Output details

Designing Resilient Cities- A guide to good practice

This publication/guide is the planned outcome of a four-year, £3.1 million grant from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council on Urban Futures representing the key output of the research and authored by the entire team as a collaboration. It was directed by a steering committee and expert panelists representing industry, government, academia and the third sector where Coles was Co-Investigator examining the Surface Built Environment (Work Package 5 of 8 integrated work packages). Underpinning research represents a multidisciplinary consortium of researchers and investigators drawn from the Universities of Birmingham, Birmingham City, Exeter, Lancaster and Coventry funded under the EPSRC Sustainable Urban Environments call (SUE2), the team adopting a critical evidence approach with testing of the methodology through partner collaboration and worked examples. The work attracts strong interest being published by the Building Research Establishment who have adopted/endorsed the urban futures methodology presented in the book.

This Guide presents the novel Urban Futures Method to test the likely future performance of urban development and regeneration-related ‘sustainability solutions’ – actions taken today in the name of sustainability – in a series of possible future scenarios in the year 2050. If a proposed solution delivers a positive legacy, regardless of the future against which it is tested, then it can be adopted with confidence. The Method provides insights into the potential impacts of today’s urban planning and design decisions, and challenges the conventional mainstream approach to sustainability by incorporating changing priorities and different ways of thinking into today’s actions, with the intention to ensure relevance in the future.

The Guide includes-step by step presentation of scenario analysis to future proof sustainability actions in urban development and regeneration situations; twenty three examples of solution-benefit pairs; major literature review/evidence base on the accompanying CD.