An examination of projects designed to enable community groups to create their own solutions to global crises.
 
Co-designing Infrastructures tells the story of a research program designed to bring the power of engineering and technology into the hands of grassroots community groups in order to create bottom-up solutions to global crises. The authors examine in detail four projects in London in detail that exemplify collaboration with engineers, designers, and scientists to enact urban change. The projects at the heart of the book are grounded in specific settings that face challenges familiar to urban communities throughout the world. This place-based approach to infrastructure is of international relevance as a foundation for urban resilience and sustainability. The authors document the tools used to deliver this work, providing guidance for others who are working to deliver local technical solutions to complex social and environmental problems around the world.
 

Sarah Bell is the City of Melbourne Chair in Urban Resilience and Innovation at the University of Melbourne and visiting professor in environmental engineering at UCL. Charlotte Johnson is head of research programs at the Centre for Sustainable Energy and a senior research Fellow at UCL. Kat Austen is an artist. Gemma Moore is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering. Tse-Hui Teh is a lecturer in urban design and planning at the Bartlett School of Planning.

 

List of figures
List of tables
List of voices
List of abbreviations
How to Read this Book
Acknowledgements
Glossary

1 Introduction
2 Urban Communities
3 Infrastructures
4 Bottom-Up Research
5 Social Housing Decisions: Demolition or Refurbishment?
6 Reconfiguring the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Engineering Comes Home
7 Collaborating for Environmental Justice: Somers Town Air Quality
8 Integrating Water and Urban Greening: The Kipling Garden
9 Tools for Co-Design
10 Conclusions

References