Transport for London SuDS Guidance

Working alongside Landscape Architects J & L Gibbons we co-authored SuDS guidance for Transport for London (TfL) building on the CIRIA (Construction Industry and Research Association) SuDS Manual.

The guide sets out how SuDS can be seamlessly integrated into London’s streetscape and public realm. The document was formally adopted and used by designers and contractors to design, and construct SuDS in publicly accessible space in the Capital. This includes roads and streets managed by Transport for London and boroughs, which accounts for 80% of the London landscape.

Our design guidance needed to respond to the network transport role and scale of the affected landscape in the specific London context; their form, materials and textures; their relationship with the landscape as buildings meet the ground; the topography; the movement, access and servicing over, around and through the ground plane; all modes of movement, pedestrians, bikes and all vehicles; the aesthetic and technical qualities of the surface materials; the position, nature and technical qualities of all surface features, CCTV camera posts, lighting columns, bins, benches, bike stands and barriers; the myriad of buried utilities and statutory services, their depth and constituent materials, what they convey and their role in the providers network; the adjacent or underground structures, basements and foundations to buildings or Tube rail structures and strategic tunnels or culverts; and most critically the horticultural, filtration, geotechnical and geochemical characteristics of the underlying soils.