The potential of vertical expansion in providing residential accommodation in the UK

This research will take the form of an investigation into the potential of vertical extension of existing buildings in providing residential accommodation in the UK. The extent of housing obtainable through vertical expansion will first be affirmed through the development of a framework of assessment to be applied at both single-case and city-wide scales. Amongst other factors, this will take consideration of the reserve structural capacity of common city-centre building typologies as well as the structural requirements of a typical expansion. Applying this framework to a case-study city will identify the possible extent of expansion in a typical UK city, allowing for investigation of the economic, environmental and social impacts associated with the implementation of such a scheme. This will include both embodied carbon and financial costing assessments. The research will go on to investigate how the process of identifying the extendibility of single buildings or entire urban settlements may be automated through machine learning, remote sensing and image identification techniques.