During the research process, we had the opportunity to explore different perspectives on how to promote resilience in neighbourhoods and cities, which resulted in a variety of resources. Listed below, you will find academic and professional publications, as well as a series of webinars, where we were joined by experts to discuss the topic of designing for neighbourhood resilience while addressing social and ecological issues in an integral way.
Human/Non-Human Public Spaces: Designing for resilient urban neighborhoods is a design perspective that encourages designers, policymakers, and community organizers to understand and promote neighborhood resilience in a particular way: it shows the potential of public space as a site for intervention to strengthen both human and non-human communities. The design perspective is presented in two parts. The first showcases the perspective’s rationale, and its three key concepts are introduced. This offers designers an initial understanding of resilience in human and other-than-human communities. The second part provides concrete directions for designing according to this understanding; here, each concept is supplemented with spatial and civic design examples and strategies. For a more in-depth description of the design perspective, see publication below.
For the full version of the framework view the website in desktop mode
Human Residents
Other Than Human Residents
Human agency means having the skills, knowledge, opportunities, and motivation to initiate or play a role in improving the neighborhood. Leveraging these resources strengthens a sense of empowerment and establishes the foundation for resilience in times of crisis.
Agency
A community can only be resilient if its members – old and new – have the capacities, motivation, and opportunities to act as individuals and collectives toward communal needs and concerns. It is also important that their voices and perspectives are heard in local design and decision-making processes. Possibilities
Non-human agency means having spaces to settle, to display natural behaviors, and to receive the right forms of care in a human-dominated ecosystem. Non-humans need to be recognized as agents and have their voices represented and integrated in local developments.
Human connectedness means having access to places and activities to encounter one another, to get to know each other, to identify shared interests and concerns, and to build longer-term relations and trust. The resulting networks form a basis for collective action.
Connectedness
A community can only be resilient if its members are able to build strong and stable connections. For this, it is important that various actors can encounter one another over longer periods of time. Possibilities
Non-human connectedness means having the possibility to migrate and disperse, to encounter one another, and to exchange and communicate. This requires habitable spaces to be connected, within and outside the neighborhood.
Human diversity refers to the diversity of skills, networks, knowledge, cultures, and perspectives that a community is constructed of and has at its disposal. For recognizing and making these diverse resources productive, creating open and inclusive conditions are essential.
Diversity
A community can only be resilient if it can rely on the diverse contributions that individuals and collectives can make. To identify and create conditions for this diversity, it is important that designers create inclusive settings and solutions. Possibilities
Non-human diversity refers to the variety of species in a community and the functional roles that they contribute. Such diversity contributes to resilience when each species is sufficiently present and when functional roles are fulfilled by multiple species.
Civic Design
Spatial Design
Human Residents
Other Than Humans
How to promote agency?
'Foodscape Schilderswijk' relies heavily on a range of partners that are involved, each having different roles and levels of engagement. For example, enthusiastic local residents function as initiators of new locations and as practical support in planting activities; high school students and their biology teacher prove adept in setting up and maintaining an orchard bed; and the municipality’s department for public green space can provide technical assistance.
Australian Bushcare programs depend on knowledgeable volunteers, who are familiar with ecological processes, plant identification, as well as various regeneration strategies. Therefore, an important aim of bushcare programs is to educate, and various workshops and trainings are organized accordingly. Larger events, such as tree planting days, convey these skills and knowledge to a wider community.
Throughout the years, the Barcelona government has received support as well as resistance while implementing the superblock plans and its preceding pilot projects. Resistance was faced when the government ignored some of the needs of local residents. Support grew when citizens could clearly understand the plans and experience its benefits. The government now aims to communicate the plans and their benefits more clearly, as well as increase citizen participation.
‘Geveltuintjes’ allow residents to appropriate a small part of the street they are living in. In this way, they can make their own contribution to a greener and more livable neighborhood and build a sense of ownership and control.
Urbaniahoeve's programs come with various opportunities for people to build new skills and knowledge. Some workshops are aimed for ‘community up-skilling’, in which participants learn about planting, pruning, and creating a rich soil. Many of these skills allow interested local residents to better take care of their local green spaces.
Part of Urbaniahoeve’s approach is a soil-building methodology, in which various local waste streams are used for mulching. Materials can include cardboard, wood chips from municipal pruning, mycelium spawn from a local fungi grower, and coffee grounds from local businesses. By building the soil, and not tilling it, a living soil community builds up, which in turn provides nutrients and other services for other humans and non-humans.
Bushcare programs contribute to the removal of non-native species and the planting of native species. As a result, native non-human communities are given the space to regenerate, including various plants, birds, mammals, and invertebrates.
With the Ministry of Multispecies Communications project, people are encouraged to perceive their neighborhood from various non-human perspectives, by designing and wearing masks of a bee, bat, or plant. It is a first step towards recognizing non-humans as agents that can be considered in local developments. Particular concerns may be in focus, such as how changes in the built environment may affect non-humans, or how urban data networks may benefit them.
The tea gardens from 'T-uit-West' are designed based on the preferences of the human participants. The result for each garden is a combination of herbaceous plants, including native and non-native species, such as lemon balm, marigold , and dandelions. The leaves, nectar and pollen of these plants provide valuable food sources for a variety of insects; dandelions, for example, are known as one of the most visited flowers by solitary bees.
