Birmingham, the UK’s second largest city by population, has been in the international spotlight as the host of the 2022 Commonwealth Games. To welcome the athletes and stage their events, the city invested £788m of public funding, including £594m from central government, writes John Bryson, professor of enterprise and competitiveness, University of Birmingham,

The project is part of a wider repurposing of brownfield and former industrial space in Manchester with several other projects promoting the city as a go-to place for innovative urban development in housing and green and open space. Under construction, in particular, is Victoria North, a neighbourhood of 15,000 homes across a 155-hectare site, and which includes City River Park, a huge 'recreational corridor' along the River Irk.

Chris Davis works as a subject matter expert in bulk biologics processing – primarily the manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals – for Jacobs where he supports projects across Europe. He outlines some of the characteristics of his role and how his career path led him to the position. 

Burkina Faso’s Diébédo Francis Kéré has become the first African and the first Black person to win the Pritzker prize, architecture’s equivalent of the Nobel. 

It is often said that England is the most densely populated large country in Europe – typically in discussions about its rising population, and the growing strain on public services. But it’s not true, writes Alasdair Rae, professor in urban studies and planning, University of Sheffield.

My new research reveals that even the best aspects of the UK’s current building plans don’t go nearly far enough, writes Ljubomir Jankovic. We have found that due to embodied carbon emissions – the emissions that derive from making building materials and constructing houses, rather than heating and powering them – only building all new housing using naturally grown materials with negative embodied carbon will allow the UK housing industry to be net zero by 2050.