David Taylor catches up with Sem Lee, Founder & Director of Ouri Labs, to talk about her work in the space between urban planning, health and innovation
David Taylor
Hi, Sem, how are you?
Sem Lee
I'm very well, thank you. How are you, David?
David Taylor
I'm very good, thank you. I wanted to find out a little bit more about what you do at Ouri Labs. So, from first principles, could you explain what work you're involved with? Where is the Venn diagram where you're happiest?
Sem Lee
As an organisation, we believe that people who live in places know what works and what doesn't. When you combine local knowledge with research and professional expertise, you get better places that serve communities. We collaborate with local authorities and organisations to help them work in a more participatory way by bringing more participation into decision-making processes. And we aim to develop new tools and approaches based on what we learn. Our sweet spot is at the intersection of urban planning, public health and civic innovation.
David Taylor
And so what is it, broadly, that you're making the case for? Is it healthier places and healthy design?
Sem Lee
OURI Labs is making the case for participatory decision-making in urban development - the fundamental belief that the people who will be affected by urban planning decisions should have a meaningful voice in shaping them. Health, equity, and community wellbeing are inevitable outcomes of truly inclusive processes and healthier places are part and parcel of what we’re working toward. It’s a case for process transformation - shifting from top-down urban development to collaborative, community-centred approaches.
David Taylor
I think we were both at the same Humanise Summit, the work that Thomas Heatherwick is doing, which also discussed a sort of broad linkage between health and environments as well. There's certainly over overlap there in the work they're doing on neuroscience, for example. Was that your interest that led you to attend?
Sem Lee
I’d say so. There's a growing movement to understand how our built environment fundamentally affects health and wellbeing, and we're seeing increasingly robust research that quantifies these relationships. There’s still a significant gap between research and actual practice. Take the recent Building Research Establishment data showing that poor housing is costing the NHS £1.4 billion annually in treatments – and that one in ten people are living in homes that are making them sick. When you see stark figures like that, it becomes clear that we're not effectively translating what we know about healthy environments into how we design and build places. That's exactly why events like the Humanise Summit are so important where it’s a call to action to move beyond just understanding the data to creating quality design that supports health equity in practice.
David Taylor
What sort of projects are you involved with and where do you get involved?
Sem Lee
At the moment, we are developing work that operates at the policy level. We’ve developed a series of "systems workshops" for local authorities. These workshops bring together different directorates - typically urban planning and public health teams - to align on policy development where their work intersects.
David Taylor
Okay, and how does this affect health?
Sem Lee
The health impact is an outcome of connecting the dots within the policymaking process. For example, when we successfully align and begin to identify where urban planning and public health teams can collaborate, we can create and encourage an environment where integrating health into policies is the norm. We are also helping with systems-level changes, when planning and public health teams start collaborating systematically, they can begin to develop a culture for considering health implications in policy development, which can be impactful for policy and plan making. Through the workshops we help local authorities to understand where they could improve integrating health data more effectively, connecting the dots between their departments and ensuring policies can then be based on existing evidence.
David Taylor
Ah. I see! What else are you working on?
Sem Lee
Earlier this year, OURI Labs conducted research for London Community Land Trust which was originally commissioned by Greater London Authority. The research outlines best practice for small sites delivery through community-led development and what success at scale looks like, taking a retrospective view on London Community Land Trust (CLT) projects. We are currently working on the public facing document so the findings will be released soon!
David Taylor
Is much of your work within the public sector?
Sem Lee
Our work is cross-sectoral by design. While we work with public sector organisations, we deliberately collaborate across sectors - with housing associations, community organisations, academic institutions, and non-profits - we use research and evaluation work to identify gaps and opportunities for new approaches, then develop and test interventions that can be applied more broadly. We might start with research for one type of organisation, but we're always looking at how insights can be translated into solutions that work across sectors.
David Taylor
One last thing: I note from some blurb that I've seen on your outfit that you delivered a post Occupancy Evaluation for new Community Land Trust (CLT) developments around London, which sounds really interesting. Can you tell me some of the research findings from that?
Sem Lee
This was a couple of years ago now, but I was part of an advisory panel that was set up by Impact on Urban Health to understand the link between CLT’s and health. We were brought together to understand how we could deliver post-occupancy evaluation for community land trust developments across London. It was great to have worked alongside academics and community-led housing stakeholders to understand what the core metrics are regarding health impacts from CLT housing delivery. Since being part of this panel, one of the thematic areas that we focus on has been on housing and health. Most recently, we have initiated research in collaboration with an organisation called Social Life that aims to understand the opportunity to unlock NHS land for community-led developments.
David Taylor
What were some of the key health metrics that emerged from that work? Were there any surprising findings about how CLTs perform differently from other housing models?
Sem Lee
The biggest difference is the level of participation for residents throughout the housing development process, which has a huge impact on community health and wellbeing overall. Community-led development helps to build agency among residents - when people shape their housing from design through to management, they develop a sense of pride and community cohesion, elements that traditional housing delivery doesn't achieve.
David Taylor
Thank you for your time!
Sem Lee
Thanks so much!