Oxford Brookes university

lbarnfield@brookes.ac.uk

 

Laura is a Research Associate based in the Low Carbon Building Group of the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development (OISD) at Oxford Brookes University.

 

Prior to joining Oxford Brookes, Laura worked in a local sustainable architectural practice that drew work from a variety of sectors including the public and housing sectors. Most notably she worked on a young people's centre with solar pv panels and high performance building fabric specification in Oxfordshire. Laura holds an MSc in Sustainable Buildings: Performance and Design as well as a DipArch from Oxford Brookes University. Her dissertation on the MSc course was on “Energy Efficiency in the Private Rented Sector: Analysis of existing and potential instruments to encourage the energy efficient upgrading of existing buildings in Oxford’s private rented sector” using the city of Oxford as a case study. Prior to studying at Oxford Brookes University, she studied an MA (Hons) in Architectural Design at the University of Edinburgh where her dissertation focused on the topics of place and placelessness in the UK’s towns and cities.

 

Laura’s research interests are in the cohesion of building and social sciences, looking at sustainable community energy use and energy behaviours, adaptation to changing climates and post occupancy evaluation.