Air pollution and co-creation of ideas for passive pollution control workshop, led by Professor Prashant Kumar and his team from the Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE) at the University of Surrey (UK), was organised in collaboration with Merrow Residents’ Association. It was an EU Green week event under the Horizon 2020 funded iSCAPE project and it’s Guildford Living Lab activities. The event aimed to explore the use of green infrastructure (GI) to reduce air pollution exposure along busy roadsides, focusing on co-creation activities in the Merrow area. Merrow residential area is located about 4 km away towards the East of Guildford city centre. The workshop took place on the 9 of June and lasted about three hours in the afternoon.
The event started with setting up the background context by Professor Kumar via an open talk on various GI solutions. It followed by the co-creation activity when the participants were divided into small groups and were asked to discuss and mark the possible GI solutions on the maps of Merrow. The main question was how GI, such as trees, hedges, and green walls/roofs, can help in mitigating air pollution in near-road environments. In addition, participants also played the air quality quiz using an interactive display system, which allows the user to assess their qualitative level of air pollution exposure by answering a series of simple questions. The activity resulted in some really interesting co-created ideas and suggestions about GI solutions for air pollution exposure mitigation, which will result in future collaboration with the GCARE team.
Visit the iSCAPE Guildford Living Lab.