A single façade garden is seemingly modest in its contribution to non-humans. However, for plants, insects, and birds they can provide valuable microhabitats. By selecting appropriate plants, avoiding pesticides, and allowing spontaneously emerging wild plants to settle in, a small façade garden can provide food and shelter for various non-humans.
Civic Design
Spatial Design
Human Residents
Other Than Humans
How to promote connectedness?
Bushcare programs are a way for residents to get involved with the local community. They provide the shared goal of bushland regeneration and involve activities such as weeding, planting and collecting seeds in local green places.
The T-uit-West project promotes various activities, such as tea ceremonies and product-making workshops, that bring together local residents to build new relations. The tea gardens serve as local hubs for these gatherings. As the project proceeds, activities center around the branding and selling of a final collection of tea mixtures, creating a shared sense of pride and achievement.
Activities of bushcare programs are organized on a regular basis. This includes weekly, biweekly, and monthly gatherings for weeding, planting, and seed collection, depending on the season. This offers continuity to volunteers, allowing them to stay connected and build long-term relations. Furthermore, yearly events are organized, such as tree planting days and plant giveaways, in which a larger community of citizens gathers, and in which new connections can form.
The T-uit-West community meets on a weekly basis, either in one of the gardens or at the home base of the project. Action and reflection alternates: one week, the group attends the garden or engages in making, while in the other week the group converses, reflects and learns together. This regularity allows the group to bond and build trust and develop a sense shared ownership of the gardens and the tea mixtures they are developing.
While façade gardens are often initiated by individual households, they can trigger more collaborative efforts on a street or neighborhood level. Jointly creating a greener environment can give a shared sense of pride and achievement. Caring for the gardens invites further collaboration and brings about spontaneous encounters among neighbors.
The Ministry of Multispecies Communications organizes masked walks as an activity in which local residents undergo a shared experience, and, as a result, a shared perspective on their local neighborhood. This shared perspective may form the basis for further collaborative action.
Currently, around 60% percent of Barcelona’s public spaces are occupied by private vehicles, while more than half of the journeys made in the city are by foot. In response, Barcelona superblocks prioritize pedestrians, with its internal streets and squares designed as places where people can meet, whether for cultural, economic, and social exchange. As a result, new and stronger connections can form.
The Ministry of Multispecies Communications project enables groups of local residents to connect with their neighborhoods in a new way. Familiar places are explored from non-human perspectives, while also new places are discovered.
A façade garden can serve as a valuable stepping stone for non-humans to migrate. With multiple façade gardens in a street, larger green areas in the neighborhood can become connected.
One of the design principles of Urbaniahoeve is to “connect project locations to form a contiguous biotope”. By adding a herb carpet around a tree planter, filling the edges of enclosed spaces with bushy and flowering plants, and considering tree planters as connectors between different gardens, each intervention is considered a contribution to a larger connected biotope.
The Barcelona superblock plans build on various earlier plans, including the Barcelona green infrastructure and biodiversity plan 2020. This plan proposes to create green corridors that connect various green areas within and outside the city’s neighborhoods. The corridors allow for pedestrians and cyclists to move around the city easier, safer, and healthier and they provide crucial passages and corridors for a wide variety of non-humans.
Civic Design
Spatial Design
Human Residents
Other Than Humans
How to promote diversity?
The Amsterdam Nieuw-West district hosts residents with a variety of cultural backgrounds. As a result, a plurality of people is involved in the activities of T-uit-West, sharing their knowledge and experiences concerning plants and their benefits, tea rituals and ceremonies, as well as techniques for processing tea. This cultural diversity forms the backbone of collaborative learning and feeds the next stages of the project.
'Foodscape Schilderswijk' relies heavily on a range of partners that are involved, each having different roles and levels of engagement. For example, enthusiastic local residents function as initiators of new locations and as practical support in planting activities; high school students and their biology teacher prove adept in setting up and maintaining an orchard bed; and the municipality’s department for public green space can provide technical assistance.
The 'Ministry of Multispecies Communications' project recognizes that cities are home to a variety of non-human species. The materials used during the activity, including masks and info cards, are aimed at accounting for this diversity. Each participant was asked to represent a particular species, allowing them to represent each voice in the various dialogues that emerged.
Urbaniahoeve developed and implemented a variety of planting typologies in their foodscapes, including ‘freestanding espalier fruit beds’, ‘herb carpets’, ‘wildly attractive edges’, and ‘foraging forest’. Each of the resulting plant communities make distinct contributions to the larger biotope and ecosystem.
In comparison with non-native plants, locally native plants are more likely to create the right conditions for other non-humans and thereby contribute to biodiversity. It is these plants that a variety of insects depend upon. These
insects, in turn, provide a valuable food source for birds and other non-humans. Some municipalities promote biodiversity by allowing residents to turn in their tiles in exchange for native plants, which are grown by a local grower.
Central to the Australian bushcare programs is the removal of non-native plants and the promotion of the settlement of native species. Weeding is an important way to make space for native species, while for more degraded landscapes planting days are organized. Another common activity is seed collection, of which the seeds are propagated at a local nursery, to be planted later.
Integral to Barcelona's Superblock plan is its flexibility, enabling each superblock to be tailored to the particular local context. Through tactical urbanism, public spaces are redesigned and evaluated, making sure that they are catered to the needs of diverse community members, including children, youth, elderly, women, and persons with disabilities.
