#greening

[reportsofagrandfuture]

China has planted so many trees it's changed the entire country's water distribution

Huge "regreening" efforts in China over the past few decades have activated the country's water cycle and moved water in ways that scientist

Collectively, China's ecosystem restoration initiatives account for 25% of the global net increase in leaf area between 2000 and 2017.

[chaparraljournal]

How green was my valley.

A chaparral landscape after a bit of seasonal rain.

[amazingamyisonfire]

Am I a real phannie now?

This may or may not be half planned, half the greening effect and a little bit of mental health issues sprinkled in

Random green stripes because why not 👅✌️

[photozoi]

The Woods

April days photozoi

[ktz-tl]

February 17, 2024.

[uniories]

Circular Light Rail (Kaohsiung, 2023)

[gsasustainability]

Kate Drummond, Mackintosh School of Architecture, MArch

Winner Sustainability Graduate Degree Show Prize 2025

ANDERSTON CITY GARDEN

From the Ground Up: Reclaiming and Re-Greening Neglected Urban Common Grounds Through Community-Led Design

From the Ground Up explores the idea that community-led re-greening of neglected urban spaces can lead towards intertwined social, spatial, and ecological renewal. It critically addresses the impacts of urban disinvestment - disconnection, stigma, and ecological degradation - while proposing co-designed, incremental interventions rooted in care, participation, and long-term stewardship.

The project explores how lighter-quicker-cheaper, community-led, co-designed re-greening strategies could transform an undervalued interstitial urban space into vibrant, multifunctional landscape that supports both environmental renewal and social cohesion. Focusing on the intersection of landscape architecture, participatory design, and spatial justice, the research investigates how collaborative, durational interventions can reframe "common ground" as a site of care, connection, and climate adaptation.

The project proposes a set of strategic, scalable interventions for reclaiming grey infrastructure and explores how co-design practices can empower residents to shape, steward, and sustain their shared environments. Ultimately, the work argues for a shift in the way planners, officials and landscape architects approach neglected urban fabric. To view it not merely as empty space, but as latent social and ecological commons with the potential to regenerate from the ground up.

Moreover, that investment should not just focus on infrastructure and capital change, but that there should be a shift towards an ethos of care that acknowledges the necessity of ongoing support. This includes funding skilled community ‘gardeners’ to steward these spaces while fostering meaningful connections with the communities in and around them.

‘At the beginning of the twentieth century, only sixteen cities in the world had populations larger than a million people, yet at the close of the century more than five hundred cities had more than a million inhabitants, many boasting more than ten million residents and still expanding.’ [1]

Cities across the world are growing denser; 55% of the world’s population live in urban areas, by 2050 this is expected to rise to 68%[2]. Balancing the residential and infrastructural development required for this expansion in urban human population with sustainable ecological city environments is crucial for the future comfort and survival of all.

We need to rethink our urban landscapes. Traditional grey infrastructure—roads and paved spaces—dominates public areas but fails to meet the changing social and environmental needs of urban spaces all over the world. Rather than dedicating vast areas to cars and concrete, we must ask: How can we transform underused and undervalued urban grey spaces into vibrant, multifunctional green places that actively support both community well-being and ecological resilience?

As Kristoffer Holm Pedersen states in his Landzine article, ‘By transforming grey infrastructure into vibrant green ‘socialstructures’, cities can promote biodiversity, enhance climate resilience, and foster stronger community connections. This is not just an aesthetic improvement – it is a necessity for liveability, economic growth, and climate adaptation.’ [3]

From a design perspective, this project invites a rethinking of how we treat shared urban land -particularly in housing estates and in lower income neighbourhoods. It asks us to see these areas not as peripheral, but as sites of potential: for ecological regeneration, social gathering, and everyday joy. Top-down greening risks perpetuating exclusion or even driving gentrification. Instead, co-designed interventions driven by those who live in and would potentially care for these spaces can help restore not just the land, but the right to a greener, healthier city for all.

In the face of climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and rising urban temperatures, green public spaces are more vital than ever. Yet, the prevailing approach to urban re-greening too often prioritises capital investment in new infrastructure over the sensitive, creative, low-cost re-imagining of space or the ongoing care of planted living systems.

Care is not a soft value; it is a foundational one. It creates employment, fosters community, improves public wellbeing, and ensures ecological resilience. Rather than pouring money into the top-down design of an eye-catching new landscape without a plan for its future, this research advocates for investing in landscape care. This is not just good stewardship; it is good strategy.

In a time of ecological urgency, re-greening must go hand-in-hand with re-valuing the skills and people that make it possible. Landscapes are long-term investments. And that investment must include not just materials and design but maintenance, attention, and above all, community.

Now, more than ever, we need to build cities not just of concrete and capital, but of care.

[1] Charles Waldheim, ed., The Landscape Urbanism Reader (Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 27. [2] United Nations, ‘68% of the world population projected to live in urban areas by 2050, says UN’, United Nations, United Nations, accessed 7 April 2025, https://www.un.org/uk/desa/68-world-population-projected-live-urban-areas-2050-says-un. [3] Kristoffer Holm Pedersen, ‘From Grey Infrastructure to Green Socialstructure’, Landezine, 3 March 2025, https://landezine.com/from-grey-infrastructure-to-green-socialstructure/.