IGNITION Living Lab

Ground-breaking NBS Living Lab

IGNITION Living Lab is a revolutionary £4m EU funded project incorporates Nature Based Solutions (NBS) located at the University of Salford. This investment will help to Manchester ability to adapt to the increasingly extreme impact of climate change. IGNITION brings together 12 partners across Greater Manchester region who collectively work together to establish innovate way to build resilience to climate change.

Phase 1 of the living lab saw the design of a rain garden at the Clifford Whitworth Library which provided a sustainable drainage system as well as channelling water from the roof though solutions within the building wall and into groundwater treatment solutions. The aim is for it to minimise the volume of water ending up in the university’s surface water drainage network which flows into the nearby River Irwell.

Phase 2 saw the design of large-scale green wall/roof and sustainable drainage solution (SuDS) for the trees. Our ecology team also provided specialist advice and a biodiversity net gain calculation which demonstrated a gain of 148%.

Further details about the project can be found at https://hub.salford.ac.uk/ignition-living-lab/living-lab/