Lehmann has founded and directed five research centres and institutes over a 25-year period — leading interdisciplinary teams of scholars, postdoctoral fellows, and PhD researchers working on sustainable urbanism, energy-efficient design, and societal impact.
Founding Director, Zero Waste SA Research Centre for Sustainable Design & Behaviour — University of South Australia (funded by the Government of South Australia)
Founding Director, China-Australia Centre for Sustainable Urban Development — Tianjin University and University of South Australia (jointly funded by the Chinese and Australian Governments)
Founding Director, Research Cluster for Sustainable Cities — University of Portsmouth, UK
Founding Director, Future Cities Leadership Institute — USA
Founding Director, Urban Futures Lab — University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA
Establishing Research Centres
In 2010, Lehmann founded the Zero Waste Research Centre for Sustainable Design & Behaviour — a world-first research institution, backed by $5 million from the South Australian Government. The Centre pioneered work on adaptive reuse, construction waste reduction, material efficiency, mass timber, and the integration of circular economy principles into urban planning and architecture — years before these ideas entered mainstream discourse. Its research agenda spanned construction waste avoidance, modular off-site manufacturing, design for disassembly, and resource depletion, establishing a body of work that anticipated the field by over a decade.
At UNLV, he is also a founding member of iRDA (Interdisciplinary Research for Sustainability in Arid Lands), leading the theme Urban Development in Desert Regions (2024–).
Since 2020, the Urban Futures Lab has driven innovation in city research, translating findings on arid urbanism, extreme heat, and resource scarcity into actionable strategies for decision-makers and developers.
