Strategic green spaces: How to make the most of their cooling effects
We’re all aware of the cooling effects of green spaces for mitigating the climate crisis in cities. However ArchDaily’s writer Maria-Cristina Florian writes that greening and cooling strategies should consider how to improve climate outcomes beyond simply achieving ‘green coverage’.
Strategic planning is a prerequisite in ensuring green spaces create the most impact for urban environments. Florian explores three strategies to optimise cooling effects:
Green corridors and climatological planning
Florian emphasises the importance of understanding, protecting and harmonising with the natural world surrounding a city. She references a meteorological study from 1939 in Stuttgard, Germany, which found that the city’s position in a valley basin with low wind speeds, combined with heavy industrialisation, were causing poor air quality. This and later findings about the city’s air from WWII defence measures led Stuttgart to redevelop its structure and protect forested hillsides, rivers, valleys and other green spaces as ventilation corridors to bring in cool, fresh air.
Regulating micro-climates
Cities need green spaces to alleviate the effects of rising temperatures, however cooling effects may be limited due to surrounding buildings. Florian writes: “Because of this, raising the amount of green coverage without considering their local conditions can only have limited efficiency in reducing urban warming. In dense urban areas with limited space availability, understanding these conditions is crucial to creating an effective strategy.”
Tree-lined streets
Florian writes that street geometry forms the basis of microclimate – for example, the width and orientation of streets determines solar exposure, wind circulation, shade and heat levels. Where we cannot change the geomtery, she says “planting trees along the streets can efficiently offset some of the adverse effects of street geometry. A tree canopy covering at least 40 percent has been found to counteract the warming effect of the asphalt.”
For more details about these strategies check out the full article at ArchDaily
Image: Re-defining of the Small Wild Goose Pagoda Historical District by AECOM – Chill Shine.
Retelling the story of humans and nature
Review by StreetChat writer, Kari Hill.
Tears flow down my cheeks as I listen to Damon Gameau’s TEDxSydney talk. He shares the harsh reality of how we’ve treated our planet and a collective story enmeshed in our lives. This story, Gameau says, is “that humans are separate and superior to nature. It is a story that has taken us so close to the brink of an unimaginable crisis that our survival now depends on us telling a new story.”
The stories we tell ourselves fundamentally shape the way we see the world and our behaviours. What if we could start telling a new, though ancient, story about humans and nature, and drastically change our world for the better?
Damon is an Australian actor, director, and producer, known for documentaries That Sugar Film and 2040 – which retells what the world will look like 18 years from now, inspired by concerns for his 4-year-old daughter and her future.
The Street Furniture Australia factory, in Regents Park, Western Sydney, is both a manufacturing hub and R&D studio for our Australian-designed and made street furniture products. We run fun and informative group events for customers throughout the year, to share how products are designed, tested and built, and the latest products and projects. Director of Tract Julie Lee said: “It was a great opportunity for our team to look behind the scenes and understand the innovation, research and climate positive outcomes Street Furniture Australia is focusing on. Thank you for having us!” Place Design Group Associate, Liam Isaksen, said: “The factory tour is a fun experience to learn about the design and manufacturing process of public furniture we use in landscape architecture design. Seeing the work behind the scenes and …
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“Grassy parks no longer viable in the face of global heating”: British parks can no longer be modelled on ‘long-dead aristocrats’ with lawn-heavy landscapes due to soaring temperatures, writes Phineas Harper for Dezeen. He proposes planting urban forests to help control city heat and keep green spaces green during summer. Harper writes that there are 150,000 hectares of urban green spaces in Britain, and by turning these large open lawns into small urban forests, the ground temperature will reduce. This would also ensure the urban spaces are habitable even in scorching summer heat. According to research published last year, he writes, “Not only do trees stay green in dry weather, trees can bring down urban temperatures by between 8 and 12 degrees Celsius, providing shade and reducing local evaporation. Which is …
Toronto switches smart city plans to urbanist’s wishlist: Toronto is abandoning a smart city proposal for a new development along its waterfront, and a holistic off-the-grid development now leads the way, writes Karrie Jacobs for MIT Technology Review. The new proposal, said to be an urbanist’s dream, consists of: “800 affordable apartments, a two-acre forest, rooftop farm, new arts venue focused on indigenous culture, and a pledge to be zero-carbon” – a significant departure in ethos from the original winning proposal from just a few years ago. Former winner Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Google, had proposed a $900 million “vision for a data-rich city within a city” on the foreshores of Toronto, known as Quayside. In May 2020, Sidewalk abandoned the plan, citing the Covid-19 pandemic to blame, though …
What wandering can teach us about designing new spaces: Wenting Guo, Senior Design Lead with IDEO, describes the experience of wandering in Rome in early 2020, and learnings that can be applied to designing new spaces. Guo writes on the IDEO blog, “The joy of wandering comes from its unpredictability, which is always delicately balanced against the fear of being completely lost.” She shares how the physical environment can offer calming spaces in between places, where inspiration can be found through spontaneity and the unexpected. Wanderers of Rome will often notice the beautiful light as it plays against the dry Mediterranean climate and the architecture, Guo says, “It dictates and changes what we can and cannot see at different times, often revealing only a small fragment of the overall picture.” …
