Designing cities for everyday nature

Abstract

The motivations for incorporating nature into the design of cities have never been more compelling. Creating experiences with nature that occur every day (everyday nature) in cities could help reverse the fate of many threatened species and connect people with nature and living cultural traditions. However, this requires more than just urban greening; it involves ensuring daily doses of nature in a way that also supports nonhuman organisms. A major shift in the way nature is conceived of and is made part of the design of cities is required. Principles include reconsidering nature as a development opportunity rather than a constraint and eliminating offsetting of biodiversity site values. Processes include using biodiversity‐sensitive design frameworks and establishing meaningful professional engagement among ecologists, planners, and designers. Challenges include design obstacles, conflicts between nature and people (e.g., safety, disease, and noise) that require careful management, and socioeconomic and political considerations (e.g., Global North vs. Global South). Research to interrogate the multiple benefits of nature in cities can complement experimental interventions, ultimately supporting better urban design and creating much more resiliently built environments for people and nature.

INTRODUCTION

City dwellers make up more than half of the world's population (Ritchie & Roser, 2018). It is through urban green spaces and green infrastructure that human populations benefit from and connect with nature in cities. The importance of this access to nature was highlighted during the COVID‐19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns when recreational use of urban greenspaces increased dramatically around the world (e.g., Venter et al., 2020). Prepandemic, many urban residents could not prioritize regular, deliberate nature experiences because of long commuting times (Nicholls et al., 2015). Given this, nature must be delivered within the urban fabric through experiences with nature that occur every day (hereafter everyday nature), rather than being available only in large remnant areas that may be far from population centers or inequitably distributed in cities.

Nature in cities cannot just be about being green. Urban greenspaces provide important ecosystem services (Elmquvist et al., 2015) that benefit human and nonhuman residents, including critical habitat and resources for biodiversity (Beninde et al., 2015). The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services is complex and multilayered (Costanza et al., 2017), and many services and benefits are greater when the nature in greenspaces is diverse (Fuller et al., 2007). Yet, urban growth and development have been highly detrimental to biodiversity. Urbanization fundamentally changes ecological processes that support biodiversity and ecosystem services (Grimm et al., 2008), and urban expansion has had profound impacts on biodiversity through habitat loss (Li et al., 2022).

Although cities are now embracing nature‐based solutions to address unprecedented challenges to livability (Eggermont et al., 2015) and urban greening is becoming mainstream in design and planning (Angelo, 2019), biodiversity is rarely considered, measured (Filazzola et al., 2019), or addressed in an intentional, strategic way (Butt et al., 2018). International examples of sustainably designed buildings and precincts have historically failed to integrate humans and nature or explicitly demonstrate biodiversity benefits (Ogden, 2014). By viewing buildings as discrete bounded systems, architects may undervalue their potential contribution to the larger systems (e.g., ecological) they are part of. And although landscape architects receive some ecological training (Rottle & Yocom, 2017) and explore biodiversity‐sensitive design (Gabbianelli et al., 2021), they face multiple regulatory, budgetary, and operational constraints to implementation.

Global effort toward urban greening is impressive. But the current problem with planning in cities around the world is that intentional and strategic mechanisms for enhancing biodiversity in the urban fabric are lacking (Oke et al., 2021). With urban greening and nature‐based solutions proliferating in cities, there exists an unparalleled opportunity to intervene to deliver everyday nature that benefits people and biodiversity alike. We sought to describe everyday nature; synthesize the benefits it can provide; and outline principles, processes, and challenges for effectively designing for everyday nature in cities.

DEFINING EVERYDAY NATURE

Nature is traditionally defined as the nonhuman elements of a landscape that are located away from humans (Hartig et al., 2014). In contrast, everyday nature locates nature where people live, work, and play (Miller & Hobbs, 2002) and is intentionally integrated into the urban fabric of cities so that it is part of the everyday experience of human residents and simultaneously provides environmental and human health benefits.

There is overlap in the definitions of everyday nature, urban nature, green infrastructure, nature‐based solutions, and urban green space, many of which include humans, various landscapes, and cultures. The difference embodied in everyday nature is the focus on providing city dwellers ready access to biodiverse nature on an incidental and frequent basis. Another point of difference is that everyday nature is designed to provide multifaceted, open‐ended use by city dwellers (observation and engagement with or immerse in).

