Food share. Image source: www.ntu.ac.uk (NGFP).
Completed in 2014, the Bosco Verticale of Milan, Italy, is an example of a vertical forest. It is one of Europe’s biggest redevelopment projects and consists of two residential towers. Each tower houses 900 trees, 5,000 shrubs and 11,000 perennial plants which mitigate smog and produce oxygen. This provides an efficient way to absorb carbon dioxide and improve air quality in a dense city area. With more than 90 species of plants and tress it is expected that new birds and insects will be attracted to the city. It is also used to moderate temperatures in winter and summer shading interiors from the sun and blocking harsh winds, the vegetation also protects interior spaces from noise pollution and dust from street-level traffic. Source: Pixabay (NGFP).
Den building. image source Pixabay (NGFP).
Bulwell Forest Garden, Nottingham: a place for people to grow, is a beautiful oasis nestled in the quiet residential heart of Bulwell. It’s a green space for the local community to come together through growing, playing, socialising, cooking and caring for the land. The garden activity is centred around community food growing, the creation of habitats for wildlife and environmental play for families. The garden offers regular family days, short courses on growing your own produce and volunteering opportunities whilst lifting the aesthetic of the area. Source: Google images (NGFP).
1. Nature first design
When left to its own devices, nature will colonise abandoned urban spaces. Every surface: walls, roofs, roads and pavements, will be eventually immersed in abundance. Too often, nature is abandoned in favour of hard landscapes that are easier and cheaper to maintain. But this design approach is resulting in sterile, unhealthy, unappealing spaces of poor quality where people choose not to stay. A much healthier approach would create living landscapes that work for humans and at the same time increase natural capital. Looking at nature for inspiration can result in a mind-set that is about working with green and not against it.
Sensitive design and construction can provide nature-rich developments with green corridors that support ecological networks whilst providing links for walking and cycling. Nature-centred design is an investment toward making our future city liveable and delivering health and wellbeing through the provision of green infrastructure.
Design Criteria
1.1 Identify and retain existing natural assets, making them an integral part of the design.
1.2 Achieve a positive biodiversity net gain (target to be set on a case-by-case scenario).
1.3 Apply passive design principles to both places and buildings.
1.4 Apply the RIBA Sustainable Outcomes Guide (2019) to the design of both buildings and places.
1.5 Apply natural water management principles throughout the design.
Designed by Manchester Permaculture Group in 2007, Birchfields Forest Garden is an urban public park in Rusholme, Manchester that occupies an area of 2,000sqm. The garden is maintained by volunteers and the Friends of Birchfields Park Group. The site is split across four equal quadrants and three levels: one with an outer, centre and inner arc featuring fruit and nut trees and bushes, including Damson, Victoria Plum, White Mulberry, variety of apples and pears, Morello Cherry, Rosa Rugosa, Walnut and Almond; a level for shrubs, bushes and canes, including Gooseberry, Buddleia, Raspberries; and a level including Lovage, Sorrel, Valerian, Nasturtiums. The Forest Garden has been identified by Greater Manchester Ecology unit as a biodiversity hotspot. Source: geograph.org.uk (NGFP).