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We Design with Nature: A New Approach to Sustainability
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Nature based Architecture
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Green and Blue
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CO₂ storage in a Coffee Plantation in Tanzania
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ConSenso:Environmental Monitoring of a Coffee Plantation in Tanzania
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Fabbrica dell’Aria at the Lombardini 22 Offices
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Plant technology stands at the very core of our air depuration system
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Magazine
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15/11/2024
The well-being of human communities depends on the resources nature provides. These include raw materials, food, water, fuel, and fertile soils that help clean and recycle waste from human activity. Nature also offers vital “ecosystem services,” such as forests absorbing carbon dioxide, converting it into biomass, and helping combat climate change.
However, nature’s ability to supply resources or absorb waste isn’t limitless—this capacity is known as biocapacity. Some regions, like the Amazon, have high biocapacity and relatively low human demand. Others, like cities, demand far more resources than their ecosystems can provide. Cities rely on vast surrounding areas to supply food, water, and materials, as well as to absorb waste, including carbon emissions.
In the past, cities could only grow as much as local ecosystems allowed. But with the rise of fossil fuels and advanced transportation, urban areas began importing resources from farther away, enabling rapid growth and higher living standards. Unfortunately, this also created global environmental problems. Over the past 150 years, the overuse of natural resources and reliance on fossil fuels have improved living conditions but at the cost of rising global temperatures and declining ecosystem health.
Nature-Based Solutions (NBS)
One way to design these hybrid landscapes is through Nature-Based Solutions (NBS). These strategies use natural processes and elements to solve human challenges like climate change, food security, and biodiversity loss. For example, planting a forest can absorb CO2, boost biodiversity, regulate water, and provide shaded areas for recreation.
Unlike traditional land use, which often focuses on a single purpose (like farming), NBS aim to deliver multiple benefits from the same area—such as food production, water management, and pollinator support. For these solutions to work, they must enhance biodiversity, ensuring ecosystems are robust enough to adapt to changes over time.
When combined, NBS can create green infrastructure—a network of natural and semi-natural spaces designed to provide a variety of benefits, from cleaner air and water to more livable cities. By focusing on sustainable, multifunctional landscapes, NBS allow communities and the environment to thrive together.
Biodiversity and Hybrid Landscapes
Biodiversity—essentially the variety of life in an area—is a key indicator of ecosystem health. It supports the services that ecosystems provide, from carbon storage to food production, and makes systems more resilient to changes. Sadly, climate change and biodiversity loss are interconnected: rising temperatures and altered water cycles harm biodiversity, and this loss, in turn, weakens ecosystems’ ability to mitigate climate change.
Modern development has fragmented natural landscapes into isolated patches, making it harder for plants and animals to adapt to environmental changes. Without connected habitats, species face limited chances of survival. Even small disruptions can threaten the survival of isolated populations.
To counter this, we need to reconnect and expand natural spaces. Parks, green corridors, urban gardens, and even green roofs can help. These interconnected “hybrid landscapes” support both nature and human life, offering a balance between urban development and ecological preservation. By creating such spaces, we can foster biodiversity, adapt to environmental changes, and improve life for both people and wildlife.
The challenges we face—climate change, biodiversity loss, and the overuse of natural resources—are daunting, but they also present an opportunity to rethink how we live and build. By working with nature rather than against it, we can design spaces that sustain both people and the planet.
Nature isn’t just a resource to be exploited; it’s a partner in creating a healthier, more resilient future. Whether it’s reconnecting habitats, supporting biodiversity, or embracing Nature-Based Solutions, the choices we make today can shape a better tomorrow.
It’s time to demand greener cities, protect our wild spaces, and champion innovative solutions that put life—human and non-human—at the center of our designs. Because when nature thrives, so do we. Let’s build a world where sustainability isn’t just a buzzword but a way of life.
06/09/2024
In August 2019, the European Union selected the Prato Urban Jungle project as one of the 20 winners of the 4th call for Urban Innovative Actions (www.uia-initiative.eu), a program that funds pilot projects promoting sustainable urban development. The project’s goal is to test green solutions (Nature-Based Solutions, or NBS) in pilot buildings within the city of Prato, aiming to create a repeatable model that can be proposed to other European cities (www.pratourbanjungle.it).
