As London continues to grow, its urban intensification need not come at the cost of liveability. Through thoughtful, people-centred design, new infrastructure can and must actively shape a greener, more liveable, and more inclusive city. The London Growth Plan presents a unique opportunity to embed innovation at every level of urban development, while ensuring that new infrastructure enhances a sense of place and prioritises people. 

Innovation in infrastructure is not just about adopting new technologies; it is about transforming the experience of urban life. This has been referenced in the New London Agenda’s Six Pillars of Placemaking framework for best practice in city-making, and the recent NLA Repower London Report, which called for more holistic and place-based thinking to deliver London’s future infrastructure needs. 

At Chetwoods, we are working on multiple infrastructure schemes in and around London, including regional and urban logistics, data centres and the colocation of uses. We believe infrastructure should be a means to create environments that are welcoming, resilient, and reflective of the communities they serve. Across projects we are employing innovative techniques to deliver environmental optimisation, enhanced local neighbourhoods, and asset longevity for developers, owners, and users.  

This approach is supported by research. Chetwoods Works team is collaborating with the University of Cambridge to help to push the boundaries of what people-first design can mean in practice. In live-design scenarios where people react to different virtual environments, the project is exploring how the use of new smart virtual and immersive technologies can allow us to move beyond building performance metrics to understand, record, and analyse human responses to the way buildings are designed. This research is enabling us to design infrastructure developments where the design approach is shifted from efficiency alone to one that supports individual and community wellbeing, emotional connection, and long-term resilience. 

We are also actively exploring and implementing low-carbon and circular construction materials that can reduce the embodied carbon in infrastructure developments. Chetwoods is an industry advisor for Project RESTOR, a pioneering three-year collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge and Birmingham, which aligns engineering excellence with environmental responsibility in the first project of its kind to apply advanced digital methodologies to set a new benchmark for sustainable construction practices. 

RESTOR will revolutionise steel reuse by integrating non-destructive testing (NDT), machine learning optimisation, and building information modelling (BIM). It will enhance collaboration between researchers, engineers, and construction professionals to maximise the efficient and low-energy reuse of structural steel. A web-based generative design tool is being developed to optimise real-time collaboration, to facilitate the seamless integration of reused steel into new building designs.  

This initiative is developing an innovative pathway to significantly reduce carbon emissions and the environmental impact, construction costs, and material waste associated with the drive for new infrastructure, while driving forward the circular economy, and aligning with national sustainability goals.  

These research projects are not isolated interventions, but part of a much broader new model of innovation-driven infrastructure. London can lead this globally by encouraging and embracing cutting-edge design, data-led insight, and human-centred thinking to shape liveable, future-ready urban environments in a holistic vision for infrastructure that supports net zero ambitions while delivering social value.  

At Chetwoods, we are committed to championing this integrated, sustainable approach as one that sees infrastructure not only as a foundation for growth, but as a catalyst for a better everyday urban life.