56
INDUSTRY VIEWFINDER: DESIGN FOR SUDS
EXPERT VIEW
Chris Hodson commented: “It has been clearly demonstrated that multifunctional SuDS and green infrastructure do not add to capital or maintenance costs, or land-take. Unjustified resistance is still experienced from developers, local (NB highways) authorities, civil engineers and other consultants. The January 2023 Defra report recommending mandatory SuDS recognises the need for education and development of skills, together with adaptation of other guidelines (for example for street design) to suit SuDS and GI.”
Information gap
Although the manual is cited in the industry as an extremely useful guide for specifiers, when it comes to ‘proprietary’ (engineered) SuDS solutions, it is questionable whether enough useful CPD content and other technical support is made available to architects on the solutions. There is clearly a job to do here from the supplier side, but it’s also up to architects to ask the questions. Further areas where there are gaps in information include advice on maintenance, data on sustainability, and digital tools including on how to integrate nature-based with proprietary features.
Engineer-led design
Our survey found that (civil) engineers were the most likely discipline to be specifying SuDS in the projects the respondents were working on. This category was picked by half of the architects we asked, followed by architects themselves at 40%, and ‘specialist engineers’ at 26%. Then came landscape designers (19%), closely
followed by structural engineers (17%), local authorities (15%), and with contractors lagging behind at 10% (another discipline mentioned being environmental engineers). We asked whether there was risk to maximising the amenity for users of nature-based approaches if SuDS design is left to engineers and did not closely involve architects and landscape designers in the process? Perhaps unsurprisingly, our respondents largely said conclusively that there was such a risk, making comments such as “these things need to consider form as well as function,” and “engineer-only designed systems as less likely to put nature and ecological criteria at the top of the design elements,” and even “it needs to be led by architects and landscape designers.” Other, more trenchant comments included “sometimes engineers do not value the input of landscape specialists,” “landscaping is always an afterthought,” and “generally engineers will tend to oversize the drainage.” However, these were balanced with qualified views such as “a lot of the engineered-based approaches will lack the amenity qualities, but that seems to improve year on year.”
EXPERT VIEW
Chris Hodson agreed with the respondents, stating: “SuDS should be multifunctional (therefore multi- disciplinary), and an integral part of urban planning and design.”
Solutions We asked architects whether they believed that a combination of natural ‘green’ with engineered ‘grey’ stormwater management was the most realistic solution for housing developments. 85% said this was the case, giving a strong endorsement to hybrid solutions, potentially highlighting how such measures can alleviate space problems in housing schemes.
Among the questions we asked around preferred solutions were the ‘grey’ infrastructure stormwater management solutions that readers they were specifying to work in conjunction with natural solutions? The result was closely split between permeable paving (229 points) and attenuation tanks/soakaways (228 points), but rainwater harvesting was close behind with 211 points, and plastic SuDS generally was preferred over concrete (69 points to 53 points).
Before specification is the focus however, what sources of information were architects using to identify best practice in scheme design? The most popular answer was the local planning authority (41%), followed by the Environment Agency, Institute of Consulting Engineers, RIBA, and the SuDS Manual in fifth place. After that came Defra, the Flood Act itself, then SuDS modelling software, and CIRIA. 6% picked ‘none of the above’ – or ‘other’ sources.
“Do you believe that a combination of natural ‘green’ with engineered ‘grey stormwater management (e.g. swales connected to stormwater attenuation tanks) is the most realistic solution for housing developments?”
Need for collaboration & information SuDS and stormwater management projects don’t just cut across various professional disciplines, they also run across local administrative boundaries. So there is a clear need for organisations to work together collaboratively and openly like many will have never experienced previously.
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK ADF MAY 2023
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100
