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Engineering systems and in particular (although not exclusively) transport systems interact with people at the point of use, and indirectly through their outputs, such as noise, pollution, and vibration. People experience this interaction with engineered systems, such as trains, in different ways, depending also on their individual characteristics, such as age, mental capacity, and impairments. Alternative methods for design of engineered systems can radically improve sensory experiences but often the design improvements are unclear and require experiential testing. The PEARL facility provides a laboratory environment to undertake such testing. This module covers hands on experience in the facility, based on an extant PEARL project at the time of the students work, allowing monitoring and data collection, and reporting through appropriate research methods, on the results of experiments toward improved infrastructure services. Students will be expected to take leadership in their own learning, and implement the skills used in earlier terms of their masters’ course to reflect on the consideration of people sensory experiences for the improvement of infrastructure engineered systems. PEARL is a unique facility. Those educated and trained in it are therefore the recipients of a uniquely valuable opportunity.

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Learning Outcomes

1. Develop a comprehensive understanding of techniques applicable and used at the £50m PEARL facility in east London which fuses the arts, physical, clinical, life and engineering sciences, design and instrumentation in multisensorial environments constructed in the laboratory at 1:1 scale.
2. Demonstrate an original application of knowledge, together with a practical understanding of how established techniques of research and enquiry are used to create and interpret knowledge about people’s physical, psychological, physiological, and neurological responses to environmental stimuli under controlled conditions.
3. Can evaluate and critique a research project and develop new hypotheses on improvements for infrastructure that pay attention to people’s interactions with infrastructure.
4. Be able to take a new perspective on knowledge that is not constrained to a single discipline yet implements a rigorous approach to creating thought, developing knowledge, and implementing ideas.

Reading List:

• Jensen, O. B. (2009) ‘Flows of meaning, cultures of movements - Urban mobility as meaningful everyday life practice’, Mobilities, 4(1), pp. 139–158. doi: 10.1080/17450100802658002.
• Infrastructure in 2023: A horizon scan of the year ahead for civil engineering