Bristol
The solution of Thriving Places will focus on strengthening Bristol as a holistically healthy city. Their priorities include optimising the potential of every underutilised brownfield site and redefining development value for a new, broader definition of viability. The ultimate goal is to provide decent housing for all using carbon-neutral climate-smart solutions.
The organisations involved in this team are Edaroth, Atkins, Igloo, Brighter Places, Nodon and Microgram Foundry.
Namrata Metha, leader of the Climate Smart Cities Challenge met with Zoe Metcalfe, Client Director at Atkins Global, to get to know more about this team and the proposed solution for Bristol.
N.M: Can you briefly describe Thriving Places’ proposed solution for the city of Bristol?
Z.M: Our focus was on creating and sustaining Thriving Places through the delivery of affordable net zero homes. Beyond that however, the Challenge that Bristol set was complex, and is a global challenge that many cities face: how to deliver and create climate healthy cities where people can prosper and where we consider quality of life outcomes and we integrate and think about the role of nature in our cities and consider how we contribute to a resilient city. In particular for Bristol there is a major challenge around affordable housing. We have significant numbers of people in temporary accommodation and families and individuals who are not able to come and live and work in our city, and this particularly affects our key workers, our nurses, those people who are the lifeblood of the city. It is really important for us with our response to this challenge that we create Thriving Places for people to live.
N.M: Can you introduce us to the members of the Thriving Places team?
Z.M: We have a diverse team in order to meet the complexities of the challenge, and to deliver successfully and at pace with a demonstrator in Bristol. Our core team consists of Edaroth, a subsidiary of Atkins which provides net zero homes through modern methods of construction; Igloo Regeneration, who are leading UK Responsible Real Estate Business, who fund, deliver and animate great places; and lastly Bristol based housing association, Brighter Places, a residential provider providing homes where everyone is welcomed.
Beyond the core team we are delighted to be joined by Swedish start-ups to innovate and influence the demonstrator outcomes. Nodon has created a calculator that looks at the climate impact of construction projects through materialiality and other levers; and Microgrid Foundry, will look at the feasibility of low-cost small smart grids to contribute to the net zero target, but also tackle community resilience and fuel poverty.
Broader than that, because of the complexity of the challenge, we drew the net further into partnerships with a number of academics. Locally, in Bristol, we drew on the University of Bristol and University of West of England through a charity called TRUD. TRUD focuses on researching how the building environment can address non-communicable diseases like diabetes, mental health issues, asthma.
We are also joined by two local Bristol companies. Play Dysrupt who are focused on using theater and play to engage communities, so communities are empowered and have a strong voice in the early conceptualisation of projects that affect them. Another organization local to Bristol is Nature Youth Connection and Education, which focuses on working with youth who are disadvantaged by connecting them with nature so that they improve their self-esteem and confidence, understand nature, become curious, and develop skills towards potential livelihoods.
N.M: What are you looking forward to most as you plan the system demonstrator?
Z.M:We are really excited about working with Bristol City Council and the local communities to look at collective co-creation, design and development, to unlock the cluster of brownfield sites that are currently unviable by looking at a broader definition of value. In the context of current fuel prices, cost of living and inflation it is absolutely critical that we unlock these sites to deliver affordable homes for everyone.
Z.M: Typically when addressing and responding to a city challenge you are in a position of responding to a very siloed scope or ask. What was different about the Climate Smart Cities Challenge was that the brief was across many interlinked challenges where the vitality of one affects the vitality of another. The Challenge created this wonderful landscape to bring in different players to co-create, to have that positive friction with one another, to innovate and think differently, and really tackle the systemic and structural changes that need to take place to deliver successfully with the demonstrator. The Competition, and the next stage affords us, a position by virtue of the link with UN Habitat and Viable Cities to keep pulling the city up above current ways of working and siloed thinking.
The Thriving Places team has found the experience of the Climate Smart Cities Challenge an incredibly positive experience. A place where new relationships were formed with the many different finalists in the first phase of the competition, to incubate new ideas, to provoke one and other and challenge one another to think differently. It has enabled us to form new relationships that didn’t previously exist and really consider how we can be courageous through our collective power to address the Bristol city challenge.