The term everyday nature is already in use. Kaplan (1977) describes the design of cities in which nature is used to benefit the health and well‐being of human populations, and Hess (2010) differentiates it from the romantic concept of nature as refuge, apart from humanity. We build on both concepts in a definition that focuses on urban design that uses nature to enhance biodiversity and benefit human health and well‐being. Everyday nature does not exclude humans and includes spaces, such as parks and gardens, that “comprise natural features, appear natural, and provide opportunities to engage with and follow natural processes…” (Hartig et al., 2014, p. 208). Everyday nature includes wilderness and historic landscapes, but also hybrid and novel landscapes (Hobbs et al., 2006) in which processes, such as rewilding, may have taken place. A crucial element of reframing nature in this way is that it is seen through the lens of culture and recognizes that “cultural processes are the foundation for environmental attitudes and behaviors and are key to facing the challenges of environmental sustainability” (Durán et al., 2023; Head et al., 2005, p. 253).

BENEFITS OF DESIGNING FOR EVERYDAY NATURE

Urban nature delivers a remarkable range of human health and well‐being benefits. Children living in neighborhoods with more street trees may have lower prevalence of asthma (Lovasi et al., 2008), and those with nature in their schoolyards have improved cognitive development (Dadvand et al., 2015) and lower incidence of attention‐deficit hyperactivity disorder (Faber Taylor & Kuo, 2011). In Finland, higher levels of native forest in the landscape and native flowering plants in household yards are associated with lower levels of allergies in teenagers (Hanski et al., 2012). Adults who are exposed to nature have lower incidences of high blood pressure and depression (Shanahan et al., 2016), reduced risk of poor mental health (Fuller et al., 2007), improved sleep, reduced stress, and lower likelihood of dying from heart disease, diabetes, and cancer (Kuo, 2015).

Diverse vegetation in and around cities delivers ecosystem services critical for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Greening interventions can cool urban centers by up to 8°C in summer (Doick & Hutchings, 2013), substantially reducing overnight temperatures that contribute to heat‐related mortality. Vegetation in cities and towns can also alleviate the impacts of flooding by reducing peaks in stormwater runoff and providing shelter from extreme weather events (Ferreira et al., 2021).

Cities host a diversity of native species (Aronson et al., 2014), make a significant contribution to biodiversity at local and regional scales (Spotswood et al., 2021), and are important for the evolution of lives in urban environments (Johnson & Munshi‐South, 2017). In Europe, 26 threatened bird species occur in urban core areas (Jokimäki et al., 2018), and Australian cities and towns overlap with the ranges of 3 times as many threatened species as rural areas (Ives et al., 2016). Some species are found only in urban environments, and others rely on cities for key food and habitat resources (Soanes & Lentini, 2019). Because the future of many threatened species depends on actions to accommodate their needs within urban boundaries, cities are important places for investment in nature conservation.

The extinction of experience is a global phenomenon—particularly in cities—that describes how people have increasingly fewer experiences in nature and are therefore less connected to it (Soga & Gaston, 2016). Everyday nature experiences—in which urban residents experience nature in their daily lives—can increase care for and commitment toward biodiversity conservation (Prévot et al., 2018). Creating opportunities for everyday nature through better design presents an opportunity to enchant people with biodiversity (Wallis et al., 2021); increase the frequency and intensity with which human city dwellers interact with plants and animals (Fischer & Kowarik, 2020); improve biodiversity conservation outcomes (Domroese & Johnson, 2017); create a sense of place for people; and connect people to Indigenous knowledge and culture (Mercer et al., 2015).

The economic case for everyday nature is also compelling (Fruth et al., 2019; Hsu & Chao, 2020). Urban greening can improve property values, reduce maintenance costs, protect drainage systems, and reduce energy consumption, and nature delivers social, health, economic, and environmental benefits too. The value of the urban forest in Melbourne, Australia, is an estimated AU$700 million (City of Melbourne, 2014), and avoided healthcare costs associated with urban forests in the United States are estimated at US$11.7 billion/year (Wolf et al., 2015). Recent global movements toward disclosing risks associated with biodiversity loss may add further financial incentives for improving nature in cities (Hassan et al., 2021).