The first action carried out by PNAT, as preparation for the others, was the creation of an assessment system to measure the effectiveness of NBS at the building scale and its surroundings. This experimental system, called the Urban Jungle Factor, is based on pioneering studies conducted in several European and North American cities, such as Berlin, Malmö, and Seattle. The system developed by PNAT assigns a score to buildings that adopt NBS, calculated based on the amount of surface area dedicated to greenery and a factor that evaluates the quality of the intervention against criteria such as air, water, soil, food, health and well-being, comfort, and biodiversity.
The other two projects developed by PNAT within Prato Urban Jungle focus on urban agriculture. Two high-efficiency greenhouses were designed to support cultivation, providing economic and social benefits while creating spaces for community gathering, employment, and social innovation.
The agricultural structure on Via Turchia was designed for a social housing complex. The decision to create a high-efficiency greenhouse arose from an analysis of residents’ needs: preliminary research indicated that the community’s employment rate and household income were below municipal averages. Therefore, one of the project’s priorities was to create paid jobs through urban agriculture. Covering about 250 square meters, the greenhouse is relatively small compared to rural facilities; however, it is capable of producing a large quantity of agricultural products, using advanced cultivation technologies. Estimates suggest an annual production of around 20 tons, generating economic activity that provides part-time jobs for 10 residents of the complex, thereby helping to increase household income.
The concept is to organize these individuals into an association that offers a 12-month professional training program. Upon completing the course, participants will have acquired skills in greenhouse management that can be applied to finding employment in local nurseries, while another group of residents will take their place. Over five years, this training path will engage 50 residents.
Based on similar considerations, another project was conceived: the Parco di Via delle Pleiadi. This project integrates a high-efficiency agricultural greenhouse with facilities for food preparation and sales, as well as outdoor activity spaces. The goal is to create a hybrid space where nature-based solutions can provide food production and high-quality spaces for citizens.
15/11/2024
Plants should be considered the link between the sun and the Earth. Without plants, the sun’s energy would not be transformed into the chemical energy that sustains life. But that’s not all. Every living being needs to obtain the energy required for survival from some source.
The energy present on planet Earth comes from three main sources: the sun, the primordial heat from the Earth’s formation, and the heat generated by the radioactive decay of certain materials in the Earth’s crust and core. For practical purposes, we can disregard the contributions from geothermal energy and focus on solar energy, the true life-sustaining source on Earth.
Even the energy we obtain from burning coal or oil is merely solar energy originally captured by plants (broadly defined to include all photosynthetic organisms). Likewise, the energy that drives the wind, ocean currents, or waves also originates from solar energy. In short, we can approximate that, with negligible exceptions, all the energy on the planet comes from the sun.
Having simplified the issue to its fundamental terms, we can return to plants and the central role they play in ensuring the survival of species. Through photosynthesis, and with the help of solar energy, plants capture atmospheric carbon dioxide, forming sugars—highly energetic molecules—while producing oxygen as a byproduct.
The average amount of energy produced by photosynthesis on a planetary scale is about 130 terawatts, approximately six times greater than the current energy consumption of human civilization. As Primo Levi writes about the carbon cycle in The Periodic Table, “if the organic conversion of carbon did not take place daily around us, on the scale of billions of tons per week, wherever the green of a leaf appears, it would fully deserve the name of miracle.”
Thanks to this miraculous process, life has been able to spread and thrive. Photosynthesis is essentially the sole driver of the entire production of organic matter through biochemical means, the so-called primary production.
Once produced by plants, this chemical energy—whether we think of it as food, coal, or oil—is used as fuel by the rest of the animal kingdom to sustain survival. Humans, however, use it excessively, relying on it as the primary source of energy for their development. When this fuel burns, it inevitably produces byproducts that disrupt the environment’s balance and cause pollution. CO2, for instance, is emitted whenever combustion occurs—whether it’s the burning of sugars and fats to power our bodies or the burning of oil, gas, coal, wood, or any other fuel originally produced through photosynthesis.
