Based at the Edinburgh College of Art, OPENspace is a research centre committed to making all types of outdoor environment accessible for everyone – people of the Global Majority, children, young people, carers, older people, disabled people, economically or socially disadvantaged groups.
OPENspace leverages the potential that blue and green spaces hold for promoting meaningful outdoor activity and fostering people’s positive engagement with the natural environment, enhancing their overall health and wellbeing in the process.
Established in 2001, OPENspace has raised over £6.5 million in external funding, organised four international conferences and published two books, as well as advising public agencies and professional organisations on rural and urban planning, tackling safety and social inclusion through landscape design, promotion of recreation in natural areas, and advocating environmental justice.
The interdisciplinary team at OPENspace has curated the postgraduate-taught programme – MSc in Landscape and Wellbeing – the first postgraduate-taught programme of its kind in the UK that acknowledges and addresses the need to understand positive relationships between landscapes and human wellbeing and quality of life, and using that understanding to inform landscape design.
OPENspace Projects
Recently, Professor Simon Bell, co-director of OPENspace, introduced the BlueHealth Toolkit, a tried and tested free resource that urban planners and designers can consult and benefit from while working on blue space projects (blue space is defined as all forms of natural and manmade surface water). This toolkit was a part of the BlueHealth project, a research initiative that probed into the interconnections between urban blue spaces, climate, and health. The project, spanning four years between 2016—20, brought together large-scale data surveys with local interventions to emphasise the interconnections.
Professor Catharine Ward Thompson, co-director of OPENspace, was a keynote speaker at the 49th PARJAP Congress in Madrid – an event organised by the Spanish Association of Public Parks and Gardens – where she spoke about her research on the multifaceted impacts well-designed green spaces can have on public health and well-being by aiding in the reduction of stress and anxiety, promoting physical activity, and mitigating the adverse effects of climate change.
Edinburgh Earth Initiative Earth Fellow, Ki Tong, is also a PhD candidate with OPENspace and the Advanced Care Research Centre, exploring access to green space for older people in care homes. As an Earth Fellow, Ki has also worked with Dr Arno Verhoeven in the School of Design on the Low Voltage Living project. She worked in a team to deliver workshops with researchers to challenge predominant sociotechnical narratives regarding social behaviour, technical emancipation and the role of critical infrastructures in energy production, storage and distribution.
Building on their expertise in researching links between landscape planning, design and management and human health, several members of OPENspace are involved in the GroundsWell project. A collaboration between researchers, local communities, implementers, and policymakers. The GroundsWell project is geared towards better understanding the role of Urban Green and Blue Spaces (UGBS) within cultural, social, economic, environmental, and health systems, with the overall aim of reducing non-communicable disease. The research is split across Belfast, Edinburgh, and the Liverpool City Region, taking advantage of the distinct urban characteristics of each.
The Woods In and Around Towns Project II, building on Part I, addresses some of the urgent and most pressing questions facing forestry agencies across the UK, Europe, and the world, especially pertaining to sustainability, social access to forests, and human health.
OPENspace Research Fellows
Meet current OPENspace Research Fellows and Associates Dr Scott Ogletree, Dr Caroline Pearce, Dr Charlotte Wendelboe Nelson, and Dr Carolina Mayen Huerta and their part in supporting ongoing OPENspace projects .
Past projects
The Edinburgh’s Thriving Green Spaces project is an example of an OPENspace collaboration with The City of Edinburgh Council’s Parks, Greenspace and Cemeteries service, with the involvement of Master’s and PhD students at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.
The Mobility, Mood and Place project sought to understand how to design spaces that can enhance pedestrian mobility, making the experience enjoyable and meaningful for older people. This research stems from the evidence that environments – and more specifically, how people experience them – influences people’s mood, and their activity and mobility levels. This project involved a range of academic and public, policy, and not-for-profit partners.
And finally, the Lifecourse of Place, Making Connections, Inclusive Design for Getting Outdoors (I’DGO), and Memory-Friendly Neighbourhoods projects also focused on the intersecting drivers of landscape quality and human health.
Climate and Health
Climate change is the single greatest threat to humanity, with many impacts on human health. Read out about some of the vital, interdisciplinary research underway here at The University of Edinburgh that addresses the complex, intersecting drivers of climate and health globally. Explore further on our dedicated climate and health page.
Useful Links
Check out the 2023/24 OPENspace seminar series, running until April 2024
Earth Fellows Edit – Low Voltage Living
