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Landscape First! Nature-Driven Design for Sydney’s Third City
Abstract
Urbanization around the world has taken a flight towards rapid, sometimes uncontrolled growth. Megacities expanded, whilst erasing the developable area and adjusting the existing landscape to artificial water and nature systems. This rampant expansion often leads to monotonous new neighborhoods, often dominated by high rise, or extensive urban sprawl. The financial benefits often dominate the quality of the development. These widespread practices of urban development are hard to modify, to the detriment of sustainability. In this chapter the state of the art of urban development in Sydney and its associated problems are described first. An alternative approach, to take the landscape as the starting point of urbanization is then proposed, before conclusions are drawn.
Challenges and potential are embedded in peri-urban agriculture under metropolitan sprawl, which requires a future-oriented development to address major trends such as the climate crisis, metropolitan sprawl, autonomy in food production and environmental quality issues. Following a design exploration in Oosterwold, Almere, The Netherlands, a biophilic design framework was used to demonstrate the effective transformation of a symbiotic peri-urban agricultural interface. The results embody a sequence of principles based upon biophilic design, urban metabolism, and bottom-up governance mechanism.KeywordsPeri-urban agriculturePeri-urban interfaceLandscape designUrban planningBiophilic designSustainabilityClimate adaptationUrban metabolismOosterwoldMetropolitan developmentFoodscape
Sustainable urbanisation requires planning and design strategies and principles that take the (natural) landscape as the basis for working with natural processes for the benefit of socially and ecologically inclusive and thriving urban landscapes. Such an approach takes the landscape first and considers the biosphere the context for social and economic development. In this chapter, the concept of landscape-based urbanism is introduced, taking the physical landscape structure, and associated natural processes as a foundation to generate favourable conditions for future development and to guide and shape spatial transformation. Therefore, this approach offers a multiscale and integrative model for urban development and transformation, the preservation of biodiversity, water resource management, improved leisure facilities, community building, stronger cultural identity and economic development while taking the landscape as the basis. Landscape-based urbanism identifies and guides urban development towards the most advantageous places, functions, scales and inter-relationships through the development of robust landscape structures. Design explorations utilise knowledge of the natural and social context and are used as a systematic search for possible solutions to a spatial problem. At the same time, the design explorations make clear which landscape structures and elements, for example from an ecological or cultural-historical point of view, should be preserved.
Global climate change impacts the future of urbanism. The future is increasingly uncertain, and current responses in urban planning practice are often human-centered. In general, this is a way to respond to change that is oriented towards improving the life of people in the short term, often extracting resources from the environment at dangerous levels. This impacts the entire ecological system, and turns out to be negative for biodiversity, resilience, and, ultimately, human life as well. Adaptation to climatic impacts requires a long-term perspective based in the understanding of nature. The objective of the presented research is to find explorative ways to respond to the unknown unknowns through designing and planning holistically for the Zernike campus in Groningen, the Netherlands. The methods used in this study comprise co-creative design-led approaches which are capable of integrating sectoral problems into a visionary future plan. The research findings show how embracing a nature-driven perspective to urban design increases the adaptive capacity, the ecological diversity, and the range of healthy food grown on a university campus. This study responds to questions of food safety, and growing conditions, of which the water availability is the most pressing. Considering the spatial concept, this has led to the necessity to establish a novel water connection between the site and the sea.
The way urban flows are managed determine the sustainability of urban landscapes. What exactly are these substance flows? How can they contribute to a better quality of life? In this article the Rotterdam project of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2014 (Tillie N, Klijn O, Frijters E, Borsboom J, Looije M, Sijmons D. Urban metabolism, sustainable development in Rotterdam, Municipality of Rotterdam, Rotterdam, 2014) is revisited. It is a project on substance flows and urban metabolism, and how this metaphor can contribute to the concrete implementation of solutions to urban challenges? In line with urban metabolism research, (Wolman A. The metabolism of cities. Sci Am 213:179–190, 1965. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0965-178; Kennedy C, Pincetl S, Bunje P. The study of urban metabolism and its application to urban planning and design. Environ Pollut 159:1965–1973, 2010), designing with flows in urban systems has gained attention in recent years (Van den Dobbelsteen A, Keeffe G, Tillie N, Roggema R. Cities as organisms: using biomimetic principles to become energetically self-supporting and climate-proof, In: Teng J (ed) Proceedings ICSU 2010 (First International Conference on Sustainable Urbanization). Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, 2010; Roggema R. City of flows – the need for design-led research to urban metabolism. Urban Plan 4(1):106–112. Special Issue ‘The City of Flows’. Editorial, 2019. https://doi.org/10.17645/up.v4i1.1988; Ferrão P, Fernández JE. Sustainable urban metabolism. MIT Press, London. ISBN 9780262019361264, 2013; Sijmons D. Urban by nature. Opening Presentation International architectural biënnale Rotterdam, 2014; Nijhuis S, Jauslin D, Van der Hoeve F. Flowscapes; designing infrastructures as landscapes. TU Delft Open. ISBN 9789461864727, 2015; Tillie N. Synergetic urban landscape planning in Rotterdam. A + BE | Architecture and the Built Environment, [S.l.], n. 24, p. 1–284, sep. 2018. ISSN 2214-7233, 2018. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7480/abe.2018.24.2604). For food- energy-water (FEW) nexus projects, an approach of ‘how to design with flows’ can provide insight in the different intertwined systems and can also come up with useful design strategies at different scales. In this chapter, new outcomes of ‘designing with flows’ projects are combined with a reflection of the Urban Metabolism Rotterdam project. The goal is to extract lessons and propose a renewed stepwise approach for designing with flows to improve environmental performance and enhance the quality of life.
