Eliminating plastic from building houses, creating a house out of construction waste – rubble, chalk, ply timber and second hand nuts and bolts – and designing for circular cities are amongst the projects undertaken by Duncan Baker-Brown from the University of Brighton. Professor Flora Samuel from the University of Reading has been looking at the value of good architecture and how we can measure the social impact of sustainable housing. They talk to Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough.

You can find out more about Flora’s work and publications here: https://research.reading.ac.uk/urban-living/people/fsamuel/ and https://www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/resources-landing-page/post-occupancy-evaluation

The Brighton Waste House: https://www.brighton.ac.uk/research-and-enterprise/feature/brighton-waste-house.aspx

Designing for Circular Cities: https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/organisations/design-for-circular-cities-and-regions-dccr-research-and-enterpri-2

Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Durham.

The podcast series Green Thinking is 26 episodes 26 minutes long looking at issues relating to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. It explores the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency.

New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough are in conversation with researchers about a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.

The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2

For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.

Producer: Sofie Vilcins