Celebrating rainfall through design with Bob Bray
27th April 2023
Bob Bray gave this year’s John Simpson memorial lecture last Tuesday. It was delivered at a leisurely but satisfyingly comprehensible tempo, tracing the history of water management from the ‘Great Stink’ lowpoint of 1858, through the Victorian ‘engineered’ solutions of rainwater discharge and sewage treatment to the ‘sustainable drainage’ philosophy now being adopted widely.
The SuDS approach to managing rainfall avoids culverting and piping, effectively hiding water, and instead recommends manipulating water at or near the surface to give wider benefits not least the pleasure of seeing ‘sweet, clear and salubrious water’ as an amenity rather as something to be got rid of.
So Bob introduced us to what ‘landscape architects can bring to the party’ by showing us examples of work his practice has been involved in – the creation of rain gardens, blue-green roofs, reedbeds, bioretention ponds, swales, filter strips, low-flow channels and such, in order to slow the rainfall to ‘greenfield runoff’ amounts (19litres/second/hectare?). All combined deliberately to design a visual, possibly ‘fun’, dimension to how water performs, but also doing an essential job avoiding flood damage. In other words, Bob urged a mindset change in order to celebrate rainfall by looking at it creatively rather than as something requiring disposal via ‘drainage’. Such a good idea!
SuDS jargon was introduced selectively but Bob urged us to take away these important concepts – that the Management Train ensures things are done in a series, starting with Source Control followed by Treatment Stages in the Sub Catchments. Water quantity, quality, amenity and biodiversity all intricately connected. The talk was filmed and this will soon be made available for viewing through Planet eStream.
Bob Moore 27/4/23
