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Birmingham City University School of Architecture is pleased to announce the launch of its new Centre for Urban Design Outreach and Skills (CUDOS)

CUDOS is born out of an innovative community-academic partnership between Birmingham Institute for Art and Design (BIAD) at Birmingham City University and Ashram Housing Association. This initiative has been welcomed by the Housing Corporation and the Department for Communities and Local Government. CUDOS is formally supported by Atkins, one of the largest firms globally to provide services for all aspects of the built environment.

The Centre for Urban Design Outreach and Skills (CUDOS) advances excellence in urban design skills by developing community-centred solutions in housing, neighbourhoods and the wider built environment. This will be achieved through four core activities: skills development, research, consultancy practice, and international engagement.

In actively empowering people from disadvantaged backgrounds CUDOS will act as a vehicle for women and men traditionally marginalised by the built environment professions to express their interests and develop their talents. This will enable a broader population to fulfil their potential in the urban design arena and contribute more widely to society in a new era of citizen-centric governance. Through our core activities CUDOS will:

• Address the current skills deficit within urban design professions
• Redress the current lack of diversity and cultural imbalance within the urban design profession
• Explicitly work to support the development of more sustainable inter-cultural, diverse, and cosmopolitan urban design spatial practices within the wider profession.