Award-winning environmental designer and sustainability specialist Ed Barsley (WH 99-04), is launching a new series of short films this November, to help people understand what practical steps they can take to make their homes more resilient to climate change.

In Our Flood Resilient Home, which premiered on YouTube on 16 November 2020, Ed visits Claire Foale in York to find out how flooding affected her home and the different ways she and her family adapted their property to make it more flood resilient. To watch the film, click here. 

The film is the latest venture in Ed’s Hazard + Hope series which showcases spatial, social, environmental and economic strategies for adaptation and resilience to climate change.

In his first film, What Makes Up Flood Water?, Ed raises awareness of the devastating impact of flood water on buildings, landscapes and health, and highlights how to reduce the amount of contaminants and the volume of water, to reduce overall impact. To watch that film click here

Ed runs The Environmental Design Studio, an award-winning social venture, set up to inform and inspire adaptation and resilience in the face of a changing climate.

As Ed explains: "Given the severe threat that climate change poses, with one in six homes at risk of flooding in the UK and that figure expected to double in the next 20-30 years, this is an extremely pertinent issue and communities need to be informed, empowered and inspired to adapt. Throughout this series we will highlight the causes and consequences of different natural hazards, as well as the benefits of resilient design, hence the name Hazard + Hope.  We believe it’s important this topic is communicated in a variety of ways. So we’re developing ‘How to...’ episodes, live Ask the Expert Q&As, as well as the Our Flood Resilient Home sub-series, where we hear people's actual experiences of what it’s like to live through a flood and the positive steps they've taken to make their properties more resilient."

In 2016, Ed won the Sunday Times’ Resilient Home competition with an innovative model for new development designed for resilience to flooding, overheating, extreme cold, energy shortages and social change.

Alongside his practice, Ed runs several research council-funded studies into resilient design, including his PhD at the University of Cambridge. Earlier this year, RIBA released his book Retrofitting for Flood Resilience: A Guide to Building & Community Design. The book is a detailed and highly visual resource that showcases the causes and consequences of different types of flooding, with tools, techniques and strategies at a variety of scales that can be used to adapt the built and natural environment. Talking about Ed’s book, Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency & UK Commissioner to the Global Committee on Adaptation, said: “We’re at the start of the climate decade. The ideas in this book are absolutely key to what we should be doing.” 

For more information about Ed's practice, visit: www.t-e-d-s.com

Information about the book Retrofitting for Flood Resilience, visit the RIBA website.