DESIGNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
RCKWRKS works with communities, researchers and organisations to imagine and create regenerative futures. Through participatory design, spatial research and creative experimentation, we turn complex environmental and social challenges into shared possibilities for action.
Our multidisciplinary team is passionate about using visualizations, workshops, and mapping to explore how landscapes and cities can adapt to extreme climate scenarios. Reach out to us to discover how we can collaborate.
About
Designing change with people, places and nature
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RCKWRKS is an international design and research collective exploring how places, communities and organisations can respond creatively to environmental and social change.
We bring together expertise in architecture, urban design, landscape, climate adaptation, systems thinking and participatory practice. Working across the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands and beyond, we connect academic research with practical design action.
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Our work focuses on the complex relationships between people, place and natural systems. We help communities and organisations understand these relationships, imagine alternative futures and turn ambitious ideas into practical projects.
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RCKWRKS works with universities, municipalities, public bodies, community organisations, businesses and multidisciplinary partnerships. We contribute design research, community engagement, co-design, spatial analysis, visual communication and strategic thinking to projects ranging from neighbourhood initiatives to international research programmes.
What we stand for
A sustainable future must also be inclusive, imaginative and worth living in.
We believe environmental transition is not simply a technical challenge. It is also a cultural, spatial and social process. Lasting change happens when people can participate in shaping it, understand its value and see themselves within the future being proposed.
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Relational, not transactional
We build relationships rather than simply delivering predetermined solutions. We take time to understand the histories, knowledge, needs and ambitions of the people and places involved.
Participation is not an isolated workshop or consultation exercise. It is an ongoing process through which trust is built, ideas are developed and responsibilities are shared.
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Possible, not merely probable
The future is uncertain, but uncertainty also creates space for invention.
Rather than projecting existing trends forward, we use design to ask what else might be possible. Through drawings, maps, scenarios, models and shared conversations, we help people imagine futures that may initially appear unlikely but are increasingly necessary.
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Resourceful transformation
We look for potential within what already exists: local knowledge, overlooked spaces, established relationships, available materials and underused infrastructure.
Our approach to design is adaptive and resourceful. We reuse, reconnect, repair and reinterpret before proposing something entirely new. Small interventions can test larger ideas, while existing systems can be creatively redirected towards more sustainable outcomes.
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Landscape and nature first
Cities and neighbourhoods are part of wider ecological systems.
We begin by understanding water, soil, biodiversity, climate, food, energy and material flows. This allows human activity to work with natural processes rather than continually trying to overcome them.
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A just transition
Environmental benefits should not be achieved at the expense of people who already experience disadvantage. We believe that accessibility, affordability, representation and social value must be considered from the beginning of every project. The people most affected by change should have meaningful opportunities to influence it.
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Knowledge belongs to everyone
Expertise takes many forms. Professional and academic knowledge matters, but so do lived experience, cultural memory, practical skills and local understanding.
We create spaces in which different forms of knowledge can meet, challenge one another and produce ideas that no single discipline or organisation could develop alone.
Our work
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We make complex challenges visible, discussable and open to change.
Every project is different, but our work usually moves through five connected activities.
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1. Listen and understand
We begin with people and place.
We listen to communities, partners and stakeholders to understand what matters to them, what challenges they face and what knowledge already exists. We pay attention to who is involved, who is absent and whose experience may not normally be heard. This stage may include interviews, conversations, site visits, community walks, observation and stakeholder mapping.
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2. Map the system
Environmental and social challenges rarely exist in isolation. We use spatial mapping, systems diagrams, visual research and scenario analysis to reveal relationships between people, institutions, infrastructure, resources and natural processes. Making these relationships visible helps project partners develop a shared understanding of the challenge.
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3. Imagine together
We create inclusive environments in which people can explore alternatives together.
Our co-design workshops use accessible visual and creative methods rather than relying only on technical language. Participants might draw, map, model, tell stories, construct scenarios or evaluate different propositions.
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We do not ask people simply to react to a finished proposal. Wherever possible, we involve them in defining the questions, developing the ideas and deciding what should happen next.
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4. Prototype and test
Ideas become more useful when they can be tried, questioned and improved.
We develop design propositions, temporary interventions, visual scenarios, strategic frameworks and small-scale prototypes. These allow participants and project partners to test assumptions, identify unintended consequences and learn before committing to larger changes.
Iteration is central to our approach: design, test, reflect and adapt.
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5. Embed and share
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We work with partners to translate learning into practical tools, design guidance, action plans, policy recommendations, training materials and replicable methods. We communicate findings through compelling visual material that can be understood by communities, decision-makers, funders and specialist audiences.
Our aim is to build local capacity, strengthen partnerships and create knowledge that can travel—while remaining sensitive to the particular qualities of each place.
