Artecology CoCreate™
A hands on eco-engineering methodology where communities help design and make real nature inclusive infrastructure.
Artecology CoCreate is a unique eco-engineering approach that meaningfully involves communities in the design and manufacture of regulation ready, nature inclusive technologies. It is consultation, education, and outreach, AND it is shared authorship and ownership of nature friendly infrastructure.
CoCreate has been developed and tested through multiple coastal and urban infrastructure projects across the UK.
What is Artecology CoCreate?
CoCreate brings together communities, schools, universities, engineers, ecologists, artists, and regulators in guided workshops where participants physically make components that become part of permanent ecological interventions known as Nature Inclusive Designs.
These components are integrated into Artecology’s proven concrete systems, including Vertipools, HivePools, and Refugia Tiles, and are designed to meet regulatory and engineering requirements from the outset.
What participants make
Using high fired, grogged clay ceramics, participants create small habitat artefacts with highly complex surface structures. This structural complexity is critical for supporting biofilms, invertebrates, and wider ecological communities.
Every stage of the making process is informed by over a decade of research into the bioreceptivity of complex surfaces. Ecological performance is never compromised by participation. It is enhanced by it.
Ecological integrity, backed by science
CoCreate is underpinned by rigorous scientific research into how material choice, surface complexity, and micro habitat structure influence biodiversity and bio abundance.
The methodology has been tested through real world delivery and assessed against marine and coastal policy and planning frameworks, including MMO plan policy considerations.
Artecology CoCreate has been featured in the World Design Organisation’s Selected World Design Congress Papers 2025, recognising the methodology’s contribution to design led approaches for ecological and social impact.
This ensures CoCreate outputs are not symbolic. They are functional, durable, and regulation ready.
Social value and wellbeing
CoCreate delivers meaningful social benefits alongside ecological outcomes.
The process aligns closely with the NHS Five Steps to Mental Wellbeing by encouraging people to:
Connect with others
Be active and hands on
Keep learning
Give time and skills
Take notice of nature
By making habitats together, participants develop a sense of ownership, shared purpose, and connection to local wildlife, strengthening long term stewardship of place.
Designed for scale, without losing quality
CoCreate demonstrates that it is possible to deliver ecological infrastructure at scale without resorting to uniform, low quality solutions.
The methodology supports scalable production while maintaining material diversity, ecological function, and local distinctiveness.
It is production en masse, not mass production.
Unlocking new funding pathways
Because CoCreate integrates ecology, engineering, education, arts, and community participation, it opens up a wider range of funding opportunities. These include innovation funding, arts and culture funding, health and wellbeing programmes, and community focused grants.
This creates new routes to deliver combined ecological and social impact within a single project framework.
Get involved
Artecology CoCreate invites people of all ages and backgrounds to take part in shaping nature rich infrastructure for the places they live.
Join us in transforming public spaces and inspiring the next generation of eco creators, because the power to make a difference is literally in our hands.
Current academic studies looking at Artecology CoCreate -
University of Plymouth- Measuring the effect of Artecology CoCreate Vertipools compared to Vertipools with no CoCreate artefacts.
B-Regen Lab University Loughborough London, University College London - Exploring how regenerative ideas and practices are emerging, taking root, and making a difference for people working on new kinds of innovation.
Contact us to start your Artecology CoCreate journey.