For designing the sustainable city the question should be asked what real sustainability knowledge is and how we can be certain the claimed sustainable outcomes are really sustainable? Do we really know if the exact or highest achievable level of an insulation factor for a building delivers a sustainable outcome, for instance for the happiness of the people that live or work in that building? Does it also tell us if we are, by insulating this way enrich biodiversity or have a positive impact on clean water resources? How can we know we are right when we have ‘proven’ only one aspect of the entire spectrum? At the same time, when we keep on investigating only smallest additions to former research, it not only brings us path-dependency, it also leads to apathy in an endless wait for the final truth. It prevents us from learning from mistakes, trying out solutions that have never before been tried out, but which might deliver the required way out of the complex and unprecedented future problems we do not even know of. This requires execution of solutions, which might fail, we then learn from them and subsequently increase our understanding how integrated approaches to sustainability can be successful, and even more so anticipate a radical changing future ahead of us. Instead, by constantly repeating previous research, we have now ended up in a stand-still, waiting for final judgements the solution being sustainable or not……
In the Anthropocene, plant scientists must learn to better understand the ecology of ecosystems such as cities and to interact in non‐hierarchical ways with people of all walks of life.
The city is nature. In many ways this bold statement can be contested, but at the same time wildlife is so abundant Rotterdam is called a wilderness park (Reumer, Wildpark Rotterdam. De stad als natuurgebied. Historische Uitgeverij, Groningen, 2014). One can discuss whether this is true or not, but more interesting is to see the city as a piece of nature, and as such undertake the actions to develop it further. In a city nature should not be treated as something worth to preserve, after all such unique nature can hardly be found inside urban contexts, rather something to increase, enrich and make more resilient.
Current urban design and urban planning aim to facilitate global, regional and local urbanization programs. This implies most of the planning documents give room to the types of land use that seem to require space ‘here and now’. The amount of new housing, office and other industrial and commercial space, accompanying amounts of parking lots and the necessity of new transportation routes, infrastructure and corridors are the main topics in the majority of future oriented plans. This is what is called ‘fast urbanism’ ((Roggema, R., Special Issue Urban Planning 6:946-956, October 2015)). It is the natural preferred habit of planners, decision-makers and politicians, and many developers, economists and municipal land departments. It seems as if this way of future planning brings the highest revenues, and this may be true, on the short term and for only a limited part of involved groups in the city. The impact of this way of planning the city has negative consequences for our health in general (see Roggema, this volume, Chap. 5; Han and Keeffe, this volume, Chap. 4; Monti, this volume, Chap. 11), and more specifically the quality of nature and biodiversity in our urban and natural environments (Birtles, this volume, Chap. 10; Tillie, this volume, Chap. 6; Monti, this volume, Chap. 11; Backes et al., this volume, Chap. 3; Sijmons, this volume, Chap. 2). One way of coping with the effects is to ‘repair’ the damage after the city has been built. Aiming to increase the quality of small green spaces (Veldman, this volume, Chap. 13; Casagrande, this volume, Chap. 7), add temporary nature (Backes et al., this volume, Chap. 3), or greening buildings (Bosse, this volume, Chap. 15), could help to prevent the largest impacts of fast urbanism. However, this will always be a solution that repairs, or greenwashes urbanization that has neglected the natural systems in the first place.
Background
Exposure to nature may be particularly beneficial for the brain regions that support spatial working memory, a strong correlate of academic achievement.
Aims
To explore whether children living in greener neighbourhoods (wards) have better spatial working memory.
Sample
Drawn from the UK's Millennium Cohort Study, the sample was 4,758 11‐year‐olds living in urban areas in England.
Methods
We fitted two‐level regression models, with children nested in wards, before and after adjustment for confounders, including poverty, parental education, sports participation, neighbourhood deprivation, and neighbourhood history. Spatial working memory was measured using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery Spatial Working Memory task. Greenspace was measured as the percentage of greenery in the child's ward.
Results
Even after controlling for confounders, lower quantity of neighbourhood greenspace was related to poorer spatial working memory. Importantly, neighbourhood deprivation did not modify this relationship. Therefore, lower quantity of greenspace was related to poorer spatial working memory similarly in deprived and non‐deprived neighbourhoods.
