Newsletter
September 2023

Image Credit: Nature-Based Solutions for Cities
 
Nature-Based Solutions for Cities

September has ushered in devastating floods, earthquakes and hurricanes following Earth's hottest three months on record with unprecedented sea surface temperatures and much extreme weather. As a result, climate events across the world are addressing issues and protesters are calling for an end to planet-warming fossil fuels. We're highlighting living architecture design solutions which are nature-based to support climate resiliency, health & urban sustainability.

Starting with an excellent open access title that's free to read, download, and share is Nature-Based Solutions for Cities where leading experts advance the science of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in cities and discuss the frontiers for next-generation urban NBS.

Our current Featured Project, the Millenáris Széllkapu (Gate of Winds) Park Green Walls & 3-Dimensional Hanging Garden, is exemplary for many reasons as a beautiful and sensitive example of rehabilitating a former industrial brownfield site into a thriving and refreshing 35,000 m2 recreational park for the citizens and visitors to Hungary’s capital city of Budapest. Did you know its 5,000 m2 overall surface of green walls provide a 10°C difference between the sunny versus shaded areas of the hanging façade? We can't wait to see this one in person!

Starting on September 17 through January 20, 2024, don't miss Emerging Ecologies: Architecture and the Rise of Environmentalism at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, the first museum review of works (150) that examines the relationship between architecture and the environmental movement in the US. The exhibition is also the first created by the Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and Natural Environment, born within the MoMA in 2020 thanks to an important and generous donation from the Legacy Emilio Ambasz Foundation (LEAF). Ambasz says, “Every building is an intrusion into the plant kingdom and is a challenge to nature: We must devise an architecture that stands as the embodiment of a reconciliatory pact between nature and construction, designing buildings so intrinsically connected to their surroundings that they are unable to disentangle themselves from each other.” Very appropriate!