Communities

Future Cities and BIM

This project addresses the question of how European cities are adapting to BIM, and what awareness there is of BIM in future city thinking and strategies, particularly around Smart Cities. It also looks at what tools and policies are being used to take forward BIM in city development and thinking...

Designing Safe Complex Environments

Using the principles of universal design, this project aims to create a VR environment that reduces usability issues such as balance in order to test virtual built environment designs with users who have a balance or sensory impairment.

The local governance of digital technology – implications for the cityscale digital twin

What part does city and regional governance play in how a city-level digital twin develops? It is necessary to understand the ways in which governance for digital twins is bound by context and the ways in which it is generalisable in order to successfully transfer knowledge and best practices among...

Building Interactive Smart Acoustics into Buildings and Clothing

Can people who use hearing aids experience the detailed soundscapes of the buildings they are in? This project aimed to build multiple microphone sensors and ways to interrogate the acoustic environment into wearable technologies for hearing-impaired users. These would make the built environment...

The Uptake of Digital Tools, Standards and Processes in Innovation in the UK House Building Industry: opportunities and barriers to adoption

This project aims to define the barriers and opportunities for adopting BIM in the UK housing sector, and to highlight the potential benefits of BIM to this sector.

Reinventing renting: The application of digital technology in housing for 'generation rent'

While digital technology is springing up in the private rented sector and potentially providing various benefits, there is still a trust barrier when it comes to tenants sharing their data. Data from the private rented sector has historically been lacking, but the rise of digital technology in this...

Housing Digital Built Britain Network

The Housing Digital Built Britain Network focused its attention on residential housing. It brought together academics, practitioners, policy makers and government to facilitate dialogue and determine the key areas of inquiry. Working with these partners, it outlined the priority issues for...

Co-Creating a City-Scale Digital Strategy and Framework: A Systems and Co-production Approach

Digital technologies have the potential to unlock major social and economic change for the World’s rapidly growing urban populations, creating value through more liveable, healthy and environmentally sustainable cities. However, this can only happen if city leaders are empowered to make intelligent...

Crowdsourcing Data in Mining Spatial Urban Activities

This project aims to understand how check-in data from social media is distributed around Cambridge and what kinds of spatial segmentation can be identified. It validated the social media data on urban segregation using observation and questionnaires. We conducted pilots at Cambridge in the UK and...

Dr Aftab Jalia

Research background

Dr Aftab Jalia studied architecture at the University of Pune in India before pursuing postgraduate degrees at MIT and the University of Cambridge.

He worked for the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in New Delhi and Hyderabad for 5 years on non-profit heritage conservation and environmental development projects. At the Centre for Natural Material Innovation, University of Cambridge, he was a Commonwealth Trust scholar studying building crafts and masonry vaulting techniques that use environmentally responsible materials.