Aecom and Penoyre & Prasad also backed by climate-change design initiative

Baca Architects has been awarded £100,000 to research flood-proof buildings under the Design for Future Climate competition run by the government’s Technology Strategy Board.

The practice received the maximum amount of funding for its entry and is one of several architecture firms to be backed by the initiative, which allocated at total of £2.3 million to 24 projects. Aecom and Penoyre & Prasad were also chosen.

Baca’s project is called Climate Adaptive Neighbourhoods and will focus on a residential development planned in a flood zone on the River Yare in Norwich.

The project team also includes the universities of East Anglia and Wolverhampton, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the Climactic Research Unit.

A combination of academic research and product testing will be used to create a manual to help designers and builders develop buildings less susceptible to flooding.

Robert Barker, director at Baca, said: “This financial reward will allow us to make a further significant contribution to architectural innovation in the field of climate adaptation and sustainability.

“The project will become a test case for other water-based developments and the findings could feed into national building standards and regulations.”

The Technology Strategy Board ran a first round of the Design for Future Climate competition last year which awarded £2.5 million to 26 building projects.