The Bartlett and partners: using research to put sustainability firmly on the London map

A new project, developed by The Bartlett and partners, is helping to map out a more energy-efficient city for Londoners.

UCL and partners: using research to put sustainability firmly on the London map

28 September 2022

To effectively plan for London’s future as a sustainable city, buildings professionals need more details about its buildings and their efficiency. Colouring London, a free online platform, is helping to meet this demand.

The platform provides openly available data to academics, planners and other buildings professionals that should significantly enhance the sustainability, resilience and quality of London’s buildings.

Developed at UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, the project is being run as a partnership initiative with the Ordnance Survey, Historic England and Greater London Authority.

Polly Hudson, director of Colouring London, who conducted the initial research at UCL, says the aim is to provide free statistics on all the capital’s buildings.

“We’re drawing on a wide range of expertise. Historians, planners, housing, construction and conservation specialists, and local communities, are all able to offer different kinds of information about London’s buildings. Visitors can view data and add their own on colour-coded maps. The platform is increasing our understanding of how London’s developed, and how it might be developed in a more sustainable way in the future.”

“The platform is increasing our understanding of how London’s developed, and how it might be developed in a more sustainable way in the future.”

Since launching in 2018, Colouring London has had 4.7 million data entries. In addition to its value to specialists, the platform is a citizen science project as well as a free education resource for the capital’s schools. 

The project was kickstarted by knowledge exchange funding, managed by UCL Innovation & Enterprise. The Bartlett has a strong track record of accelerating the impact of built environment projects, by bringing together expertise from a range of partners.

Further resources

Contact

Dr Duncan Smith
Lecturer in GIS Visualisation, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
Email: duncan.a.smith@ucl.ac.uk

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