Most of the work these months involved the large underground cables and pipes segment of my colleague Leon Olde-Scholtenhuis. Here students and other trainees can learn to use the Ground Penetrating Radar and analyse which pipes and cables are located where in the subsurface. As this requires heavy machinery and heavy materials on the terrain, the main paths are not yet finalized.
What could be more in touch with urban nature than sharing your meal outside with a bird?
The conference site itself, Atelier gardens, is located just South of the former Tempelhofer airfield and houses a film studio. The name suggests the location is very green, and as we arrived new plants and an irrigation system were being installed. There were trees (very welcome as cover for both sun and rain as we walked between the buildings) and diverse bushes, as well as herbs for cooking at the on site restaurant.
Given that we had four action packed days at the conference site, I didn't get to see much of Berlin, but some parts are definitely very green. Even within the dense inner city, once you got off the main roads and into the smaller hidden alleys, entire building facades could be green, and outside terraces added plants where possible. I also visited Viktoriapark, which has a higher hill overlooking the city, though the trees covered much of the surroundings, and a waterfall running downhill.
To me the question when visiting cities these days is, how can we measure how much of the city fulfills the ambitions of the 3-30-300 policy, and how can we increase this in the areas that need it the most, as they are often already quite densely built? You can see different available methods for measuring and those in development in the link. Would these methods work where you live, is the required data available? What do you think would be the result of the 3-30-300 scan for your city?
Today we held our walkshop during the Nature of Cities Festival walkshop in Berlin. After a brief introduction and questionnaire, we took our participants to the nearby Bear Park to explore. Despite it being a landscaped and maintained city park, and construction taking place nearby, we found a diverse array of flora and fauna. Following this, we returned and shared our experiences.
During this walkshop we asked our participants to focus on one of the senses to experience the area, and to report back on how they experienced it. Here we see one of the results. These findings are taken into account in the final evaluation of our walkshop project.
It's World Environment Day and this year's theme is on land restoration, desertification and drought resilience. In the Netherlands you could visit e.g. the ReNature festival.
It is a good time to consider the impact of land use on the soil and life within in, and how nature based solutions might help recover soil quality and increase drought resilience. Not just for humans either.
We previously saw the description of the sensor network and the types of green infrastructure to be investigated. Here I show which sensors ...
