Samantha Simmons, recent graduate of the Urban and Regional Planning MA course, has won the prestigious Student Award for Research Excellence by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) at the RTPI’s annual Planning Research conference in Manchester.
The RTPI Awards for Research Excellence recognise and promote high quality and impactful spatial planning research in the UK, the Republic of Ireland and internationally. The Awards are aimed to highlight academic research for policy and practice, recognise the contribution of planning practitioners in public and private sectors, and to promote planning research in general.
Samantha’s research, titled ‘Mental Health and the Built Environment: delivering mentally healthy places’, explores the extent to which planning practices consider and implement theories, on how the built environment can be favourable for mental health. The research followed the GAPS (Green, Active, Pro-Social and Safe Places) framework to assess planning policies and to discuss with planning professionals to what extent the delivery of mentally healthy places is considered in planning practice. The thesis aims to add value to the emerging research on how the planning profession can shape mentally healthy built environments.
Talking about the award, Samantha said: “It is an honour to receive this award and incredibly rewarding to know that my research is having a positive impact, beyond my studies at Westminster. For fellow students undertaking their theses now, I hope you feel inspired that we can have a meaningful impact with our research, and that the time and effort spent can be valuable - not just to our academic lives, but to the planning profession as a whole, and our ongoing careers in the profession.”
Regarding the research, Johannes Novy, Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster’s School of Architecture + Cities, said: “Focusing on the often overlooked but crucial connection between the design and quality of our built environment and people's mental well-being, Samantha's thesis is testimony to what can be achieved with a dissertation at Master's level. One piece of advice I give to all my students when they start working on their theses is to “make it matter”, that is, to aim to produce something that will make a real contribution to their chosen profession. It makes me proud that many of them, and Samantha's success is a perfect example of this, take this advice to heart.”
Learn more about Architecture, Interior and Urban Design courses at the University of Westminster.
