Rising Tide

Homes that Don't Cost the Earth: Affordability within Planetary Boundaries 🌍 Rising Tide has joined forces with UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), Arup, and Dark Matter Labs on an ambitious two-year project to set a new north star for housing – reorienting our ambition from pure numbers to a goal of affordability within environmental limits. 📈 Josh Ryan-Collins, Stefan Horn, Dr Beth Stratford, Daniel Hill, Oliver Burgess, Becci Taylor, Freddie Oxland and Tara Clinton. As a core partner, we are building a network of pioneers, policymakers, and civic leaders – crucially, from across the often-separate worlds of climate, housing, nature, and construction – to co-create, test, and advocate for a new toolkit for housing: a different way to provide the homes we need. 📊 Our communications will share insights from across the coalition and engage those with the power to change the narrative. 🗣️ This collaboration will also: - Build on the brilliant work that’s already been done to analyse the policy, financial, and technical interventions for truly affordable housing. 🔑 - Fill critical research gaps, particularly around impact. 🌱 - Support new relationships and alliances. 🤝 Want to be part of it? Have you done work in this space we need to know about? Drop a comment/get in touch 📧 Thanks to Laudes Foundation for its leadership and core funding support. 🙏 Animation by Imaginatrix / Batuhan Bintas 🔥 #HousingCrisis #ClimateAction #SystemicChange #PlanetaryBoundaries 🏘️

🌟 We have a stellar line up of talented people attending MIPIM this year! Our members are experts in #placemaking #urbandesign #socialvalue #codesign #branding #communications. We are bound by a set of values and a unique business model, fighting to improve peoples lives and the planet's prospects 🌎 If you're heading to Cannes look out for; 🔶 Max Farrell Founder & CEO at LDN Collective 🔴 Tanisha Raffiuddin Founder at Concept Culture 🟦 Carlo Castelli Founder at Urban Purpose 🟡 Caroline Blowers MD at Equals 🟨 Ben Clark Director at AESG 🟢 Elisabeth Montgomerie - CEng CEnv Director at AESG 🔴 Rosie Cade Founder at Rising Tide 🟡 Chris Rumfitt Founder & CEO at Field Consulting UK 🟪 Marina Milosev Co-Founder at Beyond the Red Line 🔵 Jamie Parr Director at Better Delivery 🟠 Rumi Bose Founder at Rumi Bose Ltd. 💠 Richard Dobson Director at Conisbee 🟣 Krista Powell Partner at Brabners 🔴 Jane Groom Director at LCA 🟤 Jonny Popper CEO at LCA 🟪 Sam Emery Director at LCA Current projects include a new ‘eventscape’ in the Royal Docks; a garden community in Huntingdonshire and urban regeneration projects in the UK and beyond. Thought leadership includes #ParkPower - a crowdsourced vision for London’s green spaces, #NetZeroNeighbourhoods and the Wolfson prize award-winning #FastForward ♻️ 🗣️ Look out for Marina Milosev speaking about the night time economy and Max Farrell speaking about sports & placemaking on The London Stand at MIPIM #CollectivelySpeaking #WeAreCityMakers #MIPIM2025

🚧Could devolution support clean construction? Powerful new research from C40 Cities, supported by Laudes Foundation and its city partners London, Madrid, and Oslo highlights that a shift to clean construction will not only cut emissions but also create millions of green jobs. Cities and investors are already moving in this direction, recognising that decarbonising our construction methods and materials is part of a much broader economic transformation. Chiming with December’s white paper announcement from the UK Government on #devolution proposing to hand greater powers to Mayors and city council leaders, C40’s findings suggest the regional and city level can move fast on climate *and* support local workforces - provided policymaking is intentionally inclusive.    Key findings include: ✅ More jobs, not fewer – Cities shifting to clean construction will see significant employment growth, particularly in retrofits, building maintenance, and sustainable materials. Clean construction in Madrid is projected to create 9.8 million job years by 2050, a 41% increase over high-carbon methods. In London, job growth is expected to be 13.4%, while Oslo will see a 16.6% increase compared to traditional construction. ✅ Better, more secure jobs – The transition is a chance to improve wages, working conditions, and workforce diversity. But this won’t happen automatically—cities must lead with skills, training, and procurement policies. ✅ Cities already have the tools – Procurement rules, financial incentives, and investment levers exist. 📖 Read the global summary report: https://lnkd.in/e-_WiAet #CleanConstruction #GreenEconomy #SustainableCities #devolution

