Marianna is a Senior Lecturer at the MA Architecture & Urbanism, a registered Architect (ARB) and the MSA Department International Lead.

Marianna’s extensive research on cities embodies a holistic understanding of urbanism, intertwining perception, operation, and the vision for Truly Smart Cities. As the leader of the Prototype Urbanism Lab at MAAU, she pioneers innovative approaches in generative urbanism technologies, with a particular focus on AI Urbanism. Her commitment to engineering Liveable and Truly Smart Cities drives her interdisciplinary engineering approach, which develops urban scenarios designed to inform and shape effective urban policy.

Through collaborations with local policymakers, City Councils in Lancaster, UK, the WHO, and the Municipality in Karystos, Greece, Marianna’s research seamlessly bridges theory and practice, demonstrating a tangible impact on communities and highlighting the positive changes her work inspires. Her focus on addressing international agendas while remaining attuned to local contexts is central to her decision-making in the urban transformation. She is dedicated to minimizing inequality and tackling urgent issues such as the climate emergency and global health, aligning her efforts with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Fueled by a passion for transformative urbanism, Marianna believes that cities can foster livability and future urban process. Her work aspires not only to initiate meaningful change but also to empower communities, ensuring participation toward a smarter, more livable, and inclusive future.

Marianna has been part of the awarded ’Caring-with cities’ project, funded by the British Academy UK, where she focused on the Lancaster case study and the Lancaster City Vision. In this role, she explored policy design for caring practices that extend beyond traditional institutional care. Additionally, she has participated in several EPSRC projects, including Liveable Cities, Assessing the Underworld, and the EPSRC IAA Impact Acceleration Fund for Green Infrastructure Corridors and collaborative efforts with the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure in Cities (UKCRIC).

She has led impactful workshops, such as the Smart Cities Alliance in Birmingham and co-organised AI Urbanism workshops at the MSA. Marianna has shared her findings through publications in reputable international journals and at various conferences. She has also been invited to present her research at esteemed institutions, including the University of Birmingham, University of Liverpool, University of Coventry, Donghua University in Shanghai, and Nottingham University Ningbo in China, as well as the University of Xi’an Jiaotong in Suzhou, China.

Prior to her academic career, she was involved in large urban development projects in China -Twin Cities of 3.5 million square meters, Kunming (also Shanghai and Xiamen). She also worked at the Al Falah project, a 12.5 million square meters development for local populations in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Before her international experience, she worked at architectural organisations in the UK (ATKINS) and other architectural practices in the UK.

Academic and professional qualifications

Fellowship of the HEA (FHEA) Post Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice PG CAP.
Scholarship of Practice an Academic Curriculum Enquiry (SPACE) “Decolonising the Architectural Curriculum”.
PhD Civil Engineering 2019 University of Birmingham, UK
PG Dip Architecture (International) RIBA II 2008 Huddersfield University, UK. Higher Commendation
BA Hons Architecture RIBA I 2005 Huddersfield University, UK
BA Hons Interior Design 2001 De Montfort University, UK

Previous Employment

Lecturer, Urban Design Policy – Lancaster School of Architecture, UK. 2020-2023
Research Fellow. University of Birmingham, UK, Department of Civil Engineering.Strategic Placement for Cities Impact: Birmingham City Council.“Monitoring Birmingham’s metabolism as it ‘goes for gold’ 2022”. 2018-2019
Research Associate ‘Liveable Cities’ EPSRC (EP/J017698)of Birmingham, UK, Department of Civil Engineering. 2007-2008
Lecturer BA Interior Design Raffles Design Institute, 东华大学, Donghua University Shanghai. 2012-2014
Senior Architect, GDG Ltd Shanghai, China. 2011-2012
Project Leader in Twin Cities, Architecture, CADI, Kunming, China. 2010-2011
Architectural Designer, GHM Ltd Abu Dhabi, UAE, RIBA I &II. 2009-2010
Architectural Designer, ATKINS, Leeds, UK, RIBA I. 2008-2009

Prizes and awards

First Prize – Award in Sustainability (Peter Stead Award, Civic Society, Huddersfield) 2008 Huddersfield University, UK
Higher Commendation PG Dip ArchIitecture (International) “Workers’ Library in Al Shindagha, Dubai” 2008 Huddersfield University, UK

Editiorial Board membership

Reviewer ‘Smart Infrastructure’ Institute of Civil Engineers Journal
Reviewer Behaviour & Information Technology’ journal Taylor and Francis
Reviewer ‘Journal of Urban Technology’ Routledge Taylor and Francis

Membership of professional associations

Architect ARB Registered, Membership number 098038B
Architect TEE Hellenic Chamber of Architects Registered, Membership number 134720
Member of the International Society for Urban Health ISUH

Postgraduate teaching

Prototype Urbanism Studio Lab Lead: we are using digital technologies, AI, and computational urbanism to implement liveable solutions in the urban context.

Cities and Urbanism: Ideologies and Futures Unit Lead: This unit explores contemporary urban practice and reflects existing theories aiming to approach today’s and future global urban complexities.

Dr Cavada is interested in supervising PhD students who wish to conduct research in AI Urbanism, Smart cities, Liveable cities, Interdisciplinary research, Urban Engineering, and related areas.

Research

Books

Cavada, M., Hunt, D., Rogers, C., 2017. 'The Little Book of Smart Cities', ImaginationLancaster.

