The opportunity for greening our cities has never been so compelling. Particularly as we face much broader planetary challenges including urbanisation, habitat loss and climate change. Many design professions – and encouragingly broader business professions - would surely attest and can see that the messages are clear that we need a more committed approach to how we engage with natural systems in completely everything that we do. Landscape Architecture is responding well, our attitude of how we can contribute is changing and globally we are seeing many examples of how our work can contribute to these challenges. We are seeing more and more that we are passionate about making meaningful and resilient experiences to a broad range of intended people.  

We can all help to address these challenges and help attain many of the Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG 11 on making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. The UN’s New Urban Agenda further emphasizes the contributions of urban forests and green spaces towards sustainable development. Meanwhile, cities worldwide have shown that investments in urban greening can contribute greatly to our quality of life and well-being. More international organizations, research and science institutions are examining the part green spaces and trees play in achieving global sustainability goals. 

The next evolution of this thinking includes an integrated approach that encourages shared action, stewardship and experiences for greener, healthier and happier cities for all.

This includes engaging and enabling interactive experiences through exciting ways of combining landscape and sustainable technologies to get people up close and personal to a wide range of plants and natural systems

As Landscape Architects, our design Inspiration often comes from a blend of creativity and context. We try to embed our projects into the identity of the place, to be complimentary to its character and to express a particular identify that we can use throughout the design. As it now becomes part of our own individual passion to be able to do more, we need to be able to push the boundaries of creativity and biodiversity net gain in an integrated way rather than delivering creative ideas that don’t have any intrinsic environmental value.  

In this context the profession as whole is now, as much as ever, in need of more passionate and talented Landscape Architects and a creative culture that explores how we can leverage the power of integrated and natural perceptions in our work. 

Alongside this, the ever increasing demand in the delivery of new landscape projects that integrate our commitment to social value and well-being of existing – and new - communities then we have a very interesting part to play to curate design solutions that successfully balance community, nature and technology into the future.

Public perceptions and social attitudes can be big blockers to our work. So as a profession, we have an important duty to help deepen general understanding, including our own, and shift attitudes in support of the more regular messages of the benefits of various “green” interventions in our lives. 

It’s not just about continued exploration of natural systems in our process, however. It’s much more holistic. It is entirely appropriate that we look at the greening of our ever growing cities in a “whole of planet” approach. Connected to this, it has become more apparent that all of our clients and collaborators are seeing the direct value that greening brings to finished outcomes in even the most urban solutions. At Arup, we continually look for biodiversity net gains in all of our projects. We try and focus a part of our project solutions in ways where our urban public spaces are no longer just about places that we want to inhabit but that animals would also love to. Wild West End initiative has been a key example of enhancing biodiversity and ecological connectivity. 

Bermondsey New Oasis © KPF/ Plompmozes

It is more than just about recognising how good greening initiatives look and feel – which obviously has some significant wellbeing aesthetic - but more about how meaningful they really are and how embedded they are in ideas about resilience, sustainability, responsibility social issues and ethics. Green solutions must now not just be good to look at they must be “hard working”, they should create a framework that defines an inspirational environment for physical and sensory encounters with nature whilst also sustaining and enhancing our core natural resources of cleaner air, water and extensive biodiversity.

The success of designing in a mindset of integrated systems will also come down to a passionate vision and a resounding commitment to carry it out. We are duty bound as a group of designers and multidisciplinary consultants to deliver the very best in integrated infrastructure, building and landscape projects including significant individual buildings that incorporate excellent vertical greening initiatives. The scope of some of these larger scale projects require very fast appreciation and understanding of new technologies and how they can be applied into our work. So, in a way, the success of the landscape profession has a reciprocal affect to the challenges of being able to innovate, learn and execute these new initiatives. 

At the forefront of our minds we must consider how our designs  “feel” and more and more the design of city greenery is driven by our ability to think experientially – using landscape as a tool to shape emotions, cities, perceptions and atmosphere. These sorts of integrated responses make very deliberate moves to consider how people perceive landscape, move through them, engage with them and use them over time. They thrive from consideration of wide-ranging ideas, creating subtle playful moments but are also always true to the notion that biodiversity within the most urban of environments is completely possible. We must continue to fuse our man-made and the natural worlds to curate moments that encourage people to really think about how we can encourage a future that balances our needs with the wonders of nature.

I think that in a way there are a few key things that we simply must do to encourage a more symbiotic approach to how we develop our built infrastructure along with our green infrastructure. They must been seen to evolve as one combined system that includes engagement of a holistic experience. For example, a new city office tower that grows to be acknowledged as much for its landscape identity as its architectural identity.
 

It’s not about putting a few trees around building edges, roof tops or balconies anymore and then standing back and thinking what a great landscape design. It must be about how the building feeds off of its landscape overlay. How does the building capture rainwater and return it to its inner gardens? How does it facilitate growth, maturity and succession in its planted and “living” parts? We also need to develop a much more “joined up approach” to how we prepare and plan for new types of city defining projects – large or small - and a better way to stay in touch with our existing communities– and animals – that will inhabit these spaces. 

 

Biodiversity has an intrinsic value and represents a key element of any landscape. It defines a cities character. Otters in the heart of Singapore. Peregrine falcons nesting in the heart of London. Habitat fragmentation is one of the biggest threats to the conservation of wildlife and natural ecosystems in urban areas. 

We can help by increasing and restoring the functionality and connectivity of urban and peri-urban natural landscapes. In fact, the more heterogeneous, undisturbed and interconnected our green infrastructure is, the more resilient our ecosystems will be. Although all green space can contribute to biodiversity conservation, it is important to conserve as much as is possible of the original natural vegetation – grasslands, forests, wetlands and riparian corridors (the zone between land and a river or stream.). This is because these are unique habitats for native plants and animals. This is harder to achieve of course in urban environments. 

Diversity also concerns human communities. Urban forests are fundamental for maintaining local identity, providing natural experiences, creating diverse landscapes and maintaining cultural traditions. They help create significant landscapes with symbolism that preserves a cultural diversity that characterises most cities. Caring for urban forest and trees will help younger generations understand the value of nature, allowing them to enjoy all the social and natural aspects of diversity.

To some degree we must believe that nature knows best when it comes to survival and self-regulation. We can give it a helping hand of course by creating the right conditions, protecting natural habitats, by reducing active urban replacement of wildlife habitats, by allowing natural forest regeneration and by supporting reintroducing of natural systems and species that have disappeared as a result of human action. 

 

Then…it is about stewardship, ongoing support and our belief that the smallest of interventions can make a difference to the global challenges that we face.