Urban and Built Environment

Co-creating sustainable and inclusive post-carbon societies

DSC has an outstandingly broad range of expertise on urban and built environments. Our research projects with both national and international collaborators are shaping how our built environments are used and how they can be sustainable.

DSC’s research in this area includes urban planning, housing, mobility, digital urban futures, urban design, architecture, building practice, property and construction management, sustainable buildings, circular economy, occupational health and safety, innovative infrastructures and the role of digital technology in all aspects of infrastructure and the constructed environment.

Current Centres and Groups

Centre for Urban Research

Connecting people and ideas for sustainable urban and regional futures. The RMIT Centre for Urban Research is directly responding to the globally important need to shape cities that are environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. We are a thriving inter-disciplinary research centre focused on policy-relevant, high impact, research excellence in the fields related to urban planning. As the largest urban research hub in the southern hemisphere, we provide an intellectual home for multidisciplinary urban researchers at RMIT University to successfully execute global and local initiatives with universities, industry, not-for-profits, media and government.

Post-Carbon Research Centre

Tackles complex challenges of decarbonising the built environment and infrastructures to transition to a sustainable, equitable and resilient future. The Centre brings together multi-disciplinary research capabilities across the built environment and infrastructure sectors, combining expertise from Design, Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Computer and Geospatial Science, and the Social Sciences. Researchers from the Centre execute real world applications that enable both innovation and impact and stay connected to social and political context for implementation at scale. Using a whole life cycle approach, the Centre strives for innovation across full life cycle, value and supply chain.

Sustainable Building Innovation Laboratory

The mission of SBi Lab is to accelerate the shift towards sustainable building through the production and dissemination of high quality research and education. The lab focuses on the development of new materials, building systems, design methods, regulations and policies and the effect of these factors and human behaviour on sustainability performance of buildings.

Construction Work Health and Safety Research @ RMIT

Construction Work Health and Safety Research @ RMIT conducts leading-edge applied research with industry partners in the construction and property industries to analyse organisational work health and safety performance.

Research impact

New Post-Carbon Research Centre launched

RMIT’s new Post-Carbon Research Centre will tackle the complex challenges of decarbonising the built environment and infrastructures to transition to a sustainable, equitable and resilient future.

New-look Centre for Urban Research ready to shape future of our cities

The newly refreshed Centre for Urban Research (CUR) is exploring critical urban questions relating to geographies of land, regenerative environments, climate action and planning and transport.

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New report proposes using tax system to improve rental properties

A new report from RMIT University urban policy experts recommends using Australia’s tax system to force investors to improve conditions for private renters.

Major Australian cities fail international tree canopy goals: study

New research measuring access to nature for eight major global cities, including central Melbourne and Sydney, found most have inadequate canopy cover despite access to an abundance of trees.

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