Sustainable Regeneration - from Evidence-based Urban Futures to Implementation is a unique research effort that establishes and tests alternative future scenarios, providing insights into the potential sustainability impact of today's urban regeneration decisions.

Sustainability, no matter what definition is used, is all about the future - putting in place now solutions to problems that will yield a positive rather than negative future legacy. The essential underlying question is "how sustainable are these solutions?" while the answer inevitably is "it depends on how the future develops".

Our practitioner guide is published with BRE.  The Guide, titled Designing Resilient Cities: A Guide to Good Practice was launched on the 18th April 2012.

This Guide presents a robust and repeatable Method for testing 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.

Read its latest review:
http://www.cles.org.uk/yourblogs/book-review-designing-resilient-cities-a-guide-to-good-practice/

Purchase the Guide from BRE and Amazon.

Use the web-based, Interactive Tool (available at www.designingresilientcities.co.uk)

Check out Proceedings of the ICE - Engineering Sustainability, Volume 165, Issue 1, March 2012

http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/content/issue/ensu/165/1
This complete special issue focusses upon the application of the Method to a case study site in the North West of England (Lancaster). 

The Lancaster team has also published the 'Little Book of Density'

http://imagination.lancs.ac.uk/outcomes/Little_Book_Density
The book aims to support decision-makers in urban environment who deal with, and consider, spatial density in their everyday practice as well as policymakers interested in thinking more broadly about density and its impacts.

Workshops

The research team continues to run workshops demonstrating the Method and Interactive Tool.

In addition to the workshop conducted with Lancaster City Council, from which the above special issue of Engineering Sustainability arose, the team conducted a series of workshops with the RTPI (please see www.rtpi.org.uk for more information) and past workshops include RIBA, MADE, Digbeth Residents Association, Milan City Council (please see http://www.danielabenelli.it/un-bel-workshop-sul-futuro-della-nostra-citta for more information on the Milan work) and the Institution of Civil Engineers.

If you are interested in the team hosting a workshop for you or your organisation please get in touch (Joanne Leach, j.leach@bham.ac.uk, 0121 414 3544).

Sustainable Regeneration - from Evidence-based Urban Futures to Implementation is a four year research project which started in May 2008 and finished in April 2012, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The project consortium is led by the University of Birmingham and includes the University of Exeter, Lancaster University, Birmingham City University and Coventry University.