Delivering Social Value in the Built Environment. With Gemma John

Response-ability.Tech

Gemma John is our guest in this week’s episode. She’s talking in the Smart Cities stream at the conference on 9 October. Dr John is an urban anthropologist and Managing Director at Human City.

Gemma explains how her PhD research into the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 led to her focus on spatial transformation in the context of the knowledge economy. She discusses the work Human City does with asset management companies and local authorities, and shares a success story from a small town in England where a retail space delivered both social and financial value in the context of crisis.

Gemma shares her experiences of interdisciplinarity and collaboration and the ways in which anthropologists add value to the design of buildings and the built environment.
We move on to discuss the lack of affordable housing at a time when most people are now working from home, how seriously we should take this ability to work at a distance, and why the systemic equation between housing, employment, and health urgently needs to be made more explicit.
Lastly Gemma explores the concept ‘speaking for the social’, why it’s important, and what that means in practice, particularly when collaborating with people from different disciplines.

We loved talking to Gemma and we hope you enjoy the episode.

To get in touch with Gemma and to find out more about Human City, visit https://humancity.co.uk.

To catch Gemma's talk at the Anthropology + Technology Conference on 9th October, get your ticket at anthtechconf.co.uk.