This week, Common Projects announced an interesting piece of news: the owner of the new homes at its London development, Zodiac, will be Croydon Council, and the apartments will become permanent emergency accommodation. One deal, 73 new residents, no new land used 🎉 The conventional ‘boxes in fields’, build-to-sell development model is, however, facing real pressure. So is a stronger focus on both social and climate goals a more viable strategy for the property sector? …Could a pivot to adaptive reuse, at scale, offer developers a more resilient alternative? 💰 Cost reduction: Building reuse can be lower-cost (including planning risk) than demolition and rebuild, while significantly reducing carbon emissions (an area facing increasing regulation and public scrutiny, as well as taxes) 🏡 Meeting the market where it's at: Repurposing assets like Zodiac can provide a scalable solution to a growing demand for affordable homes 📈 Significant opportunity pipeline: Common Projects’ research last year found that 17 London boroughs are ripe for large amounts of repurposing: more than 75% of their 41 million sq ft of office space has an EPC of C or lower (meaning non-compliant by 2030, based on regulation trajectories) 🏙️ The chance to lead a new aesthetic movement: Repurposed buildings are unique, interesting and have a different kind of beauty! Six companies in the UK deliver more than half of all private sector house building. Our question is: Is adaptive re-use on their R&D agenda? Taylor Wimpey plc, Persimmon Homes,Barratt Redrow, Vistry Group, Bellway Homes and Berkeley Homes. Home Builders Federation British Property Federation. 📸 Photo credit:  - M,L: Don’t Waste Buildings case studies of Zodiac & YYLondon  - R: Pictures displayed on Dezeen website of Lacaton & Vassal Bordeaux, 2017 #RetrofitInnovation #ConstructionLeaders #DontWasteBuildings

It's been an epic year at Rising Tide 🚀 Thank you to our wonderful communications collaborators Rachel Weatherley, Renée O'Drobinak, Kirstie Skates, Tom Coupe, Tash Nikolovski, Guy Abraham and our partners and clients Circular Buildings Coalition (CBC), Common Projects, C40 Cities, Design Communication Training, European Community Land Trust Network, Laudes Foundation, Planit and Whitby Wood. Happy festivities and bring on 2025 🙌 #builtenvironment

🏢 West Croydon: Don’t Waste Buildings We have an undersupply of adequate affordable housing in our cities, including for the most vulnerable. And we have offices unfit for purpose. How do we unlock the resource in one to provide for the other? We’ve been supporting Common Projects this month in showcasing Zodiac as part of the #DontWasteBuildings campaign. Zodiac, a 1960s mixed-use complex, is being transformed from empty office space into homes and amenities. Original features - imagine square picture windows, waffle-slab ceilings, and pebbledash! - have been retained and restored as characterful design elements, showing the little-considered aesthetic potential of adaptive reuse. 🖼️ We are working on profiling Zodiac as an important example whose learnings could help mainstream the re-imagining of unused office buildings across the UK. Earlier this year, we released Common’s research into the potential for office repositioning as housing, finding that in 17 London boroughs, more than 75% of the total quantum of 41 million sq ft of office space has an EPC of C or lower (meaning it will be non-compliant by 2030, based on expected regulation). 🌱 Don’t Waste Buildings is gaining real traction for this idea, with over 1,000 supporters and a growing voice for change. Through policy advocacy, industry engagement, and inspiring tours like this, the campaign is building the story of re-use. If you're a funder, developer, or local authority keen to learn more or visit Zodiac, drop us a message for a tour in early 2025. ❤️ #DontWasteBuildings #ZodiacWestCroydon #UrbanRegeneration #AdaptiveReuse

Optoppen: building up with timber: a mindset and a movement 🏗 We’re so pleased to be launching Optoppen.org—a resource hub packed with case studies, policy insights, and an innovative viability tool for building owners, city planners, and developers. Optoppen helps us rethink urban expansion—preserving embodied carbon, creating carbon storage, and addressing housing needs 🔄 This Built by Nature-funded project has been about much more than just the platform. It’s included outreach across three countries, community-building, refining the narrative, and ensuring we connect with our target audiences, delivering the business case they need to hear. Strategic communications have been at its core—positioning Optoppen not only as a construction method but as a mindset and a ‘movement’🌍 Rising Tide led the communications strategy and delivery, collaborating with designers and developers across Europe to hone a clear proposition, create engaging content, and build out a network of advocates. Thanks to our brilliant colleagues and partners—Whitby Wood, Mule Studio, New Urban Networks EU, Holland Houtland, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), and Creative City Solutions—awesome from inception through to launch. And a major hat-tip to our wonder team member, Rachel Weatherley. Want to explore potential communications projects like Optoppen with us? Get in touch!💚 #Optoppen #BuiltEnvironment #CommunicationsSpecialists #BioBasedMaterials #dontwastebuildings

