BiophilicCities

This is a blog with ideas and tools written by the students of Tim Beatley.

The adventure? The discovery? The imaginary characters? Playgrounds are made with kids in mind and for Earth Day 2013 we are focusing this month’s newsletter on the interactions of kids in their own nature. What better nature is there as a kid than the playground at school or around the corner in a neighborhood park?

While the 1900s and early 2000s heralded the age of the brightly-hued, manufactured playgrounds, there is now a movement to go back to the days of wooden towers in the sky and dirt children can actually dig in to. These modern playgrounds are a fusion of the traditional wooden playground structures with new elements that ingeniously engage park players with a range of biophilic elements. New companies, such as Play Scapes in Europe or Natural Playgrounds in the United States, are committing to creating “nature play” playgrounds that include climbing trees, nature trails, water pools, undulating surfaces, and even decked out dig areas. While these play areas encourage greater physical interaction with a nature, they also instill in park visitors a sense of environmental stewardship.

Additionally, benefits of natural play places have been linked to a wealth of positive health effects. Studies in the past decade have shown that increased contact of children with nature and natural play areas can:

Nature play areas area certainly making a splash in the playground industry with due cause. However, in meeting the children in their own backyards and school yards with these nature-incorporating designs, it’s also important to remember opportunities for the adult-sized kid…because everyone deserves a playground.

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Image Credits: Natural Playgrounds, PlayScapes, PlayScapes

Mariah Gleason, Biophilic Cities Project Researcher 

Mariah is a masters degree candidate in Urban & Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia. 

While many city greening programs focus on reintroducing plants and nature through imaginative and even interactive designs, some cities are taking this opportunity to address other needs. Stormwater filtration and cleaning are becoming a concern for cities as pollution and water contamination become more frequent and detrimental to public health. Rain gardens offer low-cost, low-maintenance, “at-the-source” [...]

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A bird’s life isn’t easy. With suburban sprawl and development, bird populations are in trouble. According to the National Audubon Society, “the average population of the common birds in steepest decline has fallen by 68 percent” since 1967. Cities are attempting to address the problem by establishing design guidelines for buildings to prevent bird deaths, [...]

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There are many tactics for creating a biophilic city. Some citizens follow all of the rules by submitting the proper requests for permits or variances. Other biophilic enthusiasts utilize less conventional methods.  Guerilla gardeners employ nontraditional ways to create green spaces around cities -  using seed bombs and other techniques to create nature where there was [...]

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According to livingroofs.org, “Green roofs will benefit wildlife more than traditional roofing methods.” The city of Toronto has taken this research and put it into practice. Toronto is now a leader in green roof policies. In 2009, Toronto became the first city in the world to enact a green roof bylaw. The City of Toronto [...]

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By Carla Jones Green infrastructure in cities is not a novel concept, but implementing policies to require green infrastructure in the United States is. In 2007, Seattle, Washington, was the first city in the United States to implement Green Factor, green infrastructure standards modeled after policies developed in Berlin, Germany, and Malmo, Sweden. According to the [...]

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In April of 2007 the UN made the shocking statement that “two out of every three people in the world will be facing water shortages by 2025.” Five years later, we might ask ourselves: what is being done to prevent this problem in major metropolitan areas? Chicago firm Urban Lab has developed a progressive solution [...]

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Managing stormwater is a challenging task for most urban landscapes across the world. Among the many sustainable strategies being used to manage stormwater, the tactic of “green streets” is one of the most compelling. The City of Portland, Oregon has one of the most successful green streets programs in the United States that not only [...]

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One of the most ambitious urban orchard projects underway in the US is the new Beacon Food Forest, in Seattle. Here, in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, a 7 acre parcel of land, owned by the Seattle Public Utility (SPU) will eventually be transformed into a multi-layered, public orchard and edible park. With seed money from [...]

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Parklets are the latest biophilic feature to invade the streets of urban America this year. The concept began in 2005 as design studio Rebar purchased a 2-hour metered parking spot in San Francisco and gave it a life of its own by bringing in sod, a bench, and a tree for the people passing to [...]

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