REPAIR: ​Retrofitting for the Future: Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Adaptation

REPAIR: Retrofitting for the Future: Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Adaptation

An Arts and Humanities driven, transdisciplinary project.  AHRC Mission Award (2025-2029)

REPAIR brings together a powerful consortium of academic and societal partners to explore how biophilic design, working with nature rather than against it, can help urban areas adapt to the intensifying impacts of climate change.

The four-year transdisciplinary project, one of only three selected across the UK through the AHRC’s prestigious new Mission Awards, will investigate how older urban buildings and public spaces can be reimagined as sustainable, liveable places that promote human and ecological well-being.

REPAIR brings together anthropology, psychology, art and design, literature, speculative science fiction, and poetry alongside the perspectives of history, law, ecology, environmental science, architecture, social housing, local government, and natural environment agencies. Together, these diverse voices form a truly transformative collaboration, combine knowledge, lived experience, and imagination in service of human and ecological well-being.

The Biome

The project’s flagship case study is the transformation of Swansea’s former Woolworths building, now The Biome, into the UK’s first retrofitted “living building”, integrating housing, commercial, community and education spaces with nature at its core.

Collaborative Team Convening Approach

With a consortium that includes UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES, UWTSD, Swansea University, University College London, Hacer Developments, Pobl Group, Natural Resources Wales, and the City and County of Swansea Council, along with a range of local and international partners, the project exemplifies the kind of deep, team-based collaboration that the AHRC’s Mission Awards are designed to support.

The AHRC Mission Awards call is based on exploring “climate research and cultural heritage through a team-based approach that seeks to transform the way research is conducted.” This team convening approach, emphasising the team over leadership, sits at the heart of the REPAIR project.

Transdisciplinary

The project is rooted in a radical transdisciplinary working model, involving a non-hierarchical, collective leadership structure, guided by the principles of the Thrive model; truly aligning with the core BRIDGES principles and way of working. The sharing of expertise, making the most of individual strengths; inclusive governance; embedding development for all; and engaging in reflexive practice and continuous learning; are all guiding Thrive principles that the project is built on.

Braiding Method

In line with this, underpinning the project is a method that uses the notion of braiding to bring our different disciplines and approaches together to strengthen our findings without degrading disciplinary integrity, which Dr. Luci Attala helped to develop.

Lived Experience

A vital strand of this work that Dr. Attala is contributing to is the "Lived Experience" thread, which seeks to understand the human side of green infrastructure. By utilising sensory ethnography and artistic approaches, researchers are exploring the nuances of "biophilic" living, the innate human connection to nature. This specific focus investigates how residents actually feel, see, and interact with nature-based solutions in their daily lives, ensuring that future climate strategies are rooted in genuine human experience.

Retrofitting Our Relationships

The "Retrofitting for the Future" project is an exciting opportunity to transform more than just buildings; it’s about transforming our fundamental relationships with nature, each other, and the systems that govern us.

By identifying the challenges that hinder widespread adoption of biophilic design, the team aims to deliver evidence-based, replicable pathways for biophilic urban adaptation and retrofitting, ensuring a safer, fairer, and greener pathway into our shared future.

Biophilic City Status

An exciting development central to this innovative initiative, is Swansea city’s successful bid to receive global biophilic city status!

Discover more about this project and Biophilic Living and Design: https://biophilic.wales

Research Co-Leads: 

Andrew Kemp, Swansea University; Becky Cole, Pobl Group; Blanche Cameron, UCL; Carwyn Davies, Hacer Developments; Chris Pak, Swansea University; Fran Rolfe, Natural Resources Wales (NRW); Gethin Matthews, Swansea University; Geoff Proffitt, Swansea University; Kirsti Bohata, Swansea University; Luci Attala, UWTSD; Mike Fowler, Swansea University; Nia Davies, Swansea University; Penny Gruffydd, City and County of Swansea Council; Victoria Jenkins, Swansea University; Yolanda Rendón-Guerrero, UWTSD.

Research Assistants and Academic Associate Researchers

Amy Isham, Swansea University;  Lowri Wilkie, Swansea University; Lymarie Rodriguez-Morales, UWTSD; Martyna Surma, Swansea University.