Looking back on my journey into biophilic urban design, I remember that time when the world’s urban centers were regarded almost exclusively as the default landscapes of our historic industrial revolutions—places to put tall towers, to pave with roads, and to pour concrete, with little room for reflecting the beauty and wonder of the natural world. I experienced the urban landscapes of my youth as hollowed-out shells of growth, full of human beings and the stuff of human existence, but really devoid of any heart. Schools and churches, offices, factories, and the buildings of commerce were indistinguishable types of boxes, and the parks—if you could even find them—were pretty sad places outside of the few summer weeks when trees seemed to be coming into their own and nature overthrew the mundane.
Among the many projects I took part in, the revitalization effort I led in a dense urban neighborhood stands out. This community long had been neglected—the lackluster concrete jungle apparently out of vogue with developers. Its residents fervently wanted change but were at a loss over how to accomplish it. From the moment I entered the neighborhood, however, I sensed the potential: the wide, tree-less streets yearning for canopies, the vacant lots that could host all manner of horticulture, and an overall tepidness that could be turned into a warm welcome for people and nature.
We took small steps to achieve our larger goal. The first was getting the city council to plant trees along our sidewalks, and I remember that this was quite an uphill battle. The maintenance issue was always the big concern—who would water these trees, clear the fallen leaves, and deal with possible root damage to sidewalks? These initial challenges were worth facing to reap the rewards. We got the approval and selected a variety of native species—trees that could withstand this local climate and could be expected to perform well without constant attention. We then planted the trees, and within months, the change was unmistakable. The once blazing-hot streets were turned into shady, cool, and inviting avenues. Those trees did more than just change the landscape; they changed how pedestrians interacted with our neighborhood. ONCE-BAZING STREETREE IN SHORT AND TREE κατοίκου—a neighborhood with plenty of trees in order to make it more inviting.
What impressed me most about this transformation was not only the physical alteration but also the social aspect. Biophilic urban design operates on the community level as much as it does on the environmental one. I recall an elderly neighbor sharing that she had started to walk every day again, something that was impossible for her before we planted the trees. “This was just too hot and unhealthy a place to be outside,” she told me, “but now it’s comfortable and even pleasant. Shade like this literally opens up the neighborhood.”
An unforgettable initiative was converting a vacant lot into a neighborhood garden. When I first encountered the space, it was nothing but a wild patch of weeds, flanked by crumbling brick walls. It was a spot that felt abandoned but, nonetheless, had urban revival written all over it. We. I mean a group led by a local non-profit. We started “cleaning” the lot. Then we composted. All the while, we had to dodge the rats that seemed to have taken up residence in a space that was little more than an unkempt beachhead for the taking.
It changed faster than I ever would have believed possible, and in many ways, it is even more profound than I might have thought. This formerly desolate patch of ground became alive—it became a community hub. The neighbors who had barely spoken to each other before were now working together, side by side. It was an uncommon and beautiful sight. The unbelievable thing is: it didn’t even take that long. The place was almost converted overnight. And, as we heard from the people who run the community garden, the place was—by all accounts—”a community now.”
Mental health is profoundly positively impacted by the presence of nature in city life. I worked on an intriguing project with a local school looking to redesign its wholly concrete, metal, and swing-dominated play space. My proposal integrated the school’s unique site into a completely new concept of play, where a small grove of trees, a water feature, and climbing pieces (think large logs and sturdy rocks) would be essential components of nature and adventure play. I still remember the principal’s serious concern. She wasn’t worried about what the kids might do to the site (the place would be a playground, after all) but about how potentially unsafe pieces of nature could injure kids.
She finally confessed several months later that the redesign might very well have been the best decision for the school. Not only were the kids happier, but they also seemed more engaged during recess. Teachers noticed that conflicts appeared to be down and that the kids were doing something as simple—and as wonderful—as playing. Instead of vying for the limited swings, the children were doing an excellent job of spreading out, exploring, and appearing very much like they were enjoying, well, recess! They used the logs to create some very impressive make-believe forts, collected an amount of leaves that I feared might gross out our custodians, and appeared to spend an inordinate amount of time observing the animals that were clearly having a great time around the fountain.
Urban biophilia isn’t about the isolated instances of greenery that we see in some cities; it’s about the nature woven into the urban fabric, a nature that is performed 24/7 and that, in our lifetimes, will become an even more intrinsic part of what it means to be urban. It’s not going to be a nature that is experienced in big parks, because, in so many instances, we don’t have space for big parks; we don’t have space to perform big nature. It’s going to be a kind of nature experienced in small, close-to-home corridors that, in many instances, will have to double as mixed-use space in order to make the performance nature feasible and to make the green part of the equation work.
Biophilic urban design is a way of changing environments for human interaction. It creates spaces that bring people closer to nature and to one another. Recently, I was reminded that this urban design could be considered the first step in not just the development of a neighborhood but in fostering a sense of belonging and bridging the gap between isolation and community.
Reflecting on her journey as a resident of a neighborhood before and after a path was cut through a long block, a woman told me biophilic design allowed her to occupy space in a way that was meaningful. Like in biophilia itself, where humans are thought to possess an inherent inclination for nature and other forms of life, in biophilic urbanism humans are designed to be a part of their urban environments.
Biophilic urban design has a simple mission: to help us connect with nature in our cities, however small and delicate that connection might be. Its principles can be integrated into our urban planning to transform our cityscapes from mere habitats for the human population into visually and audibly interesting spaces that provide a better quality of life. Planned well, our cities can serve not just as functional homes to their inhabitants but also as biophilic refuges that indeed nurture the human spirit.
