‐imagining urban retrofit perspectives, set in the context of ‘futures‐based’ thinking. To do this, the book draws not only on the 2014 conference papers, but also on further specially commissioned chapters from UK and overseas experts. The book therefore explores how to determine the best way to plan and co‐ordinate a more sustainable urban future by 2050 through urban retrofitting approaches to both residential and commercial property; how cities need to ‘govern’ for urban retrofit; and specifically, how future urban transitions and pathways can be managed, modelled and navigated.

We would therefore like to thank all our co‐authors who have contributed to this volume, and also the support of EPSRC (Grant Number EP/1002162/1) in funding the EPSRC Retrofit 2050 work, and which has led to the publication of this book as one of a number of related publications and outputs.

At a personal level, the editors would each also like to thank their families for their patience, love and support during the editing of this book.

For some in our wider ‘family’, the completion of this book coincided with a very difficult period, and we sincerely hope things continue to improve for them.

Cardiff and Reading, 2016