Conclusions
Children living in greener urban neighbourhoods have better spatial working memory. If this association is causal, then our findings can be used to inform policy decisions about both education and urban planning.
The last 100 years have seen a huge change in the global structure of the human population, with the majority of people now living in urban rather than rural environments. An assumed consequence is that people will have fewer experiences of nature, and this could have important consequences given the myriad health benefits that they can gain from such experiences. Alternatively, as experiences of nature become rarer, people might be more likely actively to seek them out, mitigating the negative effects of urbanisation. In this study, we used data for 3000 survey respondents from across the UK, and a nature-dose framework, to determine whether (a) increasing urbanisation is associated with a decrease in the frequency, duration and intensity of nature dose; and (b) differences in nature exposure associated with urbanisation impact on four population health outcomes (de-pression, self-reported health, social cohesion and physical activity). We found negative exponential relationships between nature dose and the degree of urbanisation. The frequency and duration of dose decreased from rural to suburban environments, followed by little change with further increases in urbanisation. There were weak but positive associations between frequency and duration of dose across all four health domains, while different dimensions of dose showed more positive associations with specific health domains in towns and cities. We show that people in urban areas with a low nature dose tend to have worse health across multiple domains, but have the potential for the greatest gains from spending longer in nature, or living in green areas.
In this paper ways in which currently fashionable eco-urbanism projects that are designed to increase the resilience of existing systems and practices contribute to a real transformation towards resilient cities, are explored. The small changes they promote do not often transform existing urban environments into genuinely more sustainable novel ones. Here a more radical approach is proposed, which maps the ‘voids’, the so far undefined design potentials extant within the urban fabric and uses this mapping as a starting point for the (re-)design of a city. The proposition of this article is that it is possible to invert the urban development process from its current focus on working solely with existing physical forms to manifest, and build on, its latent opportunities. Instead of looking at the tangible and visible fabric of the existing systems and designing sustainable add-ons to them, a process is promoted that exposes and analyses the potentials, and conversely the flaws, of the existing built environment to provide a new starting point for urban design. This re-ordering of the development priorities of a city has been developed to increase the long-term resilience of the mapped areas by also exposing vulnerabilities and compensating for them to enhance the health, safety and quality of life of residents within the spaces of current cities over time.
Experiences of nature provide many mental-health benefits, particularly for people living in urban areas. The natural characteristics of city residents' neighborhoods are likely to be crucial determinants of the daily nature dose that they receive; however, which characteristics are important remains unclear. One possibility is that the greatest benefits are provided by characteristics that are most visible during the day and so most likely to be experienced by people. We demonstrate that of five neighborhood nature characteristics tested, vegetation cover and afternoon bird abundances were positively associated with a lower prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress. Furthermore, dose–response modeling shows a threshold response at which the population prevalence of mental-health issues is significantly lower beyond minimum limits of neighborhood vegetation cover (depression more than 20% cover, anxiety more than 30% cover, stress more than 20% cover). Our findings demonstrate quantifiable associations of mental health with the characteristics of nearby nature that people actually experience.
The two networks strategy is a guiding model for planning and design that takes the networks of water and traffic as carrying structures. Its origin is in the early 1990s when it resulted from research by design projects aiming at the generation of tools for making urban development and the urban landscape more ecological. Reviewing practical experiences is one reason to look again at the strategy. A second reason is to explore the possible contribution to current debates such as those about complexity, landscape urbanism and landscape as infrastructure. The origin of the two networks strategy goes back to Ian McHarg's Design with Nature and Michael Hough's City Form and Natural Process. Inspired by them, the approach does not, in the first place, take nature and ecology to create limiting but carrying conditions. This asks for carrying structures. In the urban landscape there are at least three crucial fields of synergy between activities that ask for carrying structures: the territorial or spatial field or the area perspective, the activities related to flows that pass through these areas or the flow perspective, and the human activities involved in the plan and in the planning process or the actor perspective. The two networks create conditions for two multi-functional environments of synergy. The fast lane is the competitive profit-oriented zone where efficient production comes first. The traffic network is the carrier. The slow lane is the co-operation based non-profit oriented zone where water safety and quality, landscape and heritage, biodiversity, recreation and local food production are brought together. Here, the water network based on the drainage pattern is the carrier.
The built environment can promote or hinder mental health.
Place attachment refers to the psychological and social connections people feel with certain places—their homes, the settings in which they grew up, and others.
The conditions of modern life place great demands on—and often exhaust—our ability to pay attention. Green settings have the capacity to alleviate mental fatigue and help restore a person’s capacity to pay attention.
Crowded, noisy, and dangerous places have a variety of negative impacts on people and their psychological states, fostering, for example, stress, anxiety, depression, and violent behavior.
Some places draw people together and thus support the development of social ties and enhance the development of social capital.
Places that encourage physical activity can both prevent and treat depression.
