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.

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

Melbourne revegetation plan calls for on-street parking to go undercover

New RMIT-led research reveals up to half of Melbourne’s on-street parking spaces could be converted into hectares of new green space, without a net loss of parking.

Learn more about greener cities

Climate change threatens cities worldwide with heatwaves and floods but some places have learnt to adapt.

Here's how they've done it.

Read the article

Upcoming Centres 2023

The following new Centre is planning to launch in early 2023. Be sure to revisit DSC Research or follow us on social media to hear more about launch events and how you can be involved.

Post Carbon Built Environment Centre

The Post Carbon Built Environment Centre will be a collaborative multidisciplinary research centre with a vision to transition communities and the built environment to a sustainable, equitable and resilient post carbon future. The Centre’s model of operating will be through research partnerships bringing together researchers from RMIT’s multiple schools and colleges. The Centre will aim to build an ethical, inclusive research environment and a collaborative research culture which stimulates innovations.

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PhD and Masters by Research

Find out more about studying a research degree at RMIT and our current graduate scholarships

Research partnerships

RMIT builds partnerships to have a positive impact in the world. We form multi-disciplinary teams with government, community, industry and researchers to deliver innovative solutions.

Ethics and integrity

Learn more about how the Research Ethics and Integrity team facilitate ethical and excellent research at RMIT

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Luwaytini' by Mark Cleaver, Palawa.

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Acknowledgement of Country

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