MACC PROJECT: ARCADE (Accelerating Resilience and Climate Adaptation of Domestic Environments for vulnerable populations)

Summary

The ‘Accelerating Resilience and Climate Adaptation of Domestic Environments for vulnerable populations’ (ARCADE) project aims to assist decision-makers to protect older heat-vulnerable people in the UK in adapting to climate change within their homes.

The project focuses on retirement villages and social housing to understand how people are affected by heat both indoors and outdoors. It involves experts from different fields (built environment, health, systems thinking) in close collaboration with policymakers, government agencies, healthcare professionals, the construction industry and innovators. The ARCADE team, comprising of experts in the built environment, health, and systems thinking will collaborate with policymakers, government agencies, healthcare professionals, and construction industry leaders to address these critical issues. Building on existing knowledge, the project will use a mixed methods approach, combining indoor environment monitoring, occupant surveys, and simulations of indoor and local outdoor environments. This will help assess the vulnerability of the residents to heat-related issues, now and in the future, under different climate change scenarios. 

Project details

Research Areas

The project will monitor the indoor environment and survey occupants in selected buildings to gauge the impact of heat on them. We will also simulate the indoor environment in these buildings and the outdoor environment near them using computer modelling. This will help us assess the vulnerability of the residents to heat-related issues in a warming climate. We will develop tools to evaluate the heat risk and model heat-health impacts using existing statistical data, and also assess the effectiveness and costs of different overheating mitigation measures, both using models as well as interventions (ventilation, shading etc.) in real buildings.

Through workshops with key stakeholders, we will help them improve decision-making to maximise the climate change adaptation of older, heat vulnerable populations.

Project Partners

1. Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ)
2. Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)
3. Office for Health Improvements and Disparities
4. Greater London Authority
5. Greener NHS
6. Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE)
7. Good Homes Alliance
8. Shade the UK
9. Solar-shield Exterior Shading Solutions
10. Shaded Ltd

Contact

Anna Mavrogianni – https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/23674-anna-mavrogianni