In communities across the country and around the world, people are coming together to rebuild and restore local environments that have been affected by crisis or disaster. In New Orleans after Katrina, in New York after Sandy, in Soweto after apartheid, and in any number of postindustrial, depopulated cities, people work together to restore nature, renew communities, and heal themselves. In Civic Ecology, Marianne Krasny and Keith Tidball offer stories of this emerging grassroots environmental stewardship, along with an interdisciplinary framework for understanding and studying it as a growing international phenomenon.
Krasny and Tidball draw on research in social capital and collective efficacy, ecosystem services, social learning, governance, social-ecological systems, and other findings in the social and ecological sciences to investigate how people, practices, and communities interact. Along the way, they chronicle local environmental stewards who have undertaken such tasks as beautifying blocks in the Bronx, clearing trash from the Iranian countryside, and working with traumatized veterans to conserve nature and recreate community. Krasny and Tidball argue that humans’ innate love of nature and attachment to place compels them to restore nature and places that are threatened, destroyed, or lost. At the same time, they report, nature and community exert a healing and restorative power on their stewards.
Purpose: Outdoor walking groups can facilitate interaction with nature, social interaction, and physical activity, yet little is known about their efficacy in promoting mental, emotional, and social well-being. National group walk programs are especially underevaluated for these outcomes. The present study sought to identify the mental, emotional, and social well-being benefits from participating in group walks in nature. Design: Drawing on an evaluation of the Walking for Health pro-gram in England, a longitudinal study investigated the mental, emotional, and social well-being of individuals who did (Nature Group Walkers) and did not (Non-Group Walkers) attend group walks in nature. Both groups were statistically matched using pro-pensity score matching (n = 1,516). Between-group t tests and multiple regressions were performed to analyze the influence of nature-based group walks on depression, perceived stress, negative affect, positive affect, mental well-being, and social support. Findings: Group walks in nature were associated with significantly lower depression, perceived stress, and negative affect, as well as enhanced positive affect and mental well-being, both before and after controlling for covariates. There were no group differences on social support. In addition, nature-based group walks appear to mitigate the effects of stressful life events on perceived stress and negative affect while synergizing with physical activity to improve positive affect and mental well-being. Originality/Value: The present study identifies the mental and emotional well-being benefits from participation in group walks in nature and offers useful information about the potential health contribution of national outdoor group walk programs. Key Words: Group walks—Nature and health—Depression—Mental well-being— Emotional well-being—Social well-being—Walking.
This paper describes two case studies from Scotland, UK, exploring links between access to green space, perceptions of and activities in green space, and health and quality of life. One study involved a natural experiment to study the effects of improvements to woodlands near a disadvantaged urban community, compared with a similar community without such interventions. The second study, a recent, innovative study for the Scottish Government, demonstrated use of a biomarker as a method for measuring the salutogenic effects of environmental settings such as green space, offering evidence of environment-body interactions within a real-world context of people's everyday lives.
Green space has been associated with a wide range of health benefits, including stress reduction, but much pertinent evidence has relied on self-reported health indicators or experiments in artificially controlled environmental conditions. Little research has been reported using ecologically valid objective measures with participants in their everyday, residential settings. This paper describes the results of an exploratory study (n = 25) to establish whether salivary cortisol can act as a biomarker for variation in stress levels which may be associated with varying levels of exposure to green spaces, and whether recruitment and adherence to the required, unsupervised, salivary cortisol sampling protocol within the domestic setting could be achieved in a highly deprived urban population. Self-reported measures of stress and general wellbeing were also captured, allowing exploration of relationships between cortisol, wellbeing and exposure to green space close to home. Results indicate significant relationships between self-reported stress (P < 0.01), diurnal patterns of cortisol secretion (P < 0.05), and quantity of green space in the living environment. Regression analysis indicates percentage of green space in the living environment is a significant (P < 0.05) and independent predictor of the circadian cortisol cycle, in addition to self-reported physical activity (P < 0.02). Results also show that compliance with the study protocol was good. We conclude that salivary cortisol measurement offers considerable potential for exploring relationships between wellbeing and green space and discuss how this ecologically valid methodology can be developed to confirm and extend findings in deprived city areas to illuminate why provision of green space close to home might enhance health.
What makes a neighborhood space vital? This article explores the possibility that the presence of trees and grass may be one of the key components of vital neighborhood spaces. We report on 758 observations of individuals in 59 outdoor common spaces in a residential development. Twenty-seven of the neighborhood common spaces were relatively green, whereas 32 were relatively barren. Results indicate that the presence of trees and grass is related to the use of outdoor spaces, the amount of social activity that takes place within them, and the proportion of social to nonsocial activities they support. The findings improve and broaden our understanding of the physical characteristics that influence social contact among neighbors and provide evidence that nature plays an important role in creating vital neighborhood spaces.
