UCL student envisages office of the future

That's the intriguing question at the heart of a research project investigating whether everyday workplace activities carried out by human beings could be harnessed and converted into useful electrical energy. PhD student Julius Partridge is exploring the idea of what he calls the 'human office' as part of his Engineering Doctorate research project, which is cross-departmental and supervised by Dr Richard Bucknall in UCL Mechanical Engineering. UCL Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering are investing £100,000 in his four-year project thanks to funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and industrial partner Battle McCarthy. The company specialises in delivering sustainable engineering solutions for the built environment and Partridge is working under the supervision of John Ducke, head of the firm's electrical department, to apply some of his ideas to real-world scenarios. He is investigating how human energy could be reclaimed through the use of special collectors on doors and piezo-electric materials underfoot, which generate electricity in response to applied mechanical stress. intelligent energy-saving methods such as optimising lighting and heating, more efficient use of office machines, and encouraging people to walk between floors instead of taking the lift, etc. He said: "Workplaces are largely rooms with people and machines.