Transitioning from Sustainability to Resilience and beyond
Cities are one of the most important manifestations of urban development. Currently, they are home to over 50% of the world’s population and are expected to approach 70% by 2050. In recent years, urban planning has moved from creating ‘sustainable’ cities to ‘resilient’ ones. Resilient cities are founded upon the premises of preparation, responsiveness, and recovery of hazards, whilst adjusting to their ever-changing nature.
The growth of populations in urban areas has meant that cities have become grounds for continued investment. In turn, the rise of impacts caused by the Anthropocene has fuelled urban planners to create ‘resilient’ cities – ones that can mitigate and adapt against challenges in order to protect social, economic, and environmental capital. This has led to the growing importance of protecting key infrastructures in the urban environment, fuelling the ‘resilience’ approach towards urban planning, whilst shifting previous notions of ‘sustainability’ to the back seat.
Moving from Resilient Cities to Biophilic Cities
However, the transition in urban planning discourse from ‘sustainable cities’ to ‘resilient cities’ is not without consequence. The mitigative and adaptive nature of resilience fails to highlight the aspects of life that humans enjoy. This disregard of human benefits by the current resilience approach is where the concept of ‘Biophilic Cities’ is able to present itself.
But what would this entail? A biophilic approach to cities and urban design is a concept that promotes good health and wellbeing to the forefront, through the usage of nature-based measures. Such theories are based upon human physiology, where human connections to the natural environment generate both positive physical and mental effects.
What would a Biophilic City entail?
There are three main methods where biophilic design can address environmental sustainability.
Urban areas, parks and bodies of water provide habitats for ecosystems and species, and, even support microclimates. Supporting biodiversity isn’t limited to parks. Street-level biodiversity can also be present, particularly in urban environments where they can accommodate 20% of the world’s avian biodiversity through food and shelter.
Visioning solutions that the Biophilic approach towards urban planning could also move beyond mitigating emissions caused by vehicles, and rather should also seek to expand beyond our immediate assumptions surrounding the connection between the environment and transport. For example, placing trees at regular intervals on the side of the road psychologically incentivises drivers to slow down, since they provide a consistent point of reference with regards to their speed.
Most importantly, addressing the urban heat island (UHI) effect is where resilience and biophilia can intersect. This phenomenon has been previously explored in the case of Singapore. However, the incorporation of urban vegetation into the built environment through green roofs and vertical greenery has thermal benefits, whilst preventing surface water run-off as well. In the urban area, this may take place using green walls and vertical plants on the exterior of buildings, which not only regulates microclimates, but also provides shade, creates hydrological cycles, and interrupts urban wind flow, reducing the impacts of the UHI effect.
These environmental benefits of a biophilic city also generate a multitude of health benefits for individuals. The natural curves and slopes found in hills, mountains and natural contours help relieve the neurons in the brain from anxiety and stress. Repetitive patterns in nature can reduce cortisol levels and heart rates which may lead into behavioural changes amongst individuals.
Tackling Social Sustainability
Residents who lived near areas with biophilic features found their neighbourhoods to be safer areas with less crime and antisocial behaviour. These physiological benefits can also generate other positive externalities that could help achieve social sustainability. This may be through access to gardens, public parks, rooftop gardens and green squares. Accessible green spaces promote social cohesion, fostering a sense of community.
Ensuring that these spaces are accessible combines some of the principles of two other narratives closely related to biophilic cities – generous green spaces found in ‘Garden Cities’ and the accessibility of services found in the ’15-minute city’, yet notably lacks aspects of stewardship and property ownership found in Garden Cities and concepts of travel from the 15-minute city.
What is Next for Cities?
Whilst the concept of Resilient Cities acknowledges the threats posing cities and thus seeks to adapt or mitigate them, Biophilic Cities seeks to extend some of these perspectives further by considering the lived experiences that people face and experience daily. Here, the approach to house the city in nature, rather than nature in the city, is only one of the core aspects that differentiates the way in which cities can be viewed.
However, these design approaches to visioning future cities have also proved to cause desirable changes in human behaviour, and even provide opportunities for greater social cohesion and improvements to social sustainability. This approach towards urban planning can also be infused with other urban planning concepts for envisioning future cities, namely Smart Cities, which seek to optimise the urban environment through information technologies for the benefit of the human experience. Whilst the biophilic approach is centred around physiological health and ensuring that the core desires of the human-nature relationship is met, Smart Cities extends some of this further by aiming to reduce feelings of stress and frustration that urban life often causes. In turn, whilst not a destination for visioning future cities, Biophilic Cities certainly provide many relevant key principles from which urban planners should follow.
Andrew Wang