Although vegetation has been positively linked to fear of crime and crime in a number of settings, recent findings in urban residential areas have hinted at a possible negative relationship: Residents living in "greener" surroundings report lower levels of fear, fewer incivilities, and less aggressive and violent behavior. This study used police crime reports to examine the relationship between vegetation and crime in an inner-city neighborhood. Crime rates for 98 apartment buildings with varying levels of nearby vegetation were compared. Results indicate that although residents were randomly assigned to different levels of nearby vegetation, the greener a building's surroundings were, the fewer crimes reported. Furthermore, this pattern held for both property crimes and violent crimes. The relationship of vegetation to crime held after the number of apartments per building, building height, vacancy rate, and number of occupied units per building were accounted for.
How would inner-city residents respond to the incorporation of trees and grass in their neighborhoods? Law enforcement officials have argued that, in these settings, trees and other forms of vegetation increase fear. Tree density, tree placement, and levels of grass maintenance were manipulated in photo simulations of neighborhood outdoor space. One hundred residents of Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes living adjacent to the space rated the images with respect to preference and sense of safety. Although tree placement (subspaces created by trees, formality of arrangement) had little effect on sense of safety and no effect on preference, both tree density and grass maintenance had strong effects on preference and sense of safety (&eegr;2s from .49 to .89). Surprisingly, tree density and grass maintenance increased both preference and sense of safety. Results suggest that-contrary to some views-trees and grass maintenance can increase sense of safety in inner-city neighborhoods.
In 1998, a stratified model that distinguished spatial planning tasks on the basis of the differing spatial dynamics of substratum, networks and occupation patterns—i.e. three layers—was introduced in the national debate on spatial planning in the Netherlands. Although using layered models was not a new thing, this model hit a nerve in spatial planning practice, initially, in particular, on a national level, but later also on provincial and municipal levels. Since 1998, this “layers model” has developed into an approach to spatial planning and design: the Dutch layers approach. In the process, it got transformed in different ways. In this paper, we aim to provide information on and insight into the development of the layers approach between 1998 and 2009 both from a theoretical angle and from its application in practice, focusing on the variations of the layers approach that have been constructed since its introduction. We then add our own comments to the ongoing Dutch discourse concerning the layers approach, both in general and from the point of view of the relation between “time” and “space”. Concluding, we also answer the question posed in the title.
Europe is a highly urbanised continent. The consequent loss and degradation of urban and peri-urban green space could adversely affect ecosystems as well as human health and well-being. The aim of this paper is to formulate a conceptual framework of associations between urban green space, and ecosystem and human health. Through an interdisciplinary literature review the concepts of Green Infrastructure, ecosystem health, and human health and well-being are discussed. The possible contributions of urban and peri-urban green space systems, or Green Infrastructure, on both ecosystem and human health are critically reviewed. Finally, based on a synthesis of the literature a conceptual framework is presented. The proposed conceptual framework highlights many dynamic factors, and their complex interactions, affecting ecosystem health and human health in urban areas. This framework forms the context into which extant and new research can be placed. In this way it forms the basis for a new interdisciplinary research agenda.
Children growing up in the inner city are at risk of academic underachievement, juvenile delinquency, teenage pregnancy, and other important negative outcomes. Avoiding these outcomes requires self-discipline. Self-discipline, in turn, may draw on directed attention, a limited resource that can be renewed through contact with nature. This study examined the relationship between near-home nature and three forms of self-discipline in 169 inner city girls and boys randomly assigned to 12 architecturally identical high-rise buildings with varying levels of nearby nature. Parent ratings of the naturalness of the view from home were used to predict children's performance on tests of concentration, impulse inhibition, and delay of gratification. Regressions indicated that, on average, the more natural a girl's view from home, the better her performance at each of these forms of self-discipline. For girls, view accounted for 20% of the variance in scores on the combined self-discipline index. For boys, who typically spend less time playing in and around their homes, view from home showed no relationship to performance on any measure. These findings suggest that, for girls, green space immediately outside the home can help them lead more effective, self-disciplined lives. For boys, perhaps more distant green spaces are equally important.
The population of the United States of America is currently experiencing increased illness from dispersed and synergistic causes. Many of the acute insults of the past have receded due to centralized health care and regulatory action. However, chronic ailments including asthma and allergies, animal-transmitted diseases, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and depression are on the rise. These diverse illnesses join with forest fragmentation, stream degradation, wetlands destruction, and the concomitant loss of native species to suggest detrimental contributions from the built environment.
The goal of this paper is to introduce community gardening as a promising method of furthering well-being and resilience on multiple levels: individual, social group, and natural environment. We examine empirical evidence for the benefits of gardening, and we advocate the development and testing of social ecological models of community resilience through examination of the impact of community gardens, especially in urban areas. The definition of community is extended beyond human social ties to include connections with other species and the earth itself, what Berry (1988) has called an Earth community. We discuss the potential contribution of an extensive network of community gardens to easing the global climate change crisis and address the role of community psychologists in community gardening research and policy-oriented action.
