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Professor Sonja Dragojlovic-Oliveira

Architecture

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Personal statement

Sonja Oliveira is Professor in Architecture and Sustainability Design Innovation and an Associate Dean (REF) in the Faculty of Engineering. She has over 25 years internationally leading design innovation and interdisciplinary research experience in health, energy, technology and design sectors. She combines design, architecture, environmental engineering and behavioural science to understand how complex phenomena interrelate and how society may develop responsive intelligent mechanisms in polycrisis extreme scenarios. She has led diverse multi and interdisciplinary design and research projects funded by EPSRC, ESRC, AHRC, Leverhulme as well as consultancy, ranging in value from 拢200k-拢29mil in the UK and internationally. She has an established international reputation in socio-spatial intelligent communication and governance, nature inspired collective responsiveness and climate action thought leadership. She founded the Radical Architecture Practice for Sustainability network (http://www.rapsresearch.com) in partnership with leading design practitioners and researchers in Sweden, the Netherlands, Portugal, Austria and France. She is an Advisory Board member to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in the UK, Thought Leadership Specialist Advisor to the Design Council and a board member of the World Green Building Council (Serbia). Currently, Sonja is leading delivery of multiple research and innovation projects aiming to transform interrelated energy, climate and health systems to account for complex multi-scale interconnected encounters between humans, nonhumans, spatial, socio-technological and environmental dimensions of everyday life. Sonja has worked with climate tech and socially progressive innovation think tanks, UK and EU government institutions, business consultancy, international design firms, research institutions and recently housing associations to examine complex cross-disciplinary problems that emerge in the designed environment.

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Prize And Awards

Recipient
12/3/2026

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Publications

, Badarnah Lidia, Barakat Merate, Chatzimichali Anna, Atkins Ed
Energy Research and Social Science Vol 85 (2022)
, Gething Bill, Marco Elena
(2020)
, , McGill Grainne,
DRS2026 (2026)
Butt Anosh Nadeem,
Social Science and Medicine Vol 399 (2026)
, , , , Chatzimichali Anna
Buildings & Cities Vol 7, pp. 360鈥�377 (2026)
Shibeika Amna,
ArchNet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research Vol 20, pp. 463-477 (2026)

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Research Interests

Currently, Sonja is leading delivery of multiple research and innovation projects (value in 2021 in excess of 拢1.2mil) aiming to transform interrelated energy governance systems to account for complex multi-phenomenon and multi-scale interconnected encounters between humans, nonhumans, spatial, socio-technological and environmental dimensions of everyday life. As PI on the 拢586,000 EPSRC project GLOW [EP/V041770/1], she is in collaboration with multiple research and industry partners, looking to develop new communication protocols to manage home energy demand drawing on bee colony and home socio spatial energy behaviour data across three low energy housing communities. She was Co-I on the 拢772,178 EPSRC project RESIDE [ EP/R008434/1] (with Oxford Brookes) and was lead investigator on the energy evaluation work for the REPLICATE project (). She is also developing a new multimodal visual lexicon for radical architecture practice to better communicate collective needs across diverse multispecies environments. Below is a selection of projects delivered or ongoing since last 5 years:

  • 09/2021 (拢586K) EPSRC GLOW-Energy nested bio system flows- from the home to the hub听(PI) - Multidisciplinary collaboration with leading international experts in smart energy governance regimes including Energy Systems Catapult
  • 02/2021 (拢310K) Department for Education 鈥�Achieving zero carbon鈥� bootcamp cpd course for industry (Co-Lead) collaboration with UWE EDM
  • 03/2019 (22K) VC Challenge Fund Automating environmental performance analysis in modular housing (PI) Collaboration with UWE FBL
  • 08/2019 (20K) G4G Energy stories from the campus in collaboration with BAM and Hydrock (Co-Lead) Collaboration with UWE FBL
  • 06/2019 (10K) G4G Perceptions of comfort in MMC housing 鈥� Zedpods study (PI) Collaboration with BCC, YMCA, BHF
  • 03/2018 (EUR 29mil) EU H2020 project Renaissance of Places with Innovative Citizenship and Technology (REPLICATE) Co-leading Housing energy intervention Evaluation Programme in Bristol (Lead)
  • 02/2018-(7K) North Somerset Council NSC Design Guidance and Sustainability Evaluation Consultancy (Lead)
  • 12/2017-(3K) SHAPE Energy Research Challenge Award (with Wroclaw University of Science and Technology) (PI) Invited Contribution in advisory capacity to European Research Challenges in Energy Policy Agenda
  • 10/2018- (拢773K) EPSRC RESIDE 鈥楻esidential building energy demand reduction in India鈥� (Co-I); leading and developing 2 work packages that will provide theoretical underpinning to data analysis and dissemination
  • 03/2017- (拢46K) Flagship fund 鈥楳MC delivery in social housing鈥� (PI); leading data bid writing as well as research design, data collection, analysis, liaising with client and disseminating- most recently in AJ 鈥�Offsite construction鈥� issue 5thOct 2017
  • 09/2017- (拢3.5K) Scott Brownrigg sustainability and environmental management consultancy (PI)
  • 01/2017 (拢22K) BEIS, International evidence heating controls (PI)
  • 07/2016-09/2017 (拢15K) HEA Developing Digital Feedback tools (CoLead)听

Professional Activities

Contributor
21/8/2025
Participant
27/11/2024
Organiser
7/9/2023
Speaker
4/5/2023
Participant
22/3/2022
Advisor
1/9/2021

Projects

Dragojlovic-Oliveira, Sonja (Principal Investigator) Vermeylen, Saskia (Co-investigator) Witte, Kimia (Co-investigator) Rigoni, Carolina (Researcher)
01-Jan-2026 - 30-Jan-2028
Crawford, Megan (Principal Investigator) Tse, Dwight (Principal Investigator) Witte, Kimia (Co-investigator) Dragojlovic-Oliveira, Sonja (Co-investigator) McGill, Grainne (Co-investigator) Quigley, John (Co-investigator) White, Chris (Co-investigator)
05-Jan-2026 - 31-Jan-2026
McGill, Grainne (Principal Investigator) Dragojlovic-Oliveira, Sonja (Co-investigator) Moreno-Rangel, Alejandro (Co-investigator)
02-Jan-2024 - 02-Jan-2025
Windmill, James (Principal Investigator) Dragojlovic-Oliveira, Sonja (Co-investigator) Lau, K H Aaron (Co-investigator) Wright, George (Co-investigator)
01-Jan-2024 - 30-Jan-2032
Witte, Kimia (Principal Investigator) Dragojlovic-Oliveira, Sonja (Co-investigator) McFadden, Constance (Research Co-investigator)
Leverhulme Doctoral School in Nature Inspired Acoustics (NIA) Studentship
01-Jan-2024 - 30-Jan-2028
Dragojlovic-Oliveira, Sonja (Principal Investigator) Windmill, James (Co-investigator) Luoni, Sara (Research Co-investigator)
01-Jan-2024 - 01-Jan-2028

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Contact

Professor Sonja Dragojlovic-Oliveira
Architecture

Email: sonja.dragojlovic-oliveira@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 548 4282