Academic staff profile Dr Kate Carter

Kate teaches on the Masters and Undergraduate Architecture Programmes with a focus on technology, environment and sustainability. She is Course Organiser for Architectural Technology Research, guiding students to explore innovative materials, environment and processes that contribute to reducing the Climate Emergency. She also leads the Design Project for the MSc in Advanced Sustainable Design.

Kate contributes to Professional Practice courses and the integration of technology in the design studios. She lectures on Procurement and Building Information Management and takes part in the ‘Contract Game’ with Masters students each year.

Kate is External Examiner at Glasgow University for the Joint Architecture and Engineering degree with GSA. She is also a Board Member of APEAS (Architects Professional Examination Authority Scotland).

Dr Carter has led and co-led a number of funded research projects around sustainable and low carbon approaches in Architecture.

She jointly led the ‘Present Voices Future Lives’ exhibition and tour for Architecture Design Scotland and the Scottish Government to support the Housing to 2040 Vision. Films made as part of this project were selected for the RSA Annual Exhibition. The exhibition was shown at the Lighthouse in Glasgow, Scotland’s Centre for Design and Architecture.

Kate does research with the Social Housing sector and has undertaken projects with Wheatley Group, SFHA and the Construction Innovation Centre, CS-IC.

Kate She was funded by GCRF in 2020 to work with ArBolivia, a social enterprise afforestation programme, to explore local use of the timber for buildings in Bolivia. She is a member of the Brettstapel Network in Scotland exploring the use of dowel-laminated timber in buildings.

Other research work includes EPSRC funded projects:

• ‘Learning Energy Systems’, involving Architecture, Informatics, Digital Design and Social Science in a project exploring innovative HCI (human computer interaction) approaches to managing energy use in school buildings.
• ‘Enhance’ working with the City of Edinburgh Council and the University of Edinburgh to explore ways that large organisations engage people with energy use in their buildings.
• ‘concrete2cookers’ a public engagement project, to help children understand how carbon emissions are linked to their school buildings, creating an online game which is available for use in schools across the UK. This project was launched at the Edinburgh International Science Festival in 2009.

In 2012 Kate chaired the Review of Energy Standards for buildings on behalf of the Scottish Government and was a member of the reconvened Sullivan Panel, ‘A Low Carbon Building Standards Strategy for Scotland’ in 2013.