Helping people live well at home: Leeds backs four healthier housing research projects

A University of Leeds research network has funded four new transdisciplinary research projects focused on healthy, sustainable, and equitable housing.

The HESTIA Network is a two-year funded EPSRC Micro Network Plus that focuses on accelerating the creation of indoor home environments that meet Net Zero targets while promoting physical and mental health and wellbeing for all, considering the interface between technologies and social factors.

A core aim of the HESTIA Network is to facilitate new research partnerships through funding feasibility studies to understand the role that different engineering interventions and technologies can play in home environments to improve human and environmental health for everyone.  

To do this, HESTIA ran a two-day in-person ‘Sandpit’ in May 2026 to bring together different researchers and non-academic organisations to develop ideas for research projects on indoor environments within people’s homes. More than 110 people applied for 40 places to attend the sandpit, which the Horizons Institute facilitated. 

Attendees were asked to focus their project ideas on the role of existing technologies used in homes, the impacts of climate change on housing, and co-producing healthy homes with communities affected by poor-quality housing.

The HESTIA sandpit workshop was facilitated by the Horizons Institute.

Crucially, all research projects were asked to consider affordability and those most vulnerable, and to include a public member with lived experience and a non-academic project partner on their teams. After the two-day Sandpit, attendees went away to develop project proposals.  

The funded projects

Fourteen teams submitted applications which underwent rigorous review, including five reviews from HESTIA co-investigators, project partners, and its public members. The following four were selected for awards.

Healthy Homes, Cleaner Air: Combining Air Quality Kitchen Extraction Technology with Resident Engagement 

Cooking can produce high levels of tiny air pollution particles inside homes. Inadequate ventilation can expose people to unhealthy indoor air from cooking. In this study, the team will work directly with the London Borough of Waltham Forest’s Independent Living Schemes, which support residents aged 50+ to live independently in sheltered housing settings.  

Firstly, through focus group discussions, it will assess the barriers and motivations associated with mitigating cooking-related pollution. Second, it will use the focus group findings to design cooking experiments in the University of York’s unique test house facility to quantify pollutants released from representative cooking and extraction scenarios.  

Finally, a workshop will share findings, demonstrate air pollution under different cooking conditions and receive feedback from participants on how to best implement technical (e.g. extraction systems) and behavioural interventions (e.g. sensor prompting). The findings will provide early evidence on both performance and acceptability, supporting a larger follow-on study in real homes in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. 

Full project team: Dr Darpan Das (University of York), Sharon Isaac-Upton (Airbon Ltd), Michelle Ellis (public member), Nathanael Harwood (London Borough of Waltham Forest), Dr Claudia Castro Faccetti (CELIA CIC).

AirSmart Homes: Co-producing low-energy air cleaning for healthier homes 

Many people living in cold, damp or mould-affected homes face a practical problem: opening windows may reduce pollutants but can make the home colder and more expensive to heat. Social landlords also need evidence on successful interim measures while root causes of damp/mould are investigated before repair.  

This six-month feasibility study will examine whether demand-led, low-energy air purification can be used safely and acceptably in real occupied homes as part of a wider housing and mould-management response. In two Glasgow rented homes with reported damp/mould or poor indoor air concerns, the team will compare indoor conditions before use, during manual use and during automatic artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) controlled use.  

It will monitor particulate matter (PM2.5), carbon dioxide (CO2), temperature, relative humidity, total volatile organic compounds (TVOC), device electricity use and household utility readings, with exploratory airborne mould/bacteria sampling. Residents and a public co-applicant with relevant lived experience will help shape the protocol, materials, interpretation and guidance.  

The study will test recruitment, ethics, monitoring, data quality, running cost, acceptability and practical deployment, producing a protocol and pilot evidence for a larger multi-home trial with councils or social landlords. 

Full project team: Dr Janice Foster (Glasgow School of Art), Dr Chunli Cao (HATL), Michaela Hay (public member), Dr Filbert Musau (Glasgow School of Art), Mel Robson (Steri Systems Ltd).

RADAR: Reprioritising Asset investment through co-designed Data Analysis for healthier and climate-Resilient social homes 

Social landlords face a serious dilemma: how to invest limited resources to future-proof existing homes against extreme climate change, meet new building safety regulations, and build more affordable homes. Meanwhile, new laws to quickly remove damp, mould and other hazards have the potential to incentivise a “sticking plaster” approach.  

In response, this project partners with managers and tenants of Wythenshawe Community Housing Group (WCHG) in Manchester to investigate how social landlords can better utilise their own housing management data, informed by tenants’ lived experiences, to make smarter investment decisions for achieving healthier, climate-resilient homes. It specifically aims to identify which types of housing are at higher risk of health and climate-related issues by analysing the existing stock condition and repairs data from WCHG’s 14,000 homes with live information from smart sensors already placed in 267 homes.  

By also listening to tenants’ experiences and perceptions, the team will evaluate the effectiveness of new smart technologies for both enhancing repair systems and informing tenants’ own strategies for improving indoor environmental quality in affordable ways. Finally, it will co-design a future research project aimed at building a digital model of WCHG’s homes to support proactive, human-centred, and cost-effective repair and retrofitting.  

Full project team: Dr Alice Handy (Imperial College London), Adila Naseer (Wythenshawe Community Housing Group) Lucy Collins (Public member), Dr Stuart Hodkinson (University of Leeds), Dr Claudia Castro Faccetti (CELIA CIC). An Advisory Group supports them, including Dr Otto-Emil Jutila (UKHSA), Faye Sanders (University of Bath), and Jenny Danson (Healthy Homes Hub).

Ageing, Thermal Comfort, and the Historical Environment

The UK has one of the oldest housing stocks in Europe; with around 20% of homes constructed before 1919, approximately 5.8 million dwellings that are now more than a century old. Thermally effective adaptations of this housing stock are key for the efforts to meet Net Zero targets. However, in historic environments, adaptations must be effective and sensitive to heritage preservation, upholding a sense of place, identity, continuity, and belonging.

This project will investigate how retrofit technologies can support healthy ageing (e.g. improved envelopes and radiant panels) at over 65 Grade II-listed, Trust-run almshouses, while being sensitive of heritage preservation.

Through environmental monitoring, interviews and workshops, they will examine how residents tailor their home environments to meet their thermal comfort needs (e.g. using fan heaters); evaluate combined adaptations influence on wellbeing, sleep and vulnerability to cold-related illness; and consider where they align with, or compromise low-carbon performance, affordability and accessibility.

Full project team: Dr Aissa Sabbagh-Gomez (Lancaster University), Dr Claudia Castro Faccetti (CELIA CIC), Delicia Ward (public member), Joy Jones (public member), Dr Janice Foster (Glasgow School of Art), Dr Laura Wareing (Lancaster University) Jenny Danson (Healthy Homes Hub), and Whiteley Homes Trust.

Dr Douglas Booker, the HESTIA Network lead, said “We are delighted to fund these ambitious and exciting research projects that will advance our knowledge on developing healthy, sustainable, and equitable housing. We’re particularly pleased that they are all led by early career researchers and meaningfully involve the public. We look forward to seeing the results of these projects soon.”

Further information

• Lead image caption: Dr Amber Yeoman, Dr Douglas Booker, and Denise Groves from the HESTIA team.
• For more information on the four funded projects, please visit the HESTIA Network website.
• For media enquiries, please contact Faculty Communications Manager Matt Gardner at M.D.Gardner@leeds.ac.uk.