Human activities emit approximately 29 billion tons of CO2 annually. By comparison, volcanoes release 100 times less—only 200 to 300 million tons. The CO2 that accumulates in the atmosphere is the primary driver of the greenhouse effect and the resulting increase in global temperatures. Through activities like fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, humans have raised the average annual atmospheric CO2 concentration from 280 ppm (parts per million), where it had remained stable for around 10,000 years before the Industrial Revolution, to 421 ppm as of 2022.
The last time Earth experienced such high atmospheric CO2 concentrations was during the Pliocene epoch, around three million years ago. At that time, the planet’s average temperature was 4°C higher, large parts of the Antarctic continent were covered by forests, and sea levels were 20 to 25 meters higher than today due to melting ice.
Of course, the carbon cycle is far more complex than outlined here and involves numerous variables tied to life on Earth. For instance, not all CO2 emitted by human activities ends up in the atmosphere; about 30% dissolves into the oceans, forming carbonic acid, bicarbonate, and carbonate. While this oceanic absorption is vital because it prevents even more CO2 from entering the atmosphere, it also causes ocean acidification. This phenomenon is responsible for the destruction of coral reefs and profoundly affects the lives of calcifying organisms such as coccolithophores, corals, echinoderms, foraminifera, crustaceans, and mollusks, ultimately impacting the entire food chain.
In essence, the core issue is that, until recently, the carbon cycle functioned effectively. CO2 was released into the atmosphere through processes like combustion, digestion, and fermentation, and then reabsorbed by plants via photosynthesis—a balanced cycle capable of handling significant fluctuations in carbon dioxide levels without disrupting equilibrium. For millions of years, this system worked like clockwork. However, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the sheer volume of CO2 released into the atmosphere through fossil fuel use has become so immense that plants can no longer fully reabsorb it.
Today, everyone is called to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions as much as possible. This is not something we can delay: from individuals to businesses to nations, the time to act is now. Solutions exist and are effective. If adopted by significant portions of the global population, they could ensure a sustainable future. Many of these solutions are brought together in the concept of an Energy Park.
What I find most fascinating about this idea is that, whether through solar panels powered by human technology or through plants developed by evolution, the ultimate goal is the same: transforming the sun’s light energy into a form usable by humans. Whether the end result is the sugars in plants or electricity from solar panels, designing a park where humanity collaborates—for once—with nature to minimize its planetary impact is heartwarming and instills hope for a better future.
08/11/2022
Cities, having become the primary habitat of humanity, are also the main drivers of our environmental aggression. Currently, around 70% of global energy consumption and over 75% of global natural resource use are attributable to cities, which are responsible for 75% of carbon emissions and 70% of waste production. By 2050, cities will need to accommodate an additional two and a half billion people, with a level of resource consumption that is currently difficult to fathom. Faced with these figures, it is clear that any solution to the problem of human impact must necessarily involve cities.
But what might these solutions be? Fortunately, there are many, and they will transform every aspect of urban functioning: from transportation to water consumption, from waste production to carbon dioxide emissions, everything will be integrated into closed cycles that will make urban systems far more efficient. These solutions exist and, even if slowly, they will succeed in mitigating the damage. What is truly urgent, however, is to change our conception of the city.
It is not possible to fully understand the functioning of a complex environment like a city by focusing solely on human needs. Paradoxical as it may seem, only a broader perspective can ensure that these same needs are preserved for the future.
Allow me to clarify: studying and planning cities based solely on the immediate needs of their inhabitants is the surest way to ensure that these needs can no longer be met in the near future. On the contrary, understanding the physiology of a city requires considering the entire ecosystem that defines it. Any other method of study is nothing more than a simplification.
Over 90% of cities are coastal and, as such, will be increasingly exposed to frequent and dangerous flooding due to the inevitable rise in sea levels. Atmospheric phenomena, growing in intensity, will cause increasing damage from storms, floods, winds, and droughts. These damages not only directly impact populations but also have significant economic repercussions, disrupting commercial activities and the normal functioning of urban life.
