Gail's work focuses on people-centred design and co-design approaches, whether in the context of employee wellbeing, community engagement or public attitudes to new technology.
Gail has an MEng in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College (1999–2003), and spent her final year at Ecole Centrale de Lyon, France. She has worked internationally, with engineering placements at Coca Cola (Atlanta, USA) and Plastic Omnium (Lyon, France) before working in the UK and Spain as part of Sony’s European Graduate Scheme.
Gail gained an MA in Industrial Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art (2005–7). After graduating she worked in wayfinding design before joining the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design.
Key details
School, Centre or Area
Research projects
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Air-Control-Reimagined
Using Creative Leadership to create a ‘Gold Standard’ Operations Control Centre for an airline focusing on people, environment and UX. -
GATEway driverless transport
How might the design of autonomous vehicles respond to people’s hopes and fears around a more accessible future city? -
The Great British Public Toilet Map
A website and dataset of publicly accessible toilets in the UK, to help people to find toilets that meet their needs.
More information
Practice
Gail joined the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design as a Research Associate on the three-year TACT3 project. This built on her MA dissertation, The Public Toilet: A Woman’s Place and the RATs research project, presenting alternative community approaches to public toilet provision. Research into publicly accessible toilets resulted in an inclusive design guide, her blog ‘Public Toilets and..’, and the ongoing open data project, The Great British Public Toilet Map.
Gail expanded her research profile with Creative Citizens. This two and a half year AHRC-funded project built on her knowledge of digital technology and community involvement, as well as her growing interest in local government and the design of public services.
Gail works closely with community-led projects, co-designing digital interventions to engage more people in their projects. She hopes to expand this work within the themes of civic participation, collaborative digital tools and the citizen-led design of neighbourhood spaces and services.
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Harrow, D., Gheerawo, R., Phillips, D., Ramster, G. (2018) (forthcoming). Understanding how attitudes towards autonomous vehicles can shape the design of our cities, Proceedings of ICE - Municipal Engineer 171(1)
Myerson, J., Ramster, G. (2016). Workplace health and wellbeing: can greater design participation provide a cure? In Design for Healthcare (Design for Social Responsability series) ed. Cooper R & Tsekleves E, Gower UK.
Alexiou, K., Agusita, E., Alevizou, G., Chapain, C., Greene, C., Harte, D., Ramster, G., Zamenopoulos, T. (2015) Asset mapping and civic creativity in Hargreaves, I & Hartley, J (Eds) The Creative Citizen Unbound. Policy Press.
Harrow, D., Gheerawo, R., Ramster, G., Saunders, M. (2016) Using public views on autonomous vehicles to shape to design of our future cities. Submitted to The 6th International Conference for Universal Design. Nagoya December 2016
Ramster, G. (2015) Building a National Toilet Map for the Public’s Convenience, The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference, London, 25 March 2015
Ramster, G (2011-). www.gailknight.wordpress.comPublic Toilets and... blog. [Accessed 7 Jan 2014]
Ramster, G (2012, 2014). Co-designing with Kentish Town Neighbourhood Forum; Finding Community-led Design Projects; Community asset-mapping and a Jubilee Street Party, in Creative Citizens blog.
Lockton, D., Greene, C., Ramster, G., Outten, A. & Raby, E. (2014) The Story Machine at The Mill’ in Lockton, D., Greene, C., Casey, A., Raby, E., & Vickress, A. (eds) Creative Citizens Variety Pack: Inspiring digital ideas from community projects, Royal College of Art, London
Bichard, J., Greene, C., Ramster, G. & Staples, T. (2013) Designing Ethnographic Encounters for Enriched HCI, Interaction Models and Techniques for Ageing and Impairment: Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction Proceedings of HCI, Springer
McNair, S,. Flynn, M,. Myerson, J., Gheerawo, R. & Ramster, G. (2012) What are the supply (workforce) and demand (product) implications of an ageing workforce? Foresight, Government Office for Science, London
Bichard, J. & Knight. G. (2012) Improving Public Services through open Data: The Great British Public Toilet Map, Proceedings of ICE - Municipal Engineer 165(3) pp. 157-165
Knight, G., Bichard, J. (2011) Publicly Accessible Toilets: An Inclusive Design Guide, Royal College of Art, London
Knight, G. (2011) Why Mapping Toilets is a Great use of Government Data. Guardian Technology Data [online] 2011 [Accessed 7 April 2014]
Knight, G. (2010) From Traffic Lights to Toilets, Texting is Working for Local Government, Guardian Local Government Professional Network blog [online] 22/12/2010
Bichard, J., Knight, G. & Greene, C., (2010) TACT3: Researching Toilets for All, Access By Design, Centre for Accessible Environments, Spring 2010 Issue 122
Keynote and Invited Presentations
Ramster, G. (2015) ‘Excuse me, where is the toilet (data)?’ Open Data Institute Lunchtime Lectures, September 2014, London
Bichard, J & Ramster, G. (2015) `Designing Sustainability into Cities; The Great British Public Toilet Map', at London Environmental Challenge. Future Cities Catapult. London, 16 April 2015
Ramster, G. (2015) ‘Digital Toilets: For your convenience’ OpenTech, London, 13 June 2015
Bichard, J. & Ramster, G. (2015) Designing Sustainability into Cities; The Great British Public Toilet Map. London Environmental Challenge. Future Cities Catapult. London 16 April 2015
External collaborations
- November 2014, Invited Speaker, Open Data Summit, London.
- November 2014, Invited Speaker, Geomob, London.
- September 2014, Reviewer, Proceedings of ICE - Municipal Engineer.
- September 2014, Invited Speaker, Open Data Institute Lunchtime Lectures, London.
- August 2003, Facilitator, Royal Geographical Society International Conference, London.
- June 2013, Workshop Organiser, Nordic Design Research Conference, Malmo.
- November 2012, Organiser, AcrossRCA interdisciplinary student project, London.
- March to June 2011, Design Ambassador, Design Council ‘Keeping Connected’ Challenge.
- March 2011, Project Mentor, Department of Communities and Local Government ‘Really Useful Day’.
- 2011 and 2013, Reviewer, RCA Include Conferences.