As a result of increasing urbanisation, people face the prospect of living in environments with few green spaces. There is increasing evidence for a positive relation between green space in people's living environment and self-reported indicators of physical and mental health. This study investigates whether physician-assessed morbidity is also related to green space in people's living environment.
Morbidity data were derived from electronic medical records of 195 general practitioners in 96 Dutch practices, serving a population of 345,143 people. Morbidity was classified by the general practitioners according to the International Classification of Primary Care. The percentage of green space within a 1 km and 3 km radius around the postal code coordinates was derived from an existing database and was calculated for each household. Multilevel logistic regression analyses were performed, controlling for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.
The annual prevalence rate of 15 of the 24 disease clusters was lower in living environments with more green space in a 1 km radius. The relation was strongest for anxiety disorder and depression. The relation was stronger for children and people with a lower socioeconomic status. Furthermore, the relation was strongest in slightly urban areas and not apparent in very strongly urban areas.
This study indicates that the previously established relation between green space and a number of self-reported general indicators of physical and mental health can also be found for clusters of specific physician-assessed morbidity. The study stresses the importance of green space close to home for children and lower socioeconomic groups.
Whilst urban-dwelling individuals who seek out parks and gardens appear to intuitively understand the personal health and well-being benefits arising from 'contact with nature', public health strategies are yet to maximize the untapped resource nature provides, including the benefits of nature contact as an upstream health promotion intervention for populations. This paper presents a summary of empirical, theoretical and anecdotal evidence drawn from a literature review of the human health benefits of contact with nature. Initial findings indicate that nature plays a vital role in human health and well-being, and that parks and nature reserves play a significant role by providing access to nature for individuals. Implications suggest contact with nature may provide an effective population-wide strategy in prevention of mental ill health, with potential application for sub-populations, communities and individuals at higher risk of ill health. Recommendations include further investigation of 'contact with nature' in population health, and examination of the benefits of nature-based interventions. To maximize use of 'contact with nature' in the health promotion of populations, collaborative strategies between researchers and primary health, social services, urban planning and environmental management sectors are required. This approach offers not only an augmentation of existing health promotion and prevention activities, but provides the basis for a socio-ecological approach to public health that incorporates environmental sustainability.
Both physical activity and exposure to nature are known separately to have positive effects on physical and mental health. We have investigated whether there is a synergistic benefit in adopting physical activities whilst being directly exposed to nature ('green exercise'). Five groups of 20 subjects were exposed to a sequence of 30 scenes projected on a wall whilst exercising on a treadmill. Four categories of scenes were tested: rural pleasant, rural unpleasant, urban pleasant and urban unpleasant. The control was running without exposure to images. Blood pressure and two psychological measures (self-esteem and mood) were measured before and after the intervention. There was a clear effect of both exercise and different scenes on blood pressure, self-esteem and mood. Exercise alone significantly reduced blood pressure, increased self-esteem, and had a positive significant effect on 4 of 6 mood measures. Both rural and urban pleasant scenes produced a significantly greater positive effect on self-esteem than the exercise-only control. This shows the synergistic effect of green exercise in both rural and urban environments. By contrast, both rural and urban unpleasant scenes reduced the positive effects of exercise on self-esteem. The rural unpleasant scenes had the most dramatic effect, depressing the beneficial effects of exercise on three different measures of mood. It appears that threats to the countryside depicted in rural unpleasant scenes have a greater negative effect on mood than already urban unpleasant scenes. We conclude that green exercise has important public and environmental health consequences.
To investigate the strength of the relation between the amount of green space in people's living environment and their perceived general health. This relation is analysed for different age and socioeconomic groups. Furthermore, it is analysed separately for urban and more rural areas, because the strength of the relation was expected to vary with urbanity.
The study includes 250 782 people registered with 104 general practices who filled in a self administered form on sociodemographic background and perceived general health. The percentage of green space (urban green space, agricultural space, natural green space) within a one kilometre and three kilometre radius around the postal code coordinates was calculated for each household.
Multilevel logistic regression analyses were performed at three levels-that is, individual level, family level, and practice level-controlled for sociodemographic characteristics.
The percentage of green space inside a one kilometre and a three kilometre radius had a significant relation to perceived general health. The relation was generally present at all degrees of urbanity. The overall relation is somewhat stronger for lower socioeconomic groups. Elderly, youth, and secondary educated people in large cities seem to benefit more from presence of green areas in their living environment than other groups in large cities.
This research shows that the percentage of green space in people's living environment has a positive association with the perceived general health of residents. Green space seems to be more than just a luxury and consequently the development of green space should be allocated a more central position in spatial planning policy.
The majority of people now live in urban areas and will do so for the foreseeable future. As a force in the demographic and health transition, urbanization is associated with falling birth and death rates and with the shift in burden of illness from acute childhood infections to chronic, noncommunicable diseases of adults. Urban inhabitants enjoy better health on average than their rural counterparts, but the benefits are usually greater for the rich than for the poor, thus magnifying the differences between them. Subject to better evidence, I suggest that the main obstacles to improving urban health are not technical or even financial, but rather are related to governance and the organization of civil society.
