The Moveable NEXUS: Design-led Sustainable Water, Food and Energy Management within the New Boundary

Completed

Energy Efficiency(Other)
Not Energy Related

Basic and strategic applied research

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Architecture and the Built Environment)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor G P Keeffe
Sch of Natural and Built Environment
Queen's University Belfast

Standard

ESRC

01 June 2018

31 May 2021

36 months

£163,603

Northern Ireland

Society & Global Security

Professor G P Keeffe, Sch of Natural and Built Environment, Queen's University Belfast

Project Contact, Keio University, Japan
Project Contact, Maccreanor & Lavington Architects
Project Contact, University of Michigan, USA
Project Contact, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Japan
Project Contact, Qatar University, Qatar
Project Contact, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Project Contact, Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands

This project will develop innovative and practical design solutions through stakeholder-engaged living labs in six different bioregions around the world to translate current FEW-nexus research towards implementation. Through this effort, three integrated knowledge platforms on Design, Evaluation and Participation capture inter-disciplinary approaches to feed into participatory workshops, and thereby to the moveable nexus (M-NEX). The outputs and lessons learned will be publically disseminated via the open M-NEX platform. The first four international workshops investigate holistic themes (technology, people, geography and climate), which will then be integrated in the final two workshops on multiple-scales (from buildings to city level).The production and consumption of healthy food is ensured by addressing future climate change impacts and demographic and cultural changes, spanning scales from a single rooftop to an entire metropolitan region. The design outputs are the cornerstones of the entire field of possible solutions and are used to inspire individuals to undertake informed actions using the M-NEX platform. The decision support platform at the local governments level will be a powerful tool for integrating nexus thinking in FEW management.Project objectives and targetsThe first objective is to implement existing FEW research in cities through design practice. The research question is: How might leading edge FEW research from around the world be translated into actionable practices to inform the design of cities from building to bioregion and from people to policy, on longer-term temporal scales of maturing socio-economic and eco-systems?The second objective is to aggregate existing FEW tools into one analytical decision-support tool. The research question is: How might we develop, through the synthesis of multiple existing methods and formats of FEW system tools, more inclusive and holistic tools through which to apprehend urban contexts and with which to design FEW solutions?The third objective is to use existing knowledge and the aggregated tool in design-led participatory workshops. The research question is: What new forms of collaborative design process enable FEW practices and methods to be implemented within the complex contexts of urban governance, project development and implementation?The translational ambition of the project is to produce a portable model for practicing FEW-driven design within urban contexts that acknowledges local variation and difference, while being capable of generalisation as an approach that can be applied in multiple contexts. The products of the urban design projects will constitute portable case studies for a variety of urban practitioners and will each emphasise and prioritise circular FEW benefits within specific project contexts.

Urban communities are particularly vulnerable to the future demand of food, water and energy, and this is further acerbated by the onset of climate change. A solution needs to be found for a FEW nexus. This internationally diverse project, based around urban design practice, sees urban agriculture (and localised energy production) as a key facilitator of the Nexus, needing water and energy to become productive. Working directly with living labs in some of the most vulnerable communities in the partner cities (Tokyo, Belfast, Amsterdam, Dohar, Detroit and Sydney), the team aims to co-design new food futures with stakeholders that leave them less vulnerable to forces disturbing the nexus. The lessons learned from these stakeholder workshops will be shared outside the team, so that lessons learned locally can be applied globally.This project will develop innovative and practical design solutions through stakeholder-engaged living labs in six different bioregions around the world to translate current FEW-nexus research towards implementation. Through this effort, three integrated knowledge platforms on Design, Evaluation and Participation capture inter-disciplinary approaches to feed into participatory workshops, and thereby to the moveable nexus (M-NEX). The outputs and lessons learned will be publically disseminated via the open M-NEX platform. The first four international workshops investigate holistic themes (technology, people, geography and climate), which will then be integrated in the final two workshops on multiple-scales (from buildings to city level).The production and consumption of healthy food is ensured by addressing future climate change impacts and demographic and cultural changes, spanning scales from a single rooftop to an entire metropolitan region. The design outputs are the cornerstones of the entire field of possible solutions and are used to inspire individuals to undertake informed actions using the M-NEX platform. The decision support platform at the local governments level will be a powerful tool for integrating nexus thinking in FEW management.

09/08/18