Book Chapters

Cavada, M., 2023. 'Designing policy for smart cities'. In Smart Cities and Digital Transformation: Empowering Communities, Limitless Innovation, Sustainable Development and the Next Generation, pp. 181-186.

Cavada, M., 2023. 'The Governance of Smart Cities'. In The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Futures, Springer Nature.

Cavada, M., Cooper, R., 2022. 'A Smart Health Approach in Cities'. In Urban Health and Wellbeing Programme. Urban Health and Wellbeing., Springer Singapore.

Cavada, M., 2022. 'Understanding Urban Engineering'. In The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Futures., Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. eBook Packages Springer Reference Earth & Environm. Science Reference Module Physical and Materials Science.

Cavada, M., Tight, M., Rogers, C., 2019. 'A smart city case study of Singapore--Is Singapore truly smart?'. In Smart City Emergence Cases From Around the World, Elsevier.

Cavada, M., Tight, M., Rogers, C., 2019. 'Smart Singapore case study: Is Singapore truly smart?'. In Smart City Emergence Cases From Around the World, Elsevier.

Journal Articles

Cavada, M., Kwon, N., Cooper, R., 2024. 'Designing the Urban Smart Futures Agenda for Lancaster, UK', Urban Science, 8 (4).

Rogers, C.D.F., Grayson, N., Sadler, J.P., Chapman, L., Bouch, C.J., Cavada, M., Leach, J.M., 2023. 'Delivering sustainable, resilient and liveable cities via transformed governance', Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 5.

Cavada, M., 2023. 'Evaluate Space after Covid-19: Smart City Strategies for Gamification', International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 39 (2), pp. 319-330.

Cavada, M., Bouch, C., Rogers, C., Grace, M., Robertson, A., 2021. 'A Soft Systems Methodology for Business Creation: The Lost World at Tyseley, Birmingham', Urban Planning, 6 (1), pp. 32-48.

Hargreaves, A.J., Rogers, C.D.F., Cavada, M., 2020. 'Briefing: Engineering for the far future: Rethinking the value proposition', Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Engineering Sustainability, 173 (1), pp. 3-7.

Cavada, M., Rogers, C.D.F., 2020. 'Serious gaming as a means of facilitating truly smart cities: a narrative review', Behaviour and Information Technology, 39 (6), pp. 695-710.

Leach, J.M., Lee, S.E., Boyko, C.T., Coulton, C.J., Cooper, R., Smith, N., Joffe, H., Büchs, M., Hale, J.D., Sadler, J.P., Braithwaite, P.A., Blunden, L.S., De Laurentiis, V., Hunt, D.V.L., Bahaj, A.B.S., Barnes, K., Bouch, C.J., Bourikas, L., Cavada, M.,, 2017. 'Dataset of the livability performance of the city of Birmingham, UK, as measured by its citizen wellbeing, resource security, resource efficiency and carbon emissions', Data in Brief, 15, pp. 691-695.

Boyko, C.T., Clune, S.J., Cooper, R.F.D., Coulton, C.J., Dunn, N.S., Pollastri, S., Leach, J.M., Bouch, C.J., Cavada, M., De Laurentiis, V., Goodfellow-Smith, M., Hale, J.D., Hunt, D.K.G., Lee, S.E., Locret-Collet, M., Sadler, J.P., Ward, J., Rogers, C.D., 2017. 'How sharing can contribute to more sustainable cities', Sustainability (Switzerland), 9 (5).

Cavada, M., Hunt, D.V.L., Rogers, C.D.F., 2016. 'Do smart cities realise their potential for lower carbon dioxide emissions?', Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Engineering Sustainability, 169 (6), pp. 243-252.

Conference Papers

Kwon, N., Perez, D., Jacobs, N., Cavada, M., Cooper, R., Maron, J., 2024. 'Engaging the public in technological futures: a participatory speculative design approach to polyphonic representational spaces', 23/6/2024 - 28/6/2024, in Proceedings of DRS.

Cavada, M., 2022. 'De', International Conference on Evolving Cities, Southampton, UK, 22/9/2021 - 24/9/2021, in https://publications.evolvingcities.org/proc-icec/issue/view/icec2021.

Kwon, N., Jacobs, N., Mullagh, L., Cavada, M., Markovic, M., Walnwright, B., Chekansky, K., Cooper, R., 2022. 'Designing Physical and Virtual Walkshop Methods for Speculative Internet of Things Research', Advances in Design and Digital Communication III: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Design and Digital Communication, Digicom 2022, November 3-5, 2022,, Barcelos, Portugal, 3/11/2022 - 5/11/2022, in https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-20364-0#toc.

Cavada, M., Dalton, R., Rogers, C., 2021. 'A Smart System Approach for Urban Engineering', Urban Assemblage: The City as Architecture, Media, AI and Big Data, University of Hertfordshire - AMPS - Onile, 28/6/2021 - 30/6/2021, in https://architecturemps.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Amps-Proceedings-Series-25.pdf.

Cavada, M., Hunt, D., Rogers, C., 2017. 'The role of infrastructure in Smart cities', International Symposium for Next Generation Infrastructure, ISNGI, London, UK, 11/9/2017 - 13/9/2017, in https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oY-5icPjzsL2OOHExA6VFYPuKqktjSZG/view.

Cavada, M., Hunt, D., Rogers, C., 2014. 'Smart Cities: Contradicting Definitions and Unclear Measures', The 4th World Sustainability Forum, Virtual, 1/11/2014 - 30/11/2014, in Proceedings of The 4th World Sustainability Forum.