Greening schoolyards is an initiative to reconnect children with nature and afford meaningful experiences that foster children’s well-being. To strengthen the empirical basis for greening schoolyards, we conducted a longitudinal prospective intervention study with a two-year follow-up, to investigate the impact of greening schoolyards on schoolchildren’s (age 7–11) appreciation of the schoolyard, and their physical, cognitive, and social-emotional well-being. Data were collected amongst nine elementary schools in moderate-to-high-urbanized areas in The Netherlands with approximately 700 children at each measurement. At baseline, all nine schoolyards were paved. Five schools greened their schoolyard between baseline and first-follow-up. Objective measurements included accelero-based measurements of physical activity during recess, attentional tests (Digit Letter Substitution Test, Natu & Argwal, 1995; Sky Search Task, Manly et al., 2001) and a social orientation test (Social Orientation Choice Card, Knight, 1981). Self-report questionnaires included children’s appreciation of the schoolyard (naturalness, likability, attractiveness and perceived restoration), and their social- and emotional well-being (Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire, van Widenfelt, Goedhart, Treffers & Goodman, 2003; Social Support, RIVM, 2005; Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory, Varni, Seid & Kurtin, 2001). Multilevel data analyses support our expectation that greening has a positive impact on children’s appreciation of the schoolyard, their attentional restoration after recess and social well-being. Furthermore, our results indicate that greening stimulates physical activity of girls. We found no impact on emotional well-being. These findings provide some support for the relevance of greening schoolyards and may guide further development of schoolyards that facilitate the well-being of schoolchildren.
This study investigates the momentary association between urban greenspace, captured using Normalized
Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from Landsat imagery, and psychological stress, captured using
Geographic Ecological Momentary Assessment (GEMA), in the activity spaces of a sample of primarily African
American adolescents residing in Richmond, Virginia. We employ generalized estimating equations (GEE) to
estimate the effect of exposure to urban greenspace on stress and test for moderation by sex, emotional dysregulation,
season, neighborhood disadvantage, and whether the observation occurs at home or elsewhere. Results
indicate that urban greenspace is associated with lower stress when subjects are away from home, which we
speculate is due to the properties of stress reduction and attention restoration associated with exposure to
natural areas, and to the primacy of other family dynamics mechanisms of stress within the home. Subjects may
also seek out urban greenspaces at times of lower stress or explicitly for purposes of stress reduction. The
greenspace-stress association away from home did not differ by sex, emotional dysregulation, neighborhood
disadvantage, or season, the latter of which suggests that the observed greenspace-stress relationship is associated
with being in a natural environment rather than strictly exposure to abundant green vegetation. Given the
association of urban greenspace with lower stress found here and in other studies, future research should address
the mediated pathways between greenspace, stress, and stress-related negative health outcomes for different
population subgroups as a means toward understanding and addressing health disparities.
Natural space is beneficial for human mental health, a fact confirmed by a large body of research findings. This benefit has significance for university staff and students who are at a critical stage of development of their bodies and minds. Given the fact that university study is quite stressful for most college students, the study of the healing power of natural space on campus could be of value in sustainable campus landscape design. The paper explores the application of healing gardens to a compact campus design and renovation, in order to study its potential role in realizing the objective of creating a health-supportive and sustainable campus environment. Mental health benefits and design guidelines for healing gardens are discussed, through an extensive literature review. Following this, HKU Main campus is used as a case study in which the use pattern of the green spaces in a compact built setting is examined. Based on the findings, suggestions for improvement of both the existing HKU grounds and the new centennial campus natural space are offered in an attempt to enhance health benefits and make the university a healthier environment for study and leisure.
Dealing with stress and stress-related diseases is an increasing problem in both developed and developing countries and has an enormous cost for individuals, companies, and societies. A positive relationship between access to a green outdoor environment at work, and decreased stress has been found in previous studies, and this relationship is in line with a vast body of research in other contexts. The aim of this study is to investigate whether access to a green outdoor environment at work is related to employees' perceived level of stress and attitude toward the workplace. The study is based on data from a questionnaire answered by 439 randomly selected individuals in Sweden. The questionnaire addressed the respondents' level of stress and workplace attitude, and the characteristics and accessibility of the outdoor environment at the respondents' workplace. The results showed significant relationships between physical and visual access to workplace greenery, and a positive workplace attitude and decreased level of stress for male respondents. For female respondents, a significant relationship between physical and visual access to workplace greenery and a positive workplace attitude was found, but not between access to workplace greenery and level of stress. Furthermore, a positive workplace attitude was related to decreased levels of stress for female respondents, but not for male respondents. These findings support existing research which suggests that the workplace outdoor environment is an asset for employees' wellbeing and level of stress, and they indicate that gender plays a central role in realizing the benefits of such environments.