“Topping up” the building is a smart solution with several good outcomes: it ups the asset’s overall value; it allows us to bring amenity to often underused roofs; and it adds interest to the skyline.” General Projects’ Chief Development Officer Frederic Schwass in EG last week, discussing what the UK real estate market can learn from the Dutch about topping up retrofit projects, and highlighting the Metropolis and Technique buildings as two examples of the growing trend at home. Read the piece here 👉 https://lnkd.in/efX39tVs (£) Samantha McClary Tim Burke Whitby Wood Mule Studio New Urban Networks EU Holland Houtland Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia Creative City Solutions Rising Tide

Breaking the century-old methods of construction 🚧 📢 For years, innovation in housing has been quietly gaining momentum, ready to transform an industry that has long relied on century-old methods of construction. Across the Atlantic, alternative housing models like 3D printing are being positioned as solutions to break free from inefficiency and waste in construction. An article in The New Yorker explores the idea that there are pockets of innovation in housing delivery in need of support to take off. As Jason Ballard, co-founder of the construction technologies company Icon3D GmbH, puts it, “What we’re doing is not working. There are far too many homeless people. Working-class people can’t afford basic housing. Construction’s too wasteful. Houses aren’t energy-efficient enough… And that means the housing of our future can’t—not shouldn’t, but can’t—be like the housing we have now.” 🏙 Ballard’s description of the US’ housing "doom loop" rings familiar for those grappling with the same issues in the UK and Europe: declining quality, rising regulations, and increasing costs trapping builders and cities alike. The downward spiral, as he describes it, starts with prioritising operational efficiencies—cutting costs by using cheaper materials, lowering labour standards, and repeating designs. This, in turn, leads to homes that don’t meet modern expectations. And as cities respond with more regulations, builders are forced to cut even more corners, locking them in a vicious loop of ever-decreasing quality. ⭕ But where Ballard stands out is his optimism about breaking this cycle. His approach isn’t simply to criticise the status quo but to imagine a new future—one where housing as a ‘product’ is reimagined. As he suggests, the “housing of tomorrow must be different from the housing of today”. For us in the UK and Europe, where construction faces growing pressures around regulation, affordability, sustainability, and innovation, embracing and actively supporting new models is essential. Whether or not 3D printing is one of the answers Ballard’s core insight is critical. We need to dedicate more attention to ‘product development’, embracing the next generation of materials and methodologies, perhaps in an incremental and hybrid way to start with. 🤲 The key question posed is a provocative one: If today’s production builders are Blockbuster, who will be housing’s ‘Netflix’? 🤔 Image courtesy of Icon3Dtech #buildinginnovation #builtenvironment #3Dprinting

The city perspective on building up 🏙️ We recently spoke to Lotte Terwel, Vice Mayor of the City of Amsterdam’s Centrum district, about the benefits Optoppen can deliver to growing cities in the Netherlands and beyond. Responsible for housing, health care, arts and monuments, Lotte spoke to us about the city's current approach to embodied carbon, densification, and building reuse, and where she sees the most potential for bio-based vertical extension. Read the interview below👇 Why does Optoppen make sense for growing cities like Amsterdam?   In Amsterdam - just like in the rest of the Netherlands - we are facing a major housing shortage and need to build in order to create more homes. Additionally, quality of life in the city centre is under pressure due to more tourists and an imbalance between buildings used for living, working and recreation, especially in areas like the red-light district. We are trying to change this by providing more affordable homes. Densifying cities has a knock-on positive impact by increasing footfall, allowing local businesses and high streets to thrive, and improving the city experience for everyone.    Amsterdam has limited space to build on, so it’s important that we support innovative solutions like Optoppen. By adding one or more floors to the building stock we already have, we’re able to densify our city in a sustainable way and provide much needed housing in our city, which in turn supports the local businesses, shops, venues and cultural sites.    Why is it important to take this approach? Amsterdam’s city centre is the fastest ageing district of Amsterdam but many don’t live in suitable housing – for example, many lack elevators. Adding extra floors can fund these much-needed upgrades, which immediately make the entire building suitable for the elderly. The same applies to making a building more sustainable - use the existing housing stock which means that you do not have to put more carbon in the atmosphere to provide more homes.    Where are you seeing the most potential for Optoppen? The costs of Optoppen for small projects are relatively high, and it also requires everyone to agree to the proposals. Central neighbourhoods like Wittenburg and Kattenburg have a lot of suitable complexes – ie. buildings that are centrally owned by a housing association or private owner. Many exist in our city suburbs, and outside of cities too.    A lot of our buildings in the city centre have heritage status and part of the centre is a UNESCO world heritage site. It’s important to preserve the history of our urban fabric, but I am equally open to working with architects on how we can add contemporary building layers in creative ways. As far as I'm concerned, city centres should be dynamic and look to the future, rather than solely focus on the past.     In my role, I want to show that if Optoppen works in the old city centre of Amsterdam, it can be done anywhere! #optoppen #biobased #buildingup #cities #timber