Dr Stephen Platt

Director and Chairman at Cambridge Architectural Research (CAR)

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Director and Chairman, Cambridge Architectural Research Ltd

Stephen Platt is a social scientist with experience in urban planning, housing, energy use and post disaster reconstruction. His main interest is in people and design. His first degree in Economic and Social Studies was the University of Manchester where he trained as an anthropologist. After a year in engineering company he did an MSc in Design Research at UMIST.

He has worked on many aspects of design and the built environment from industrial design at the School of Advanced Studies in the Manchester School of Art to urban and regional planning in the Ministry of Public Works and the UCV in Venezuela. His PhD research at the Martin Centre, University of Cambridge, was on the effect of the local environment on child development. Based at Portsmouth School of Architecture, he specialized in housing and founded HART, the Housing Association Research Team.

He has been a director of Cambridge Architectural Research since 1990 and its Chairman since 2001. He has produced many energy conservation studies and building user surveys. He ran the public consultation exercise for Cambridge Futures, on development and transport in the region. He produced a report on housing in the South East entitled Housing Futures for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, co-authored a study for CABE and the RIBA entitled Urban Futures and did a study of Cambourne for InspireEast. For the past three years he had focused on post disaster planning and reconstruction.

He taught architectural research at the School of Built Environment at Nottingham University for five years. He is currently a member of the Cambridgeshire Quality Panel responsible for scrutinizing plans for major growth sites in Cambridgeshire and a member of Shape East’s Design Review Panel.