UCL’s Active Buildings findings presented at Moscow Urban Forum

'Active City: An environment that promotes movement' was the topic of Professor Alexi Marmot’s masterclass at the Moscow Urban Forum 2019, a major gathering of international urbanists and thought leaders.

The theme of this year’s forum was Quality of Life: Projects for a better city. Included in the session were findings from the cross-disciplinary UCL project Active Buildings, funded by the National Institute for Health Research and co-led by Prof Marmot, director of BREI’s Global Centre for Learning Environments.

Her talk presented cities as complex socio-technical artefacts in which changing demography, transportation, energy, urban form, design of buildings and furniture, and knowledge of behaviour change affect social, environmental and health outcomes. The session outlined what is needed to shape cities that encourage healthy bodies, in healthy cities on a healthy planet.

Prof Marmot was also a specially invited panellist on the session ‘Office for rent: How will the future workspace evolve?’ which explored disruptive innovation in office work, technologies and workspaces. She suggested what future workspaces need and how to achieve that, given changes in employment structures, technologies, building design and operation.