We are delighted to announce that Eduardo Rico has joined Space Syntax. Eduardo will be working as a Consultant and at the same time, will pursue his PhD research programme.

Eduardo is a civil engineer (Santander 2000) and AA graduate (2003, Landscape Urbanism). He has focused his career on the development of design methodologies that integrate infrastructure, urban form and landscape. He has worked in urban planning and design, large-scale park design and civil engineering projects at Arup and Groundlab. He is currently Director of Relational Urbanism Ltd where he conducts practice-based research on design and interaction. He directs the MArch-MSc course in Landscape Urbanism in the Architectural Association and has taught in institutions including the Bartlett, UCL and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Eduardo will be assessing the application of design-led participatory methodologies in urban design and planning projects for his PhD research programme. The work will focus on the development of digital design interfaces in participatory processes in urban design and planning. The aim is to test their applicability with stakeholders and the results will be compared with those obtained employing traditional consultation mechanisms. This work could shed light on the types of design related questions which are reasonable to ask in the processes of digital consultation as well as the likely types of projects or design stages where these techniques are more relevant. Finally, the research will help gain an understanding of the type of knowledge that can be obtained in terms of individual or collective consultation and how to incorporate it into design proposals.