Developments in flood-risk areas can be delivered cost effectively if developers and architects allow controlled flooding and take an integrated approach, according to new BRE-endorsed design guidance published last month.
The Life Handbook is the result of a research project led by BACA Architects with input from QS Cyril Sweett, as well as consulting engineers Fulcrum and Halcrow.
The team drew up concept masterplans for three sites – at Littlehampton in West Sussex (pictured), Peterborough and the London Borough of Sutton – to identify how river and tidal flood waters can co-exist with homes and buildings.
Simon Harris, director of Cyril Sweett, acknowledged that developing on floodplains carried a cost premium of 20-35%, but said this could be reduced to 10-30% if developers, architects and local authorities worked together.
Harris now hopes to trial the project team’s ideas on a real site. ‘If there’s still a will [in the government] to develop eco-towns and zero-carbon sites, why not give us a site to try out these ideas? You only find out the practicalities of delivery by practising – that’s what the Dutch have done so successfully,’ said Harris.
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