LAST WORD
The last WORD
A new design for water Elliott Webster discusses the challenges of managing water in projects
Until relatively recently, the main water-related challenge to designers was to ensure that new developments did not add to local or down- stream flood risks.
has emerged for “water-lean” designs that respond to existing pressures on mains-water supplies. These pressures are predicted to intensify in coming years. Measures to take account of the
T
Elliott Webster is Managing Director of Aquaco Water Recycling Ltd, a rainwater harvesting and grey water recycling company, and members of the UK Rainwater Harvesting Association.
water-shortage side of the design equation have been taking root over the last few years, through building codes such as the Code for Sustainable Homes and BREEAM. These encourage use of technologies such as rainwater harvesting. Similar impacts are being experienced across those parts of mainland Europe on a similar latitude to the British Isles. The EC response to this has been to launch its “2012 Blueprint to safeguard Europe’s water supplies”, involving a tranche of future planned legislation. Translating the Blueprint through to EU-wide legislation, as part of an overarching EC water policy, is planned for completion by 2015. UK legislation covering similar issues came into force two years ago with the passing of the “2010 Flood & Water Management Act”. This reinforced the need for new
o the problem of managing too much water from time-to- time, a more recent pressure
developments to be, at worst, flood- risk neutral, bringing into play broader challenges for designers such as water-quality issues, environmental impact, and the amenity value of surface water features. The 2010 Act also legislates for the introduction of new “SuDS Adoption Boards”, the role of which will be to take ongoing responsibility for the maintenance and effectiveness of the arrangements made on new developments to manage surface water. This will bring a new dimension to the Design and Planning processes, with Developers and Adoption Boards needing to pre-agree SuDS proposals and the associated adoption fee. This will place a premium on designing systems that are straightforward to maintain. One way to achieve this will be to remove as much surface water from the SuDS equation as possible, by harvesting it for re-use to meet the “water-lean” demands of the development. The RWH element of systems combined in this way have their own in-built maintenance cycle, and help to address water quality issues by including initial filtration. What is certain from the Designer’s perspective, is that the potential interaction of underground works, RWH, SuDS and surface features need integrating at a very early stage, rather than as individual expensive add-ons to the main
structures. ■
ArchitectNews.co.uk | Architects Choice | 33
Aquaco designs and supplies grey water recycling and rainwater harvesting systems for residential homes, multi- residential, commercial and institutional applications. Aquaco also offers waste water treatment equipment for industrial applications. Aquaco’s team of qualified engineers has considerable technical and commercial
experience in the United Kingdom and abroad. Systems have been installed in prestigious buildings throughout the U.K and overseas.
www.aquaco.co.uk www.ukrha.org
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