About us
Stephen Edge
Principal
Stephen Edge is a biophilic design consultant, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, with over 40 years experience in academe and the design and construction industry. He studied Interior Design at undergraduate level at Kingston on Thames University in the 1970s, and gained a Masters in Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment (MSt IDBE) from the University of Cambridge, in 2006.
In 1980 he co-formed the London based design consultancy Deacon Edge, which specialised in energy efficient retail, leisure, workplace and high end residential design and planning for clients e.g. British Rail, Citibank, Conoco, Canon, Kuwait Petroleum, Lloyd's Register of Shipping, Warner Bros, Whitbread and Adam Ant.
He moved into academia in 1993 as Head of School at UCE (now BCU) in Birmingham. He has written and directed courses at both BA & MA in Interior Design, at UCE/BCU Birmingham, Bournemouth University, Leeds Arts University and the University of Gloucestershire. He has lectured internationally in the USA, Cyprus, Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, Singapore & Hong Kong. He's now also a part time Associate Lecturer on a new, totally online delivered MA in Interior Design for Health and Wellbeing, for Buckinghamshire New University, in High Wycombe.
In 2017 he was commissioned by Manchester based architects AHR, to act as biophilic design consultant for their client the Royal College of Physicians’ new £35, million HQ in Liverpool. His role there has been to blend the 14 Biophilic Patterns with the WELL Living Building Standards, to help achieve a WELL Platinum Certificate and a BREEAM Outstanding. It opened in the Spring of 2021 and with 109 out of a possible 110 WELL Credits the highest of any (over 26,000) WELL certified buildings in the world; its set to become one of the healthiest buildings in the world.
Dr Maria Caserio
Consultant
Dr Maria Caserio is a sustainability consultant formerly a senior researcher at the Birmingham School of Architecture and Design, at Birmingham City University and Birmingham University. Her research interests are in developing futures thinking in design, and implementing long-term strategies which enable designers to envisage products and services required for a sustainable future.
She has been research active since 1997, working in academe and practice within the UK and across Europe. Recent research addressed the needs of cities to provide a fair and transparent rating system to measure investment outcomes and to develop a circular economy in order to promote healthier lifestyles and improve well being. Current activities also include promoting Biophilic design strategies, developing a Circular Economy, Cradle to Cradle (C2C) principles and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to prolong the life cycle of cities, and organisations.
She currently provides Landscape, Urban Design & C2C consultancy for Salvedge Sustainable Design Ltd
Mary Rushton Beales
Consultant
Mary has over 30 years experience in the lighting world, having begun her career with Philips Lighting in the ‘80s and run her own independent lighting design practice since 1995. She is also actively involved with her professional association, the International Association of Lighting Designers, and was elected to the main board and IALD Education Trust from 2005 – 2008; highlights of this service included chairmanship and re-branding of the IALD Annual conference, Enlighten, in 2006.
In 2000, she became fascinated with the effect of light on the body and undertook to collate the research of the time into an accredited RIBA CPD lecture, designed to explain current advice and suggest lighting approaches and techniques for projects. Mary and her team designed the lit environment at Pines Calyx, completed in 2008; the final scheme is one of the first bio-dynamic lighting schemes using coloured light in the UK.
She continues to research collaborating with CIBSE and Dr. Meher Engineer since 2014 to demonstrate the effects of light and colour. The events aimed to raise awareness of the physiological and psychological effects of light and colour, both as ambient light and for ‘personal use’. They included an opportunity to experience the coloured light therapy of the Monocrom system. designed by architect and psychologist Karl Ryberg. Her experience of lighting design includes both daylight analysis and artificial light for a range of commercial spaces, artworks and residential schemes, both at home and abroad.
She currently provides healthy Lighting Design consultancy for Salvedge Sustainable Design Ltd