Bartlett staff named as Design Council expert network Ambassadors

We are excited to announce that Dr Helen Pineo at the UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering (IEDE), and Professor Yolande Barnes at the UCL Bartlett Real Estate Institute (BREI) have been named as Ambassadors for the new Design Council expert network.

Chosen from a diverse group of active leaders and changemakers across the industry, the ambassadors will provide valuable input into providing design solutions and innovation to communities, while also championing the importance of design and contributing to research, policy and thought leadership.

Discussing the nomination, Dr Pineo said: 

“I look forward to continuing my work with the Design Council as an Ambassador in their new expert network. In this role, I aim to challenge existing understandings of designing healthy places, raising awareness of the fundamental need for approaches that are equitable, inclusive and sustainable. It is commendable that the Design Council are refreshing their expert network to increase diversity, which will support the changes we need in the sector to create healthy and sustainable places.

Professor Barnes added: 

“My role as a Design Council Ambassador reflects and reinforces my aims as chair of the Bartlett Real Estate Institute where we are encouraging and enabling the property industry to think beyond the design of buildings to the design and integration of wider neighbourhoods and communities, and to designing economic and business models and methods of co-creation; considering wider environmental and social sustainability as well as economic issues. I look forward to bringing a wider circle of participants to this sort of design forum.

On the announcement, Design Council Chief Executive, Minnie Moll, said the aim of the new ambassador network was to form a ‘dynamic community of practice’, and increase diversity and reflect under-represented groups in order to bring a “greater breadth of perspective and expertise” to the network. 

“By bringing together increasingly diverse experts, social and business innovation, service and systemic design, this community of practice is in a strong position to respond positively and even more effectively to some of society’s most pressing challenges,” she continued. 

Design Council is an independent charity and the UK Government's advisor on design, with a stated mission to make life better by design and ensure design is recognised as a fundamental creator of value.