RENEW-Futures – Regenerative design for beautiful, inclusive and ecological neighbourhoods (2026 – 2030)

Sustainability approaches aim to reduce impacts of development on people and the environment. Regenerative development builds on and extends the concept of sustainability by viewing development as an opportunity to restore ecosystems, strengthen climate resilience, improve resource efficiency and support human health and wellbeing.

With regenerative design at is core, the four-year Horizon European project RENEW-Futures explores the use of a regenerative thinking to create neighbourhoods that cope better with droughts, flooding and heat waves. Bringing together expertise in architecture, urban planning, engineering, ecology, digital technologies, social sciences and participatory design, RENEW-Futures will develop a Regenerative Neighbourhood Design Tool (RN-DT). The tool will integrate digital-twin approaches with models of water, energy, materials, biodiversity and wellbeing, allowing planners, designers, municipalities and communities to explore different development scenarios and understand the wider consequences, synergies and trade-offs associated with alternative design choices. A key ambition of RENEW-Futures is to place water at the heart of neighbourhood design, with water not simply a resource to be supplied and disposed of but a structuring element that connects ecological, technical and social systems. Water-sensitive approaches considered within the project include stormwater management, groundwater recharge, water reuse and blue-green infrastructure.

Our role in RENEW-Futures is to provide expertise in sustainable stormwater management, urban hydrology and nature-based solutions. It enables us to further explore the role of stormwater as a locally derived resource rather than a threat that needs to be removed as quickly as possible. Our work will examine stormwater as a component of wider neighbourhood systems, including energy, carbon, biodiversity and wellbeing, and contribute to modelling approaches that assess the multiple benefits and trade-offs associated with nature-based solutions. Through RENEW-Futures, we aim to strengthen the evidence base for integrating stormwater into regenerative neighbourhood design and to support municipalities and practitioners in creating urban areas that are more water-sensitive, climate-resilient and ecologically regenerative.

Partners in the international project consortium are universities, companies and municipalities from the UK (with the University of Bath as project leader), Sweden (Luleå University of Technology), the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Greece, and Canada.