Since the 1980’s organized garden projects have proliferated in a institutional settings associated with the “roll-out” neoliberal state and the sad consequences of neoliberalism more generally: jails, schools, hospitals and other clinical settings for “at-risk” populations. This article advances the concept “organized garden project” over the richly connotative, but inchoate term “community garden,” and links the long episodic history of garden projects with changing discourses about the supposedly transformative power of gardening practice for individual and social transformation. The article highlights two organized garden projects within the San Francisco Bay area, a chief locus in the movement to using organized garden projects to produce new individual and collective subjectivities. The case studies assess, from the typically unambiguous standpoint of the garden organizers, the nature of the subjectivity that gardening practice is supposed to produce, the need for such alternative subjectivity and the “difference” such alternatives are believed to make for the individual and in the wider social, political and economic milieu.
Directed attention plays an important role in human information processing; its fatigue, in turn, has far-reaching consequences. Attention Restoration Theory provides an analysis of the kinds of experiences that lead to recovery from such fatigue. Natural environments turn out to be particularly rich in the characteristics necessary for restorative experiences. An integrative framework is proposed that places both directed attention and stress in the larger context of human-environment relationships.
A growing body of literature indicates that contact with nature influence people's health and psychological well-being both directly and by moderating processes. A questionnaire study was conducted in urban residential settings with high road-traffic noise exposure (LAeq, 24 h = 60–68 dB). Out of 500 residents, 367 lived in dwellings with access to a quiet side (LAeq, 24 h ≤ 45 dB free field value; “noise/quiet”-condition) and 133 had no access to a quiet side (“noise/noise”-condition). The present paper examines whether perceived availability to nearby green areas affects various aspects of well-being in these two noise-condition groups. For both those with and without access to a quiet side, the results show that “better” availability to nearby green areas is important for their well-being and daily behavior by reducing long-term noise annoyances and prevalence of stress-related psychosocial symptoms, and by increasing the use of spaces outdoors. In the process of planning health-promoting urban environments, it is essential to provide easy access to nearby green areas that can offer relief from environmental stress and opportunities for rest and relaxation, to strive for lower sound levels from road traffic, as well as to design “noise-free” sections indoors and outdoors.
Objectives were to review the literature on horticultural therapy and describe the Danderyd Hospital Horticultural Therapy Garden and its associated horticultural therapy programme.
The literature review is based on the search words 'gardening', 'healing garden' and 'horticultural therapy'. The description is based on the second author's personal knowledge and popular-scientific articles initiated by her. The material has been integrated with acknowledged occupational therapy literature.
The setting was the Danderyd Hospital Rehabilitation Clinic, Sweden, Horticultural Therapy Garden.
Forty-six patients with brain damage participated in group horticultural therapy.
Horticulture therapy included the following forms: imagining nature, viewing nature, visiting a hospital healing garden and, most important, actual gardening. It was expected to influence healing, alleviate stress, increase well-being and promote participation in social life and re-employment for people with mental or physical illness. The Horticultural Therapy Garden was described regarding the design of the outdoor environment, adaptations of garden tools, cultivation methods and plant material. This therapy programme for mediating mental healing, recreation, social interaction, sensory stimulation, cognitive re-organization and training of sensory motor function is outlined and pre-vocational skills and the teaching of ergonomical body positions are assessed.
This study gives a broad historic survey and a systematic description of horticultural therapy with emphasis on its use in rehabilitation following brain damage. Horticulture therapy mediates emotional, cognitive and/or sensory motor functional improvement, increased social participation, health, well-being and life satisfaction. However, the effectiveness, especially of the interacting and acting forms, needs investigation.
This study was designed to determine whether the characteristics of the neighborhood environment are related to the substitution of physical activity for sedentary behavior among youth. Fifty-eight 8- to 15-year-old youth were studied in a within-subjects crossover design with three phases: baseline, increased sedentary behavior, and decreased sedentary behavior. The relations between changes in physical activity and design, diversity, and density attributes of the neighborhood environment were determined using random coefficient models. Compared with girls, boys showed greater increases in physical activity when sedentary behaviors were reduced and greater decreases in physical activity when sedentary behaviors were increased. Greater access to parks was associated with greater physical activity when sedentary behaviors were reduced.
To determine the association between the percentage of greenspace in an area and the standardised rate of self-reported "not good" health, and to explore whether this association holds for areas exhibiting different combinations of urbanity and income deprivation.
Cross-sectional, ecological study in England.
All residents of England as at the 2001 Census.
Age and sex standardised rate of reporting "not good" health status.
A higher proportion of greenspace in an area was generally associated with better population health. However, this association varied according to the combination of area income deprivation and urbanity. There was no significant association between greenspace and health in higher income suburban and higher income rural areas. In suburban lower income areas, a higher proportion of greenspace was associated with worse health.
Although, in general, higher proportion of greenspace in an area is associated with better health, the association depends on the degree of urbanity and level of income deprivation in an area. One interpretation of these analyses is that quality as well as quantity of greenspace may be significant in determining health benefits.
Building momentum. State infrastructure strategy
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