In 2024, ºÚÁÏÍø´óÊÂ¼Ç Built Environment and City Futures Research Centre researchers received $7.8m in grant funding to tackle some of the biggest challenges in our fields, from embedding AI into city-making decisions to mitigating the urban heat island effect.
The are part of a consortium who have received $6.5 million of grant funding to develop . This includes $2.7 million directly from the Federal Government through its Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) program. Urban Copilot is an innovative GenAI product suite designed to assist industry professionals in interpreting planning and building regulations and creating development applications that subsequently meet government requirements.
, and were awarded $717,251 of funding for their project ‘AI, Cities and Development Assessment’, through the 2025 ARC Discovery project round. This research will uncover the legal, technical and ethical requirements for the trustworthy use of AI in urban development assessment.
City Futures Research Centre were also awarded a $1 million grant by the office of the NSW Chief Scientist for the development of the Housing Analytics Lab (HAL). This project will create a hybrid digital and physical facility to support data-driven housing solutions, including an AI classifier of planning assessments to understand spatial clusters of current and future housing development activity.
Finally, City Futures have partnered with FrontierSI to launch , supported by a in 2024. Founded by Scientia Prof. Chris Pettit and , with contributions from Dr. Richard Billingsley, and , MapAI aims to democratise geospatial analysis, making it easy for anyone to ask a map-based query.
and have been awarded a grant of $384,918 from the World Bank to collaborate with researchers from University College London and Universitas Trisakti Indonesia. The project aims to address the research gap on green construction in Indonesia by evaluating the performance of EDGE-certified homes, generating evidence to promote sustainable building practices, refine certification standards, and minimise the environmental impact of housing.
and have been awarded $150,000 from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) for a project entitled .
This research will investigate constraints in the housing construction sector associated with supply chain, workforce, technology, regulation, system of work, and markets. It will map industry, model constraints and simulate potential solutions, bringing these together with the goal of enabling more affordable housing and overcoming productivity constraints in the Australian construction sector.
Researchers from ºÚÁÏÍø´óʼǒs High Performance Architecture Research Group made novel findings in the battle against urban heat across 2024.
A study led by Anita Lawrence Chair in High-Performance Architecture , co-authored with , and published in Nature Cities, detailed a multi-faceted strategy to cool Riyadh in Saudi Arabia by up to 4.5°C, combining highly reflective ‘super cool’ materials developed in the High-Performance Architecture Lab with irrigated greenery and energy retrofitting measures. This approach would also reduce the city’s cooling energy demand by 16 per cent. The study was a collaboration between ºÚÁÏÍø´óʼÇ, the University of Sydney, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Royal Commission of Riyadh City, the University of Calcutta and the University of Athens.
A further study in Nature Cities, led by Dr Ansar Khan from the University of Calcutta and co-authored by Prof. Santamouris showed that city-wide installation of photovoltaic solar panels on roofs could raise temperatures during the daytime and lower them at night-time.
Finally, and have led the creation of a new national index to measure and then mitigate heat vulnerability in Australia. The National Heat Vulnerability Observatory Index (NaHVO) is a $700,000 project where ºÚÁÏÍø´óÊÂ¼Ç have partnered with the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water to develop national benchmark datasets and an innovative, robust and consistent methodology to measure heat vulnerability in Australian towns and cities.
, is a collaboration between ºÚÁÏÍø´óʼÇ, TU Delft and the University of Sydney, highlighting female researchers and practitioners at the global forefront of contemporary robotics.
The exhibition included the work of three ºÚÁÏÍø´óÊÂ¼Ç Built Environment researchers; ‘Robotum Exuviae’ and ‘Still, Life’ explore the lifecycle of soft robots, documenting their preserved forms and discarded exoskeletons. and Charlotte Firth’s  ‘Terrafab’ envisions sustainable 3D-printed earth homes that optimise design, utilise site-sourced materials, and replace high-carbon materials like concrete and steel. And ‘Re-Print’ investigates 3D printing imperfections to create recycled PETG acoustic panels with micro-perforations that diffuse and absorb sound, promoting waste reduction and material reuse.
In October 2024 the officially launched at ºÚÁÏÍø´óʼÇ. The Centre, an interdisciplinary, industry-focused research and training initiative, will accelerate digital transformation processes within the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction sector to meet critical sustainability goals. Based at ºÚÁÏÍø´óÊÂ¼Ç School of Built Environment and led by , it is funded by a $5 million grant from the Australian Research Council.Â
With a cohort of 25 PhD students and 3 postdoctoral researchers spread over three institutions, and working with national and international industry partners, the Centre will investigate when and how digital strategies in the Architecture, Design, and Engineering industries can deliver new solutions, services, or modes of operation that can fundamentally change the way buildings are designed and manufactured.
, , and convened a symposium and series of exhibitions reappraising the work of Japanese architect Shoei Yoh, supported by a DFAT Australia-Japan Foundation Grant.
, organised in partnership with Kyushu University, the Window Research Institute, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, brought together over 150 academics, architects, and industry professionals at the Architecture Institute of Japan in September.
The project also organised of Shoei Yoh’s work in 2024, including at the POST Architecture Book store in Tokyo (visited by over 1,000 attendees), the SASA Gallery in Adelaide and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum