Biography
Nick is Head of Birmingham School of the Built Environment, having joined what is now Birmingham City University in 2003. He was Course Leader for the School’s RTPI-accredited undergraduate planning degrees for a number of years, including leading the design of the BSc (Hons) Planning & Development route in 2006, and was appointed Director of Undergraduate Studies to overview the entire BSc programme in 2008. In 2010 he was appointed Head of his department, which in 2011 was renamed Birmingham School of the Built Environment to coincide with moving to the City Centre Campus at Millennium Point. He was elected Vice-Chair of the UK’s Council of Heads of the Built Environment (CHOBE) in 2012.
Prior to joining the University, he completed a PhD in urban geography and planning at the University of Birmingham in 1998, and worked on number of research projects, including as Principal Researcher on a Leverhulme Trust-funded project entitled Historical Layering and the Form of Urban Regeneration. He also held various Visiting Lecturer posts at UCE Birmingham (as it was then called), the University of Leicester, and the University of Wolverhampton.
In recognition of his innovative classroom teaching and track record in curriculum development, he was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Higher Education Academy in 2006, building upon a University Teaching Fellowship won in 2005. As part of a cross-University research team, he secured one of the first round of National Teaching Fellowship Scheme Projects, worth £200,000, in 2007.
He has also carried out consultancy work for Birmingham City Council and Stratford upon Avon District Council, and his most recent publication, ‘Drawing lines on maps: morphological regions and planning practices’ (with Professor P.J. Larkham), appears in the October 2011 edition of the journal Urban Morphology.
Research
Research
Grants and Projects
2010-2012
‘Managing
Environmental Change at the Rural-Urban Fringe’, Rural Economy and Land Use
Programme (£145k; co-investigator)
2011
‘It’s
Everyone’s School: the student view on the student experience in PCP’, Student
Academic Partners scheme, BCU (£1.5k; lead and author)
2007-2009
‘Creating
Future-proof Graduates’, National
Teaching Fellowship Scheme Project, Higher Education Academy (£200k; co-author
and Board member)
2004-2006
‘Supporting
a Diverse Student Population’ and ‘Enhancing
Employability Through the Use of Gaming and Simulation’, UCE Birmingham
Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund (project leader, and co-leader/co-author
(latter))
2000-2002
‘Historical Layering and the Form of Urban
Regeneration’, Leverhulme Trust (£50k; co-author and named research fellow)
1997-1999
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow on projects funded by
(i) British Academy and (ii) Natural Environment
Research Council, University of Birmingham
Publications
Selected publications
2011
‘Drawing
lines on maps: morphological regions and planning practices’, Urban
Morphology vol. 15 no. 2 pp. 133-151 (with P.J. Larkham)
2010
‘Creating future-proof graduates using scenario
based learning’ in Errington, E. (Ed.) Preparing Graduates for the
Professions using Scenario Based Learning, Brisbane, Australia, Post
Pressed Publications (with A Hill, C Popovic, R Lawton and J Eland)
2009
'Using Critical Incidents to Create Learning
Pathways Between the Real World and Places of Learning: Findings from a 2 Year
Funded Project Aimed at Improving Understanding and Capability in Key
Employability Skills' The
International Journal of Learning 16 (with
A. Hill, C. Popovic, R. Lawton, J. Eland, R. Curzon, D. Eastcott and C. Tomas)
2006
‘The
Fringe-belt Phenomenon and Socio-economic Change’, Urban Studies 43 (11), pp. 2047-2066 (with J.W.R. Whitehand)
‘The
Effectiveness of e-learning’, International
Journal of Architectural Engineering & Design Management - Special issue on
Teaching and Learning in the Built Environment, pp. 73-86 (with E. Chinyio)
2004
‘Urban
Morphology and Planning: the case of fringe belts’, Cities 21 (4) pp. 275 – 89 (with J.W.R. Whitehand)
2003
‘Fringe
belts and the recycling of urban land: an academic concept and planning
practice’, Environment and Planning B:
Planning and Design 30 (6) pp. 819 – 39 (with J.W.R. Whitehand)
‘Fringe
belts and city planning: reality and potential’, in Petruccioli, A. (Ed.), The Planned City?, Proceedings of the
International Seminar on Urban Form, July 2003, Uniongrafica Corcelli Editrice,
Bari, pp. 742 – 48 (with J.W.R. Whitehand and M.I.W Hopkins)
2002
‘Reinventing
Morphological Regions?’, Urban Morphology
Vol. 6 (2) p. 97
1999
'Urban morphogenesis at the micro-scale: how houses change' Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 26 (4) pp.
503 - 15 (with J.W.R. Whitehand and C.M.H. Carr)
Consultancy
2005
Residential Character Study of Stratford-upon-Avon, Report commissioned by Stratford-on-Avon District Council (with P.J. Larkham, D. Chapman, and A. Birkamshaw)
2003
Measuring the Benefits of Urban Green Spaces, Report commissioned by the Landscape Practice Group, Birmingham City Council
Selected
Conference Papers
2011
‘Mapping conservation areas: measuring aspects
of character and drawing designation boundaries’, 2011 UK/Ireland Planning Research Conference (with P.J. Larkham)
2009
'The Creative dynamic: innovative solutions to teaching
transferable skills in the classroom', Presented at INTED 2009, Valencia, Spain (with A. Hill, R. Curzon, C. Tomas, J.
Eland, R. Lawton and C. Popovic)
‘Reshaping
Places: changing the character of Birmingham’s suburbs’, Birmingham City University RESCON 09 (with P.J. Larkham)
2008
‘Increasing
density in mature suburbs: character, resistance and quality?’, Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference,
London (with P.J. Larkham)
Enhancing
Employability through Games and Simulations’,
Workshop at Leeds Metropolitan University (with R.L. Curzon and Hill, A.)
‘The
Educational Value of Games’, First-Year
Learning Experiences: Sharing Good Practice Conference, Leeds Metropolitan
University
2007
'Suburban
Form Under Pressure: contemporary change and the phenomenon of
"garden-grabbing"', English
Heritage/IHBC conference Suburbs: buildings and society, University of
Oxford
‘Enhancing Employability through Games and
Simulations’, Creativity or Conformity?:
building cultures of creativity in higher education Conference, Cardiff
2006
'Drawing
lines on maps: morphological regions and planning practice', Conference of the Nordic Network on Urban
Morphology, KTH Stockholm (with P.J. Larkham)
2005
‘Change
and Continuity in the UK’s Traditional Suburbs’, ISUF Symposium on Tradition and Modernity in Urban Form, London
(with P.J. Larkham)
‘Suburban
character and intensification: tensions and policy approaches in the Birmingham
region’, Planning Research Conference,
Manchester (with P.J. Larkham)
‘Using peer ‘vocational’ mentors and other
pedagogical approaches to create a climate for shared learning’, SEDA/AISHE Spring Conference on Inspiring
Learning: Diversity and Excellence, Belfast (with A. Hill)
‘A little bit of what you fancy’,International
Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference,
Bloomington, USA (with A. Hill)
2003
‘Fringe
belts and city planning: reality and potential' International Seminar on Urban Form, Trani, Italy (with J.W.R.
Whitehand and M.I.W. Hopkins)