RE-DWELL Summer School 3 (Reading)

The theme of the Reading summer school, “Innovations in Affordable and Sustainable Housing,” was addressed from multiple perspectives through presentations from invited speakers from professional practice, and academia.

The programme included workshops to support the development of ESR’s research through training activities related to two ongoing structured courses: RMT3 “Transferring research findings to community stakeholders” and TS3 “Communication and dissemination; Engagement and impact”. Following the blended-learning approach the activities of the courses began online, to be continued in-person during the event.

In addition to the activities at the University of Reading, there were lectures held in London at the premises of Clarion Housing Association, a partner organisation, and at Pollard Thomas Edwards architectural office, a firm conducting research on affordable housing. Additionally, there was a site visit to a new "build-to-rent" housing development in Reading town centre.

The summer school programme placed particular emphasis on sessions related to WP4, "Transdisciplinary Affordable and Sustainable Housing Research Framework." The goal of work in this package is to integrate the research projects of ESRs within a transdisciplinary framework, which is being developed bottom-up and top-down. A serious game session facilitated discussions on the foundation of this framework, laying the groundwork for its further development. Additionally, participants discussed a shared strategy for collecting inputs from ESRs' projects to create a cohesive set of reports.