Heatwaves—periods of extreme temperatures well above the average—will become increasingly frequent, with disastrous effects on public health. As temperatures rise, the prevalence of certain life-threatening illnesses increases. A 2017 study estimated that even if we were to limit the rise in global average temperature to just 2°C above pre-industrial levels by mid-century—an increasingly unlikely scenario—the number of deaths in cities caused by heatwaves alone would exceed 350 million.
As if this were not enough, we must also consider that the effects of rising temperatures are magnified in urban environments. The so-called urban heat island effect, for instance, causes city temperatures to be significantly higher than those of surrounding rural areas, making urban areas far more susceptible to temperature increases. Globally, it is estimated that urban heat islands alone contribute to an average temperature increase of 6.4°C in cities. This is a variable figure, depending on the geographical location and the specific characteristics of each urban center. This is a clear indicator of the enormous impact that our methods of construction have on the environment.
The first person to identify this phenomenon was an English chemist and pharmacist, Luke Howard, who is credited not only with the initial observation of the urban heat island effect but also with recognizing that the temperature difference is greater at night than during the day. In 1820, in his treatise The Climate of London—the first work ever dedicated to the climate of a city—Howard documented nine years of temperature data collected in central London and nearby rural areas. He noted that “the night is 3.7°F (equivalent to 2.1°C) warmer in the city compared to the countryside.”
This observation laid the foundation for understanding how urbanization amplifies temperature variations, emphasizing the critical role that urban planning and design play in shaping not only local climates but also global environmental trends.
The reasons behind this overheating are varied and stem from the way our cities are built and function. One of the main factors contributing to the formation of urban heat islands is the artificial nature of urban surfaces. These surfaces, due to their impermeability and lack of vegetation, are unable to cool down through the process of evapotranspiration, unlike rural areas. But that’s not all. In cities, dark surfaces absorb significantly more solar radiation, and materials like asphalt and concrete have thermal properties that differ from those of rural surfaces.
Additionally, a considerable portion of the energy used in cities—whether by vehicles, industry, or for heating and cooling buildings—is lost as residual heat, further increasing the ambient temperature. Then there are other factors: the geometry of buildings, the lack of wind that prevents cooling through convection, higher levels of air pollution, and particulate matter that alters the radiative properties of the atmosphere. All of these elements in cities contribute to raising the overall temperature of the environment.
When we combine the effects of global warming with the typical heat island phenomenon in cities, the results are far from reassuring.
Cities are, therefore, particularly vulnerable to global warming. The good news is that they are also the places where global warming can be most effectively addressed. Since 75% of human-produced CO2 originates in cities, it is here that efforts to reduce it must focus, using trees to remove as much as possible from the atmosphere.
In 2019, a team of researchers from the Zurich Polytechnic published a study claiming that planting one trillion trees globally was by far the best, most efficient, and measurable solution for reabsorbing a significant percentage of the CO2 emitted since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Despite the study’s solid scientific foundations, criticisms quickly followed: where would we find the space to plant a trillion trees? What would it cost? Would the results be as significant as estimated? These criticisms were largely unfounded. The necessary space for planting these trees exists, and while the cost would be substantial, it is far lower than any alternative with even a fraction of the potential success of this initiative.
Moreover, if a significant portion of these trees were planted within our cities, the results, I am certain, would be even greater. The efficiency of plants in absorbing CO2 increases significantly when they are closer to the source of emissions. In cities, every surface should be covered with plants—not just the (few) parks, boulevards, flowerbeds, and other conventional spaces, but literally every surface: roofs, facades, streets—every place where a plant can grow should host one.
The notion that cities must be impermeable, mineral environments opposed to nature is merely a habit. Nothing prevents a city from being entirely covered in plants. There are no technical or economic barriers that truly preclude such a choice. And the benefits would be incalculable: not only would massive amounts of CO2 be fixed precisely where it is produced, but people’s lives would improve in virtually every way imaginable. From enhanced physical and mental health to stronger social bonds, from improved focus and attention to reduced crime rates, plants positively influence our lives from every possible perspective.
Why our cities are not already entirely covered with plants, both inside and out, remains a mystery difficult to comprehend, especially considering the thousands of serious studies published on the benefits of urban greenery.
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