Stephen Platt is a social scientist with experience in urban planning, housing and energy use. His main interest is the relationship of people to design.

His first degree was in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. After a year in industry with Renolds Ltd, he did an MSc in Building Technology at UMIST. Since this introduction to design he has worked on many aspects of the built environment. He spent a year at the School of Advanced Studies at the Manchester School of Art and worked in Venezuela for six years in urban and regional planning. His PhD research at the Martin Centre, University of Cambridge, was on the effect of the local environment on child development. Based at Portsmouth Polytechnic School of Architecture, he specialized in housing and founded HART, the Housing Association Research Team.

He has been a director of Cambridge Architectural Research since 1990 and its Chairman since 2001. He has produced many reports on energy conservation and was responsible for building user surveys for many organisations including the University of East Anglia. He ran the public consultation exercises for Cambridge Futures, on development and transport in the region. He produced a report on housing in the South East entitled Housing Futures for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and co-authored a study for CABE and the RIBA entitled Urban Futures.

He is also Associate Professor in the School of the Built Environment at Nottingham University.