Encouraging teenage girls to stay active by designing city spaces that make use of immersive digital technology is the goal of new three-year project led by Birmingham City University (BCU). 

“Spaces that teen girls can claim and feel comfortable being active in are negligible beyond the school gates,” said Dr Silvia Gullino, urban planning expert at BCU. 

“Teen girls generally drop out of public sight. Our research aims to understand how digital approaches can be used to co-design spaces that are more inclusive for young women.” 

In the UK, more than one million girls drop off the sporting radar after primary school with important health, wellbeing, and social ramifications (Women in Sport, 2019). 

Teenage girls demonstrate the sharpest decrease in physical activity upon entering adolescence, with 85% not meeting the World Health Organization’s physical activity recommendations globally. 

Dr Gullino, Associate Professor in City Making within the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Built Environment, will collaborate with BCU colleagues Dr Carlo Harvey, Director of Future Games and Graphics, and Dr Simon Cook, a specialist in human geography and active spaces. 

Dr Carlo Harvey said: “I see this initiative as a groundbreaking opportunity to leverage AR, VR, and AI to create active city spaces that truly resonate with and empower teenage girls, iterating upon their engagement and presence in urban environments.”  

“As a geographer, I’m interested in people’s relationships with places and particularly how spaces can enable us to flourish,” said Dr Cook. 

“It’s clear public spaces are failing young women in this regard and we need new approaches.” 

Dr Gullino, who will be aided by the support of a new three-year PhD studentship, agrees.  

“In cities designed by able-bodied white men for men, women struggle to find ways to express themselves, feel safe and flourish,” she said. 

“Teenage girls are a particularly neglected and overlooked group in urban planning and design.   “The patriarchal nature of Western societies, coupled with an underrepresentation of women and young people in urban planning and design professions, results in dominantly masculine cities and active public spaces that negatively impact engagement by others.” 

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