EcoResponsive Environments: A Framework for Settlement Design

EcoResponsive Environments integrates our current knowledge of designing for human needs, with a deeper understanding of natural systems. The book offers both a call to action and a comprehensive yet pragmatic framework for practising the art and science of settlement design, called EcoResponsive Design.

Bridging the gap between theory and generic policy on the one hand, and design for specific places and sites on the other, the book is aimed not only at the professionals involved in planning, designing and developing these places, but also the wider range of communities interested in creating better spaces for our everyday lives.

EcoResponsive Design encompasses all scales, ranging from the overall form of settlements and the landscapes in which they sit, to buildings and the detailed design of public spaces. Drawing from projects, places and best practices in many different countries and contexts across the world, it demonstrates how positive changes at the local scale can be achieved for every single site, large or small. The book urges a shift in focus from individual specialisms to collaborative actions, enabling development stakeholders to negotiate a balance between short-term financial viability and longer-term environmental and social values.

Ian Bentley had a background in architecture and property development. In 1985, he co-authored, with Sue McGlynn and others, the publication Responsive Environments, which underlies much current UK urban design guidance, and has been translated into many languages. In 1999 he published Urban Transformations, exploring the financial and political reasons why today’s development takes on its characteristic forms, and suggesting ideas for improvement. In 2007, with Georgia Butina Watson, he published Identity by Design.

From 1980s Ian was involved in the multi award-winning regeneration of Brixton’s Angell Town estate. He has been invited as keynote speaker at conferences in UK, China, Colombia, Australia, Iran, New Zealand, Russia, Canada, Brazil, Mexico and the Czech Republic. He was an emeritus professor at Oxford Brookes University’s Joint Centre for Urban Design until 2011.

Since 2012, Ian with Soham De and Prachi Rampuria ran a series of urban design workshops around the latest EcoResponsive design concepts, in a range of countries that are experiencing rapid urban change. In recognition of his contribution to the field, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Urban Design Group in 2012.

Soham De has a background in architecture and urban design and is driven by solutions that underpin a circular economy and embrace a holistic approach to contextual design and place identity.

Since 2018, he is a co-founding director at EcoResponsive Environments, an award-winning urban design and architectural practice based in London with a singular mission: we design to support health and well-being, today and for future generations. Recent projects include a modern-day Garden City masterplan for a 45-ha expansion site to the north of Letchworth, UK for 900 new homes, amenities, and a primary school; a masterplan for regenerating the 60-acre Heath Business and Technical Park in Runcorn, UK as a mixed used zero-carbon neighbourhood; and public realm regeneration strategy for two council-owned housing estates in Tower Hamlets, London. The Heath Park masterplan won the National Urban Design Award 2023 in ‘Small/mid-scale masterplan’ category; Pineapple Award 2022 in ‘Future Place’ category; and was recognised by the UK Government as one of 35 ‘Green Innovation’ schemes in 2021.

Since 2017, he has been teaching on the BA and MA Urban Design courses at Oxford Brookes University. He is also a visual artist and has undertaken several exhibitions and illustration of books.

Sue McGlynn is an urban designer whose career has merged practice, teaching and research in settlement design.

Well-known as a presenter and author, Sue has taken a lead role in many national design training initiatives, such as the roll-out for Design Council Cabe’s Design Codes pilot projects, DfT’s Manual for Streets and Homes England/ Design for Homes’ Building for Life. Since 2006 she has been an independent consultant, with much of her work involving design review and enquiry-by-design workshops for masterplans and design codes of major new settlements and garden villages.

Previously, Sue worked for many years at the Joint Centre for Urban Design at Oxford Brookes University. With Ian Bentley and colleagues at the Joint Centre, she co-authored the seminal urban design text Responsive Environments: A manual for designers. Sue was a founding co-editor of the journal URBAN DESIGN International and more recently has contributed to Building for a Healthy Life, a housing and neighbourhood assessment guide sponsored by Homes England, the NHS and Design for Homes. Sue’s contribution to urban design has been recognized by the Urban Design Group with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Prachi Rampuria is passionate about places and place-making. She studied architecture in India, followed by a Masters in Urban Design at Oxford Brookes University. Early career influences include being trained at Sangath; studio of the Pritzker-prize and RIBA Royal Gold Medal winner architect B.V. Doshi.

As an urban designer, she has led multi-disciplinary teams on complex masterplanning and urban regeneration projects of diverse scales and typologies in the UK, Middle-East and India. Her interest lies in developing a transdisciplinary multi-scalar design approach; from strategic master planning down to the sensory manifestation of materiality in contemporary yet locally-distinctive ways, optimally balancing the long-term environmental and social values with short-term financial value.

In 2018, with Soham De, she co-founded the award-winning London-based design practice EcoResponsive Environments, best known for innovation in sustainable urbanism and architectural design. She teaches at Oxford Brookes University’s MA in Urban Design course as an Associate Lecturer. She also sits on the Design South East, Harlow & Gilston Garden Town and Taunton & Somerset West Quality Review Panels.