PRINCIPLES OF DESIGNING FOR EVERYDAY NATURE

Although the reasons for embracing everyday nature in cities are compelling, pathways for achieving it are not straightforward. Designing for everyday nature represents a fundamentally different way of planning and designing urban developments. It requires a reframing of the way nature is considered in the planning process. Rather than considering nature as a constraint (i.e., a problem to be dealt with), nature is seen as an opportunity and a valued resource to be preserved and maximized at all stages of planning and design. This means carefully regulating urban development to ensure the protection of remaining natural assets, from remnant patches of vegetation to single trees (Ikin et al., 2015). Otherwise, it is all too easy for vegetation to be whittled away to make way for development or on the basis of, for example, public safety.

Planning for everyday nature means moving away from offsetting as conservation or development policy. Biodiversity offsetting allows vegetation that is cleared in an area to be offset elsewhere, often far from the impact site. This is a poor solution in urban contexts because it will not provide nature in the places where people can benefit most from it (Ives & Bekessy, 2015; Kalliolevo et al., 2021) and delivers questionable ecological outcomes (Lindenmayer et al., 2017).

In contrast, strategies that seek to care for and bring back nature in urban environments can deliver important human health and well‐being benefits while improving the fate of native species and ecosystems in cities and surrounds. Biodiversity‐sensitive design approaches use ecological theory and knowledge to mitigate the detrimental impacts of urban design and development and encourage community stewardship of nature. Biodiversity‐sensitive urban design (BSUD; Garrard et al., 2018) aims to create urban environments that make a positive contribution to biodiversity by addressing key threats and including the resources that native species need to survive within the built fabric of a city. Similarly, animal‐aided design (AAD; Weisser & Hauck, 2017) includes important traits, life cycles, and specific needs of species to consider when designing urban environments. These approaches share several important principles and seek to protect and create habitat, enable dispersal, minimize threats, facilitate natural ecological processes, and enhance nature stewardship by facilitating positive human–nature interactions (Figure 1).

FIGURE 1.

Main principles of biodiversity‐sensitive urban design aimed at providing everyday nature (i.e., locating nature where people live, work, and play to provide environmental and human health benefits): (1) manage threats (e.g., pet containment, safe road and rail crossing, wildlife‐friendly lighting, bird‐friendly glazing); (2) provide ecological connectivity (e.g., continuous vegetated linear pathways, elevated ropes and bridges, underpasses); (3) promote human–nature interactions (e.g., interpretive signage, citizen science programs, active transport, nature play); (4) provide resources (e.g., rooftop gardens, living walls, nesting cavities, habitat walls, flowering plants, diverse plantings); and (5) facilitate ecological processes (e.g., pollination, seed dispersal, resilient populations).

Provision of everyday nature differs from current urban greening practices in that it has clear species‐specific objectives, generates intentional designs to deliver on those objectives for species, and includes design features throughout the urban fabric so people have ready access to nature. By blurring the boundaries between natural and built elements of a city through careful planning and innovative urban, landscape, and architectural design, BSUD creates urban environments that support biodiversity and delivers everyday nature experiences for urban residents. Because BSUD is a decision tool used to guide the design process, it can easily include ecosystem services and biodiversity objectives. There is also substantial potential for integrating BSUD in targeted ecosystem service frameworks, such as water‐sensitive urban design (Wong et al., 2020), to maximize cobenefits.

PROCESSES FOR DESIGNING FOR EVERYDAY NATURE

Using biodiversity‐focused approaches, such as BSUD and AAD, can help deliver everyday nature for biodiversity and human benefits in cities. To maximize cobenefits for biodiversity and human inhabitants, collaborations between designers and planners are needed that embed biodiversity‐sensitive approaches across multiple stages of standard design and construction processes (Figure 2). There are also important linkages between planning and design. Strategic planning at the precinct scale can help identify important remnants and set them aside as conservation reserves and help plan for multifunctional green infrastructure. However, other than through the development of design guidelines or implementation of overlays (Hürlimann et al., 2022), planning typically does not consider biodiversity outside reserves and would not explicitly plan for bringing back species or enhancing ecological resources within gray areas. Hence, there is a role for design to complement planning by ensuring opportunities for everyday nature within the built environment.

FIGURE 2.

Biodiversity‐sensitive design incorporated in standard design delivery processes used by built environment professionals (e.g., urban planners and designers, architects, and landscape architects) to maximize the cobenefits the built form provides to people and biodiversity.

