Co-designed infrastructural demonstration plans

This report pertains to deliverable 5.1 of the EU Horizon 'UPSURGE' project (Grant agreement No. 101003818). It compiles infrastructural and architectural plans for various nature-based solutions (NBS) in five European cities: Belfast, Breda, Budapest, Maribor and Katowice. The report provides contextual analysis for each city's climate and site constraints. It outlines the processes used in each city to co-design the final designs such as design workshops and on site exhibitions, and explores the shared and specific challenges faced by the city to co-design these NBS plans such as inflation, resource shortages, and external influence. The report's key findings highlight the need to build consensus through co-design, how successful co-design requires flattened hierarchies and the balance of raising and managing collaborator expectations. The authors recommend that co-design approaches are tailored to fit city-specific cultures and processes within local authorities, but must make decision-making more transparent and inclusive. It reiterates the need for two-way communication between key collaborators in the quintuple helix (academia, industry, environment groups, citizens and governments), and cites the value of team continuity throughout an NBS project timeline.