Innovative project
Puducherry is located in the southeastern part of India and must deal with a range of problems. The air quality, the abundance of different types of waste, the deteriorated quality of the water system, urban heat islands, flood risks and a vulnerable coastline for the effects of sea level rise. Additionally, the biodiversity is declining and natural systems increasingly become disconnected. These problems are dealt with in the Regen Pondy Conclave in which global experts, local stakeholders and experts, academics, and students discussed long-term solutions for creating a regenerative region. This co-creative process was guided and curated by Cittaideale in close collaboration with local participants. The conclave ended with a symbolic action to cherish the creek, and wishes to transform it into a clean, healthy and rich waterway. This was expressed by hanging flags with individual messages and wishes across the creek.
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Inovative project
Yumana is a site in the northern part of Tijuana, Mexico. Its development into a thriving urban mixed-use area will be based on the qualities that the underlying natural system provides. To achieve this the design work starts with a plan for the biodiversity and soil. In this plan, the landscape is taken first, before urban concepts are developed. This plan uses the topographical wetness index to identify the wettest places and creeks. From this, the sources of waterways are located and connected with each other to create a large connective park. The waterways are then widened as a green corridor and connected to the edges of the site, before a serious drop of slopes occurs. This is the point where all water, even in times of severe rainfall must be retained. The slopes themselves are redesigned as urban forests, using the keyline methodology. After this basis, urban propositions can be embedded in the natural system.
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Innovative projects
The Green Metropolis project investigates which transformations at the metropolitan scale can reverse Anthropocene impacts on human health and safety. This starts by identifying the regional landscape pain, such as quarries, biggest highways, housing built in natural protected areas, contaminated waterways, large-size parking lots, and the XL-sized buildings and industrial sites are mapped. Beyond these over 17,000 constructions obstruct, overbuild, or made natural creeks and rivers invisible. This landscape pain forms the point of departure for healing the problems: repairing, reversing, and regenerating the urban landscape. The Green Metropolis would then create a green belt around the current urban boundary, rewild all rivers and creeks to become bio-corridors, turn highways into green bio-corridors and green all roofs of the XL buildings and all residential roofs, and plant trees and agave in every street. Once this is achieved on google maps a completely green metropolis, as if invisible, emerges.​​​​​​​​​
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Innovative project
The future is uncertain. The Zernike campus Groningen is eminently the place where new knowledge is developed, and therefore also the best place to experiment with new solutions which may be useful in the future, however that may look. Climate adaptation on the Zernike campus is primarily focused on dealing with a surplus of rainwater, drought, and rising temperatures. These form the new framework for the functioning of life on campus: new circumstances determine how students, employees, and perhaps in future, residents, can use and live on the campus. For a sustainable use of the built environment and our landscape, we must not only account for changing consumption patterns, such as for example a different diet, but also for changing ways in which goods and materials are produced. These will have their own impact on how we must arrange our environment and how we can use this to our advantage.
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Urban milpa
Realised project
The Urban Milpa is a version of the Milpa system adjusted to confined and smaller urban spaces. The milpa crops, such as frigóles, calabazas, and maíz form the basis and are surrounded by impossible plants, plants that are no longer known, or too expensive to cultivate in current large-scale agriculture. The Urban Milpa consists of raised beds, that are easy to construct and providing the controlled growing environment for the crops. This experiment has proven that ingredients for traditional dishes can be grown in a constraint urban condition and are harvested for local chefs to reinvent the traditional dishes. Three cycles of growth have resulted in a range of reinvented recipes, which can be cooked by everyone. The Urban Milpa concept can be replicated at a larger scale in the Monterrey Metropolitan Area, and beyond.
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Realised project
The Biospheric Project was an experimental urban farm and food-system laboratory established in a former printworks beside the River Irwell in Salford. Launched during the 2013 Manchester International Festival, it brought together architecture, ecology, food production, retail, education and community engagement. The project combined aquaponics, rooftop growing, mushroom cultivation, composting, beehives, chickens, a forest garden and productive façades to explore how waste, water, nutrients and food could circulate within a dense urban setting. Produce was linked to a nearby wholefood shop and local food-box scheme, helping connect ecological experimentation with neighbourhood access to fresh food. Although originally conceived as a long-term initiative, the project closed after only a few years, revealing the financial and organisational challenges of sustaining complex urban agriculture projects. Despite its short life, it remains an influential example of how redundant industrial buildings can be transformed into productive infrastructures for food, learning, community resilience and innovation.​​​​​​​​
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Realised project
How can a sustainable approach to our food supply be made visible, tangible, and tasteable? That is the question answered in the edible park Ede. The food park is designed to grow ingredients for the dishes that ‘Chef de Fermentation’, Christiaan Weij, devises and prepares in the cooking studio. The park is inspired by the moraine landscape of the western Veluwezoom and refers to a hillside stream where local fruits, herbs, and vegetables grow on the slopes. Furthermore, the park experiments with aquaponic towers, each representing a distinct flavor, and exotic crops and insects are cultivated in domes. All products find their way to the kitchen and are freely accessible to residents of the surrounding neighborhood.
