Steve Curwell
Current Position
Steve is Professor of Sustainable Urban Development (SUD) at the University of Salford, Manchester, UK and a leading European researcher in this area through his key role in 14 EU and UK national research projects over the last 15 years.

Background
Steve originally trained as an architect and urban designer and in the 70’s worked on urban regeneration and building rehabilitation projects including a number of housing rehabilitation and new build projects in the North West of England. He was awarded first prize in a competition for the pedestrianisation of central Belfast. Formerly Head of Architecture at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK from 1989 he moved to the University of Salford in the late 1990’s, where he has led the development of research in sustainable construction, urban regeneration and intelligent cities.

Steve has extensive research collaboration experience with over 350 research teams, city authorities and IST companies in the European Union via five EC funded projects:

• BEQUEST - Building Environmental Quality Evaluation for Sustainability through Time (FP4)
• CRISP – Construction and City Related Sustainability Indicators (FP5)
• INTELCITY – Towards Sustainable Intelligent Cities (Roadmap in FP5)
• LUDA – Improving the Quality of Life in Large Urban distressed Areas (FP5)
• IntelCities – Intelligent Cities Integrated Project (FP6)

Steve has led exploration of innovative ways of inclusive, consensus-based research over the complex problems of SUD and urban regeneration linking IT and new ways of e-working. He is the author or co-author of 80 publications; 5 books, 50+ research papers, 2 learning packages and 4 research web sites. This includes a prototype, Internet based, urban decision-support aid known as the BEQUEST Toolkit, the first to provide fully integrated approaches to SUD evaluation. Steve directed the INTELCITY Research Roadmap project (2002-03 - Euro 300K) for the EC which has explored routes to achieving the joint EU Lisbon Summit objectives of a vibrant knowledge based economy by 2010 and sustainable development by 2030, in the context of European cities. This project developed a range of scenarios for sustainable information cities and consulted a wide range of experts and cities over the research agenda in this area. In the LUDA Project, he led the work on evaluation for sustainable urban regeneration and produced a decision support aid to assist regeneration professionals: http://www.luda-europe.net/hb5/select.php.

He also led the team that successfully secured funding in 2004 for a very large Integrated Project called Intelcities from the EC (IST: 507860), based on the INTELCITY Roadmap findings. Intelcities has a total budget E14M (E6.8M EU contribution) and brought together 18 cities led by Manchester and Siena, 19 ICT companies including Cisco, Nokia and Barco as well as 35 research groups. The project undertook the development of a prototype Integrated eCity Information Platform based on OSS principles, which for the first time linked electronic Governance with electronic Urban Planning, i.e., to link the day to day management of cities with more inclusive participatory planning facilitated by advanced IT. Steve was the Scientific and Technical director of this project, managing the development of prototypes in 6 EU cities; Manchester, Marseille, Rome, Dresden, Helsinki and Siena and RTD over the interoperability of a wide range of emerging IT solutions including GIS, GPS, VR and city model simulations. The prototype Integrated Open e-City Information Platform that has emerged provides an Integrated Development Environment that supports 16 new services as well as a number of participative planning knowledge products to facilitate their use by cities: http://www.intelcitiesproject.com.

He is part of the team that is seeking wider deployment of the Intelcities approach through the newly formed Intelcities Alliance and is director of the European Intelligent Cities Research Centre recently launched in Siena, Italy. With University at Albany he has also been successful in securing funding from the US Federal National Science Foundation (NSF) to undertake know-how exchange between EU and US researchers on advanced electronic planning and governance of cities. He is currently co-editor of a book series on Sustainable Urban Development for the publisher Routledge, is a member of the editorial board of the international research journal: Building Research and Information and is a member of the Scientific Panel for the annual International eChallenges Conference. In 2005 he joined the review panel for the annual international Intelligent Community of the Year award. Steve was formerly a director of UK environmental consultancy Green Gauge (1990-96). He currently represents the North West of England’s Universities on the board of RENEW - the centre of excellence for sustainable regeneration in the North-West of England where he is advising on the networking and knowledge management strategies for capturing good practice and leadership potentialities in both urban and rural regeneration and has recently been appointed to the North West of England Design Review panel. Steve has recently secured funding from the UK Economic and Social Science Research Council under their Learning from what Works programme for a small project, led by Napier University, Edinburgh, UK on the use of IT to support good practice in inclusive visioning for sustainable communities.


Selected Recent Scholarly Work
Case Study 2: The Longwood Low-Energy House, with Lowe R. in ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN HOUSING. Lowe, Bell and Roberts. Avebury. March 1996.

Barriers to Recycling of Polymers in Construction, with Sturgess, J.L. and Toth, M. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Buildings and the Environment, CIB, Paris, France, 9-12th June 1997.

The Implications of Sustainability for the Environmental Assessment of Buildings and the Construction Industry - a European Perspective. Proceedings of the American Institute of Architects Congress: Environmental and Economic Balance, the 21st Century Outlook, Miami, Florida, 7-9th November 1997.

The implications of Urban Sustainability, with Cooper, I. Vol 26 No. 1 January/February 1998 pgs 17-28. Riqualificazione urbana sostenibile: un'analisi comparitiva Torino-Salford, with Lombardi, P. Urbanistica, No.112 1999, Pgs 96-103, (English Summary Pgs.114-115).

The Green Building Challenge in the UK, with Yates, A., Howard, N., Bordass, B., and Doggart, J., Building Research and Information, Vol. 27 Nos. 4/5, July/October 1999, Pgs.286-293.

Hazardous Building Materials: A Guide to Selection of Alternatives. A revised and extended edition. E and FN Spon. In press, expected December 2000.

Education
Steve has a BSc and MSc in Architecture.