scholarly journals Green May Be Nice, but Infrastructure Is Necessary

Land ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Elke Mertens ◽  
Richard Stiles ◽  
Nilgül Karadeniz
Keyword(s):  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Environmental Planning ◽  
Open Space ◽  
Space Planning ◽  
Rural Landscapes ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Infrastructure System ◽  
The Common ◽  
Open Space Planning ◽  
New Interpretation

Green infrastructure is presented as a novel and innovative approach in the current environmental planning discourse, but how new is it really? An historical overview of planning ideas in both the urban and the rural contexts indicates that the concept, if not the term, “green infrastructure” has a very long and distinguished pedigree in the field of landscape and open space planning. To determine how far the concept is indeed new, definitions of green infrastructure from the literature are examined. While “green” has long been loosely used as a synonym for natural features and vegetation in the planning context, “infrastructure” is the part of the term which is really novel. Infrastructure is otherwise understood as being either “technical” or “social”, and the common features of these otherwise very different forms are considered in order to gain a better understanding of how they might also relate to a new interpretation of green infrastructure. A number of international case studies of different “green infrastructure” projects are then presented, again to better understand their common features and potential relationship to other infrastructure types. Finally, the necessity to consider green and blue areas together and to take them as seriously as other forms of infrastructure is emphasized. The developing climate and biodiversity crises underline the urgency of implementing a flexible and multifunctional green-blue infrastructure system. This must be carefully integrated into the existing fabric of both urban and rural landscapes and will require an appropriately resourced administration and management system, reflecting its beneficial impacts.

scholarly journals ANIMAL-AIDED DESIGN – using a species’ life-cycle to improve open space planning and conservation in cities and elsewhere

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang W. Weisser ◽  
Thomas E. Hauck
Keyword(s):  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Open Space ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Species Conservation ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Space Planning ◽  
Open Space Planning ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Aided Design

ABSTRACTBiodiversity underlies many of the ecosystem services demanded by humans. For cities, the design of ‘green infrastructures’ or ‘nature-based solutions’ has been proposed to maintain the provisioning of these services and the preservation of biodiversity. It is unclear, however, how such green infrastructure can be implemented, given existing planning practices that generally ignore biodiversity. Urban open spaces are normally designed by landscape architects with a primary focus on plants, aesthetic design and functionality for human users. As a consequence, conservation of species only plays a minor role, in fact, protected animals are often considered detrimental to the design, e.g. when the need to conserve a protected species demands modifications of a building project. Conversely, conservationists are often in favor of protected areas, also in cities, with little access for humans and no human design.We propose ‘Animal-Aided Design’ (AAD) as a methodology for the design of urban open spaces, to integrate conservation into open space planning. The basic idea of AAD is to include the presence of animals in the planning process, such that they are an integral part of the design. For AAD, the desired species are chosen at the beginning of a project. The requirements of the target species then not only set boundary conditions for the design, but also serve as an inspiration for the design itself. The aim of AAD is to establish a stable population at the project site, or contribute to population growth of species with larger habitats. AAD thus allows a combination of good urban design with species conservation. We illustrate our approach with designs for urban spaces in Munich.

scholarly journals Study on Evaluation of Building and Open Space Planning from the point of Micro-Climate

1996 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 141-148
Author(s):  
Takayuki KUBOTA ◽  
Keisuke HANAKI ◽  
Toshiaki ICHINOSE ◽  
Hidetaka KOMIYA ◽  
Naoko KAMISHIMA
Keyword(s):  
Open Space ◽  
Space Planning ◽  
Open Space Planning

scholarly journals On the formulation of green open space planning parameters: A parametric tool

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.M. Leung ◽  
Irina Kukina ◽  
Anna Yuryevna-Lipovka
Keyword(s):  
Open Space ◽  
Parametric Design ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Tree Planting ◽  
Width Ratio ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Space Planning ◽  
Open Space Planning ◽  
Solar Access

Greenery can affect spatial characteristics such as relationship between hard and soft surfaces and activities inside open spaces. Among different types of greenery, trees have influences on summer shading and winter solar access, and hence usage patterns in open spaces. However, the relationship between tree planting and open space characteristics such as typology, proportion and height-to-width ratio in terms of shading and solar access was rarely investigated. On the other hand, there has been an increasing number of studies on using parametric tools to design urban environment recently. Despite the success in urban fabric planning by parametric tools, the utilization of these tools to design open spaces with a relatively smaller scale has not been revealed. Even worse, parameters that should be included in a parametric design tool for open space planning are still unknown. Accordingly, the primary objective of this study is to, by investigating the design characteristics and concepts of different open spaces, identify parameters for a parametric tool to design green open spaces. Specifically, the possibility of using shaded areas projected by trees and surrounding buildings as one of the parameters will be revealed. The study also aims at examining how the height-to-width ratios, proportions and typologies of open spaces will affect tree planting positions when optimizing shading or solar access of the spaces in different climate zones. Results from this study will provide designers with an additional layer of information when designing open spaces.

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