Sureya Gulzar (RCA) - 2025-26 Students
10068637@rca.net.ac.uk

Integrating More-Than-Human Participation (MtH) in Urban Planning to Enhance Sustainability and Social Cohesion in Social Housing Communities.

Urban estate design prioritises human needs, yet communal green spaces, though central, rarely fulfil their promise of inclusive, engaged communities. These areas lack the organisational, motivational, and design conditions needed for social interaction and biodiversity. Despite policy and regulatory efforts to address climate impacts, the transformative potential of community-led, multispecies estates remains unrealised. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 2025) highlights the public value of estate-scale greening, urging stronger ecological networks and the implementation of Local Nature Recovery Strategies. However, the NPPF is implemented via Local Plans and development management, operating outside formal planning through complex housing management systems. In the UK social housing context, this study aims to develop practical, maintainable examples, absent from the literature, that enable social housing to adopt community-led, multispecies placemaking as a pervasive green infrastructure approach.

Principal supervisor: Prof. Qian Sun

Supervisor at Partner Organisation: Dr Robert Sugden, Partnerships and Fundraising Manager

Partner Organisation: Peabody Community Foundation