Elizabeth Burton

Elizabeth Burton MA Cantab DipArch DipUD PhD

Professor of Sustainable Building Design and Wellbeing
Research Director of WISE

Research profile

Professor Burton is founder director of the WISE (Wellbeing in Sustainable Environments) research unit within the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development (now within the Institute of Health). Her research investigates the social aspects of sustainable urban form, in particular how the built environment (architecture and urban design) influences people's wellbeing, quality of life and mental health. She has particular expertise in ageing research, including dementia-friendly design.

WISE recently developed the Neighbourhoods for Life concept, which has been referenced in the National Strategy for Housing in an Ageing Society: Lifetime Homes, Lifetime Neighbourhoods (DCLG, 2008). Professor Burton has won close to £4.7 million in research grants, mainly from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

She is partner in an EPSRC Research Consortium, Inclusive Design for Getting Outdoors (I'DGO – see www.idgo.ac.uk), which is investigating how the outdoor environment should be designed to optimise older people's wellbeing.

Examples of recent publications and conference papers

Books

William Bird, Elizabeth Burton, Alan Maryon-Davis, Margaret Murphy, Sarah Stewart-Brown, Katherine Weare, Phil Wilson. Edited by Rachael Jolley (2011) Thinking Ahead: Why We Need to Improve Children's Mental Health and Wellbeing, Faculty of Public Health, London.

Burton, E. and Mitchell, L. (2006) Inclusive Urban Design: Streets for Life, Architectural Press, Oxford. Elsevier have secured a deal for the Chinese Simplified translation rights of this book. The publisher is China Architecture and Building Press.

Williams, K., Burton, E. and Jenks, M. (eds) (2000) Achieving Sustainable Urban Form, Spon Press, London.

Jenks, M., Burton, E. and Williams, K. (eds) (1996) The Compact City: A Sustainable Urban Form? E & FN Spon, an imprint of Chapman and Hall, London.

Refereed Journal Articles

Burton, E. and Torrington, J. (2007) Designing environments suitable for older people. CME Geriatric Medicine, 9(2): 39-45. Chosen as the British Geriatrics Society specially commissioned article.

Mitchell, L. and Burton, E. (2006) Neighbourhoods for life: designing dementia-friendly outdoor environments. Quality in Ageing – Policy, Practice and Research, Special Edition: the EQUAL Initiative, 7(1): 26-33.

Sheehan, B., Burton, E. and Mitchell, L. (2006) Outdoor wayfinding in dementia. Dementia: The International Journal of Social Research and Practice, 5(2): 271-281.

Burton, E., Weich, S., Blanchard, M. and Prince, M. (2005) Measuring physical characteristics of housing: the Built Environment Site Survey Checklist (BESSC). Environment and Planning B, 32(2): 265-280.

Mitchell, L., Burton, E. and Raman, S. (2004) Dementia-friendly cities: designing intelligible neighbourhoods for life. Journal of Urban Design, 9(1): 89-101.

Blackman, T., Mitchell, L., Burton, E., Jenks, M., Parsons, M., Raman, S. and Williams, K. (2003) The accessibility of public spaces for people with dementia: a new priority for the ‘open city’. Disability and Society, 18(3): 357-371.

Burton, E. (2003) Housing for an urban renaissance: implications for social equity. Housing Studies, 18(4): 537-562.

Mitchell, L., Burton, E. and Raman, S., Blackman, T., Jenks, M. and Williams, K. (2003) Making the outside world dementia-friendly: design issues and considerations. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 30: 605-632.

Weich, S., Blanchard, M., Prince, M., Burton, E., Sproston, K. and Erens, R. (2002) Mental health and the built environment: a cross-sectional survey of individual and contextual risk factors for depression. British Journal of Psychiatry, 180: 428-433. This was highlighted by the editor, as the first paper in the journal to have an urban designer as author.

Burton, E. (2002) Measuring urban compactness in UK towns and cities. Environment and Planning B, 29(2): 219-250.

Weich, S., Burton, E., Blanchard, M., Prince, M., Sproston, K. and Erens, R. (2001) Measuring the built environment: validity of a site survey instrument for use in urban settings. Health and Place, 7: 283-292.

Burton, E. (2000) The compact city: just or just compact? A preliminary analysis. Urban Studies, October, 37(11): 1969-2006.