DIGITAL & STRATEGIC
UX DESIGN PRACTICE
STRATEGIC DESIGN
Community-led urban futures
Creating thriving and sustainable communities by addressing flood risk management holistically.
How can we design a community-led process for SuDS that creates benefits for all?
Date
Location
Over a 5-year programme, we aim to address immediate climate risks through sustainable drainage systems while delivering multiple benefits for stakeholders and inventing a sustainable community stewardship model.
The strategy that has been developed over the discovery stage has already started to be adopted by the partnership and will inform the design in the coming five years. At the conclusion of the innovation programme a series of pilot SuDS interventions will be built that achieve the vision that we have co-created with the community.
SuDS+ is an innovative 5 year R&D project that establishes a community-led approach for designing, delivering and monitoring Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS), providing wide benefits to the local community and environment.
The project aims to meet diverse stakeholder and community needs by considering sustainable drainage systems not only as water management infrastructure, but instead as drivers of urban (re-)development that can enrich the public realm and build the resilience of places and communities. As advocates for participatory design, Arup co-developed and facilitated a variety of participatory research tools and activities such focus group discussions, co-creation workshops and community vision-setting and partnership exercises. In doing so, the project’s ambition is to provide a scalable and sustainable example for how public infrastructures can deliver a greater social impact through encouraging deeper community engagement and co-creating innovative solutions with the people who are most impacted by the problem that we are trying to solve.
The initial idea that the EA had was to focus their expression of interest for the funding on technology-enabled monitoring of SuDS. This was transformed to consider the systemic and social problem of lack of stewardship of SuDS assets. Shifting away from a technology-focused approach to instead understand, define and overcome challenges to delivering community SuDS by employing new ways of thinking, partnership working and making the best use of existing and new technologies.
Has it been implemented?
We have finished the discovery stage first year. The first year has involved devising a community-led infrastructure visioning, design, and delivery model together with the people of Stanley South in County Durham. We have brought together stakeholders - from residents, businesses, community organisations, housing associations, and water authorities – in a participatory design process, using co-design workshops, interviews, walking tours, and play-based design games. The coming year will involve designing a series of market-facing Innovation Challenges that address the systemic problems identified through the initial discovery phase.
