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AH/E507956/1
This application aims to catalyse a design revolution in secure cycling provision for the 21st century, linked to the delivery of practice led research that is cutting edge in its design response to crime problems with far reaching social and environmental design implications (our definition of socially responsive design). The research seeks to use creative solutions to overcome the adverse effects of bicycle theft on the achievement of sustainable transport objectives within European cities and to assist in the promotion of cycling and the benefits it offers to society in terms of impact on health and improvements in the quality of the urban environment.\n\nPedal bike theft continues to be a problem in London, the UK and internationally. Research shows that theft, or the fear of theft, is a primary inhibitor to bicycle usage and uptake. Clearly the impact of bicycle theft is not insignificant, and yet our preliminary research into bicycle theft, and the opportunities that exist for effective product and service interventions to reduce it, reveals gaps in both academic and educational resources, as well as commercial address to the significance of bike theft.\n\nIncreased cycle infrastructure and its security, and the goal of increased bicycle usage, is high on the agenda of European urban design in the 21st century. Bicycle parking provision is seen to affect planning applications and increasingly both public and private funds are being made available to facilitate and promote cycle usage through enhanced infrastructure.\n\nThe portfolio of projects, seeks to reduce bicycle theft by applying and integrating the design against crime approach to the design of bicycles, bicycle locks and bicycle parking via the generation of new benchmarks in terms of design standards, design methodologies, design resources, user evaluation and design education that will generate commercial product design application.\n\nTo do this, the portfolio will seek to manage three iterative, practice led research projects, record and disseminate their findings via delivery of a SBD standard, a competition, publication of design resource, website and conference. The projects include address to:\n\n1- Design standards and design methodologies\n2- Design resource and design education\n3- User evaluation\n\nEach project has distinct stakeholders groups. They include academics, police officers, local government officials, town planners, crime prevention advisors, architectural liaison officers, designers, engineers, architects, and criminologists who share concern with the problem of theft.\n\nThe portfolio project structure will manage multi-disciplinary collaboration between stakeholders. Each research project tackles a stage within the delivery of secure design. This project structure, described in the case for support, favours the metaphor of a 'delivery cycle'. Its approach is neither top down, nor bottom up, but rather seeks to ensure that theories, as well as data from practice led design activities, meet and are combined in a holistic way at each stage of the cycle. To quote John Thackara, this research portfolio acknowledges the need to engage with 'design mindfullness', and the fact that design in the 21st century involves 'complex systems that are shaped by all the people who use them, and in this new era of collaborative innovation, designers are having to evolve from solely being the individual authors of objects or buildings, to acknowledge their role as being the facilitators of change among large groups of people.'
Bike Off 2 - Catalysing anti theft bike, bike parking and information design for the 21st century
http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk:80/projects?ref=AH%2FE507956%2F1
Bike Off 2 - Catalysing anti theft bike, bike parking and information design for the 21st century