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Dr Kevin Muldoon-Smith

Associate Professor

Department: Architecture and Built Environment

I am an Associate Professor in Urban and Built Environment Adaptation and Investment in the Department of Architecture and Built Environment at Northumbria University. My research focuses on adaptation and investment in the built environment and has evolved along three strands:

1) Strategic Public Sector Finance – where I investigate how land value and real estate income (for example, property tax, land value capture and commercial real estate Investment) is being used to fund public sector service delivery and policy objectives. Particular interests relate to transport infrastrcuture and also flood management. 

2) Stranded Assets in the Built Environment – where I investigate how new demand and legislative drivers are stranding property assets and how this threat can be countered through methods of urban adaptation and building based adaptive reuse. This research currently focuses on: a) developing holistic understandings of climate related stranded assets that combine physical assets and also financial cashflows and b) developing better conceptual understandings of building vacancy and how this can be countered through new perspectives of urban planning that enable the contemporary demand for building adaptation.

3) Knowledge Management – inspired by the writing of Michael Polanyi, where I investigate the generation, dynamics, and transference of tacit knowledge in the face of new modes of learning, teaching and working in the digital built environment.

Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears (Italo Calvino, 1972).

Kevin Muldoon-Smith

Campus Address

Newcastle City Campus
Sutherland Building (room 114)
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 8ST

My research focuses on adaptation and investment in the built environment and has evolved along three strands:

1) Strategic Public Sector Finance – where I investigate how land value and real estate income (for example, property tax, land value capture and commercial real estate Investment) is being used to fund public sector service delivery and policy objectives. Particular interests relate to transport infrastrcuture and also flood management. 

2) Stranded Assets in the Built Environment – where I investigate how new demand and legislative drivers are stranding property assets and how this threat can be countered through methods of urban adaptation and building based adaptive reuse. This research currently focuses on: a) developing holistic understandings of climate related stranded assets that combine physical assets and also financial cashflows and b) developing better conceptual understandings of building vacancy and how this can be countered through new perspectives of urban planning that enable the contemporary demand for building adaptation.

3) Knowledge Management – inspired by the writing of Michael Polanyi, where I investigate the generation, dynamics, and transference of tacit knowledge in the face of new modes of learning, teaching and working in the digital built environment.

Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears (Italo Calvino, 1972).

  • Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
  • Who needs a workplace: accommodating employee experience of the new hybrid-built environment in the 21st century, Stonehouse, J., Muldoon-Smith, K. 6 Mar 2023, 29th Annual European Real Estate Society Conference
  • How does the extension of existing transport infrastructure affect land value? A case study of the Tyne and Wear Light Transit Metro system, Pearson, J., Muldoon-Smith, K., Liu, H., Robson, S. 1 Jan 2022, In: Land Use Policy
  • Planning Adaptation: Accommodating Complexity in the Built Environment, Muldoon-Smith, K., Moreton, L. 11 Jan 2022, In: Urban Planning
  • Tacit Domains: The Transference of Practitioner Know‐How in Contemporary English Planning Practice, Muldoon-Smith, K., McGuinness, D. 1 Sep 2022, In: Area
  • The real deal for left behind places in England: tracking asymmetric devolution and critical path of Combined Authorities and Metro Mayors, Greenhalgh, P., Muldoon-Smith, K., Pearson, J. 2 Sep 2022, RGS-IBG Annual International Conference
  • Towards Attaining Sustainable Retail Property Locations: The Relationships between Supply, Demand, and Accessibility of Retail Spaces, Adebayo, A., Greenhalgh, P., Muldoon-Smith, K., Oyedokun, T. 24 Mar 2022, In: Sustainability
  • Grasping the nettle: the central–local constraints on local government funding in England, Muldoon-Smith, K., Sandford, M. 26 May 2021, In: Territory, Politics, Governance
  • Meaningful Transfer: Tech-knowlogical interdependencies in the digital built environment, Muldoon-Smith, K., Moreton, L., Kotter, R. 31 Aug 2021, In: Frontiers in Sustainable Cities
  • The New Distribution: Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Large Distribution Warehouse Premises in England and Wales, Greenhalgh, P., King, H., Muldoon-Smith, K., Ellis, J. 23 Sep 2021, In: Urban Planning
  • Transport Infrastructure Asset Resilience: Managing Government Capabilities, Liu, H., E.D. Love, P., Zhao, J., Lemckert, C., Muldoon-Smith, K. 1 Nov 2021, In: Transportation Research, Part D: Transport and Environment

  • Patrick Nwoko Flood Risk Management in Niger Delta Start Date: 21/02/2023
  • Besmira Dyca Rethinking land and water Policy for flood risk mitigation: Investigating the role of Active Land Policy in making room for water in Nijmegen Start Date: 01/10/2018 End Date: 23/12/2022
  • Jane Stonehouse Who needs a workspace: employee productivity and the built environment in the 21st century. Start Date: 15/09/2021

  • Other Courses MSc June 30 2012
  • Cultural Studies MSc June 30 2004
  • Fellow Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBS) 2014


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