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Regenerative Regions
Symposium
The International Symposium on Regenerative Regions was organized to bring together thought leaders, creatives, faculty, students, and engaged people from around the world. Inspiring keynotes from London, Oaxaca, Pretoria, Delft, Sydney-Port Moresby and Helsinki-Taipei-Kharkiv, in combination with lively discussions in several panels suggested to take nature as the point of departure for urban development. Once the regional ecological dynamics and processes are understood a conscious urban landscape can be designed. The two days of intensive exchange of insights and ideas have led to the book ‘Regenerative Regions’. The second International Symposium on Regenerative Regions brought thought leaders from Belfast, Sydney, Pondicherry, and Melbourne, creatives, faculty, students, and many other engaged people together in Monterrey to discuss how to design Regenerative Regions. In a series of interactive co-creative workshops regenerative themes were further explored. The wisdom of natural living systems is taken as the first step in urban development. If we understand the systems of ecology, soil, climate, water, and air, we can design a regenerative urban landscape. Within this landscape people and non-human organisms are healthy, safe, happy, and balanced. The symposium was organized and curated by a team under leadership of Rob Roggema.
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Miyawaki Forest
Realised project
The greening of the city will be a step-by-step process. Small project will be bound together into one green city. An important element in this is to experiment with the planting of small forests. The first so-called Miyawaki forests have been designed and planted. A small forest of ca. 100m2 can be planted because of a special occasion, such as a wedding, a funeral, a primary school class, a memorable anniversary, and so forth. Using the Miyawaki method of planting, the trees and plants are very close to each other. This makes them strong enough to survive in difficult conditions and, due to competition, grow faster than regular forests. This intensity also leads to a 30% higher carbon capture. Only native species are used and the growth, and environmental changes are monitored using sensors. After ca. two years the forests grow independently of human maintenance.
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Who we are
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Lectures & Presentations
RCKWRKS delivers lectures, presentations and public talks exploring how design can support environmental, social and spatial change.
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Drawing on research, practice and live projects, we use visual storytelling to make complex ideas accessible and relevant to different audiences. Our talks cover participatory design, climate adaptation, urban systems, regenerative places, landscape, infrastructure and the New European Bauhaus.
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We have presented to students, researchers, practitioners, public bodies and community organisations through university teaching, conferences, seminars, workshops and professional events. Each presentation is shaped around its audience, creating opportunities to share knowledge, question established approaches and open new conversations.
Ways we can work with you
RCKWRKS works with communities, cities, universities, public bodies and purpose-led organisations to develop collaborative responses to environmental and social challenges.
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As a not-for-profit design and research collective, we can contribute to projects at different scales - from short, focused commissions to long-term European partnerships. We are particularly interested in work that combines participatory practice, spatial thinking, research and practical action.
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Invite us to join a consortium
We collaborate with universities, municipalities, non-governmental organisations, community partners and businesses developing proposals for Horizon Europe, Interreg, the New European Bauhaus and other international funding programmes.
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RCKWRKS can contribute expertise in participatory design, co-design, stakeholder engagement, spatial research, visualisation, community-based experimentation and the communication of project findings.
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We can join a partnership during its early development, help shape work packages and methodologies, or deliver defined activities within an established consortium.
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Commission a place-based project
Neighbourhoods and cities often need focused support to understand a local challenge, engage communities or explore possible interventions.
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We can undertake short projects that combine research, engagement and design. This might include investigating an underused public space, exploring opportunities for neighbourhood greening, developing a climate adaptation strategy or helping a community imagine the future of a local place.
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Our work can result in a clear set of ideas, visual proposals, priorities and practical next steps.
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Develop and facilitate a co-design process
We design and facilitate participatory processes that bring residents, organisations, public authorities and other stakeholders together.
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Rather than asking people to respond to a finished proposal, we help participants define the challenge, share knowledge, generate ideas and evaluate possible actions.
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We can support a single workshop, a series of community sessions or a longer co-design programme, using accessible methods such as mapping, storytelling, model-making, scenario building and collaborative design.
You do not need to arrive with a finished brief.
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You may have a funding opportunity, a place that needs attention, a community you want to involve or simply an idea that deserves further exploration. We can help define the challenge, identify an appropriate way of working and develop the next steps together.