A key reason urban development can fail to provide everyday nature is that it is rarely considered during early planning and design stages. Collaboration between designers and ecologists during research and planning ensures that ecological data are collected and positive human–nature interactions are considered early in the process. Understanding the biodiversity values of a site is different from traditional site investigation undertaken by design professionals, who are primarily concerned with prevailing winds, solar exposure, topography, soil condition, and so forth. An ecologist can help identify rare or engaging plants and animals that live or once lived (potential for reintroduction) in the area. Through such collaborations and by imagining urban environments and buildings as embedded in an ecological system, designers can help regenerate biodiversity while delivering everyday nature experiences.

Ecological information about the site can guide decisions about nature goals for a project. Identifying these goals early, alongside other design objectives, ensures that designs address objectives in an integrated way, rather than considering everyday nature as an add‐on once all other objectives have been met. Choosing a set of species—ideally native (Berthon et al., 2021)—to focus on is useful. It is conceptually easier to design for a species or suite of species than for nature in general. Objectives might include enhancing populations of existing, extant species (Gaston, 2010) or attracting species that could survive at a site but are not currently present (Mata et al., 2020).

Workshops can effectively engage project stakeholders and are a good way to ensure buy‐in among development project partners and delivery of biodiversity‐sensitive designs at a site (Apfelbeck et al., 2019; Kirk et al., 2021). Engaging a diverse range of stakeholders can enhance the potential outcomes of a project through the identification of synergies with other objectives (e.g., cultural) and incorporation of diverse knowledges and approaches, including traditional knowledge. Traditional knowledge expressed in “vernacular architecture” has been used to improve building performance (Philokyprou et al., 2017); however, cultural knowledge about nature does not commonly feature in designs of the built environment.

Generating design options will likely involve spatial configuration, for example, positioning a building structure to encourage human–nature interactions or creating wildlife corridors. These requirements can be summarized along with design considerations (Figure 3) for use throughout the planning and design processes. Achieving nature objectives might also depend on other indirect relationships among the built form, people, and nature, so holistically thinking about how different design elements influence the potential interactions between people and nature is important (Figure 4).

FIGURE 3.

Design suggestions for the Fisherman's bend urban renewal project in Melbourne, Australia, to provide habitat for 3 charismatic species. Adapted from Kirk et al. (2021).

FIGURE 4.

Biodiversity‐sensitive design features for a typical residential building: (1) rooftop gardens with diverse range of species; (2) eave cavities for birds and bats; (3) bird‐friendly window treatments; (4) brick cavities for birds, bats, and pollinating insects; (5) wildlife‐friendly lighting; (6) living walls with diverse range of species; (7) planters with diverse range of species to connect building to landscape; (8) diverse habitat structure with trees, shrubs, and small plants; (9) raised areas of building to provide shelter and movement; (10) pet enclosures for outdoor access with safe separation from wildlife; and (11) nesting boxes in trees.

Evaluating the contribution of individual design elements for achieving nature objectives is important. Assessing the relative value of individual design features enables informed decisions about which designs to prioritize, particularly where other key values, such as cost, will be traded against everyday nature outcomes. This type of assessment is common for other sustainability objectives in the built environment, such as energy efficiency (Tuominen et al., 2015). Ecological tools and metrics, such as probability of persistence and habitat suitability, were designed to evaluate species outcomes in natural environments but may also be relevant in cities. The benefits of these approaches are that they can account for the combined effects of multiple everyday nature elements and deliver results that are more defensible and compelling to decision makers (Garrard et al., 2018). As the relative value of different design options are assessed, designs can be selected that best meet biodiversity, human well‐being, nature interactions, and other socioeconomic objectives.

Traditional knowledge of landscape pattern and processes, hydrological cycles, and species and ecosystem management are highly relevant to town planning and ecological design. There is substantial potential to engage Traditional Owners or First Nations people in the planning, design, implementation, and governance of everyday nature (Thompson‐Fawcett et al., 2019). In practice, this could mean highlighting culturally significant species (e.g., traditional foods and medicines), reflecting Indigenous values and understanding in design, engaging Indigenous populations in the management of urban areas through Caring for Country and Indigenous Ranger programs, and prioritizing Indigenous groups in urban governance.

CHALLENGES OF DESIGNING FOR EVERYDAY NATURE

Everyday nature interfaces with realms that are beyond the scope of those traditionally responsible for urban nature management. Currently, the design industry does not fully perceive ecological knowledge or identify its importance, and ecological sciences do not often recognize the anthropogenically motivated constraints of design—perhaps partly due to divisions between theory and practice. Collaborations between ecologists, planners, and design professionals are necessary to facilitate successful integration of everyday nature into urban environments (Apfelbeck et al., 2020). Although ecological expertise is needed to inform understanding of ecological conditions at a site, design professionals are skilled strategic thinkers, capable of coordinating extended teams of experts and going beyond their conventional and outdated role of form makers (Baracco & Wright, 2018).

Designing for everyday nature may raise obstacles, problems, and conflicts that require careful management. Some people find nature experiences unpleasant or worry about safety, disease, and noise. For example, zoonotic disease is a difficult issue for planning urban ecosystems because providing everyday nature decreases the proximity between humans and wild organisms. However, biodiverse natural systems can reduce stress in organisms thereby potentially reducing the incidence of virus shedding (Eby et al., 2023). Managing potential ecosystem disservices (Shackleton et al., 2016) is an essential component of urban planning and design. Some land uses may be inherently incompatible (e.g., off‐lead dog areas and wildlife habitat analogues). Urban‐adapted species will require less intervention; however, sensitive species may require careful consideration. Setting biodiversity objectives for a site, guided by ecological and social criteria, will be critical in this context.

Urban areas have been substantially altered by human activity and may therefore be considered novel ecosystems (Teixeira & Fernandes, 2020). Classical restoration work outside urban areas mainly seeks to restore the functional integrity of preurban ecosystems and bases ecological value on these baselines—often relying on simple distinctions between native and non‐native species. Although these premises are useful, they will not always be applicable to urban environments. For example, in Europe, the concept of nativeness can be ambiguous due to the broad spatial and temporal spectrum of anthropogenic disturbance and shifting cultural baselines (Clavero, 2014). Evolutionary studies may help categorize and integrate ecologically benign (or beneficial) non‐native species into urban environments (Johnson & Munshi‐South, 2017), although there is evidence that native plant species support greater native biodiversity in cities (Berthon et al., 2021). Given these uncertainties, early and ongoing communication between local ecologists and design professionals will help determine the best outcomes for people and biodiversity while designing within novel environments (Teixeira et al., 2021).

Although much of what we considered will be globally applicable, contextual differences between cities in the Global North (developed) and the Global South (developing) may be relevant. Designing for everyday nature in the Global South may be especially challenging because governmental support for environmental conservation may be weak, policies may be ineffective and lack transparency, and there may be unusual sociopolitical factors to address (Cilliers et al., 2021). Differences in priorities for urban nature must also be considered. For example, provisioning services (e.g., food and medicine derived from non‐native species) may be considered more important than the conservation of species (Shackleton, 2021). Acknowledging and adapting for these differences will be paramount to successfully designing for everyday nature in diverse contexts.

Tools are available to assist architects, landscape architects, and urban designers to embed everyday nature and ecological thinking into the design process. Certification processes help maintain accountability by providing scorecards, rating systems, and awards for sustainable developments. Some notable examples include the US Green Building Council Ecology and Wildlife Credits, the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method Landscape and Ecology Credits, and the Green Building Council of Australia's Nature Credit. The Living Building Challenge in Australia is aligned with biodiversity‐sensitive design and offers certification, philosophy, and advocacy for developments. Although these tools are useful, adequate quantitative metrics for predicting and measuring everyday nature outcomes are often lacking. For example, biodiversity is challenging to capture in a single metric (typical in green assessment tools), and research is required to develop appropriate measures that are applicable at all scales of design. Widely accepted urban biodiversity indicators exist (e.g., City Biodiversity Index, European Urban Biodiversity Index), and many indicators are connected to action statements in municipal biodiversity plans (Pierce et al., 2020). Although many of these indicators are often applied at a citywide scale (MacGregor‐Fors et al., 2021), some may be adapted for use at the building or precinct scale. We encourage ecologists to review these tools and indicators and to engage with the organizations that develop, maintain, and administer them to improve their effectiveness.

Although the correlation between nature and the benefits that it provides is becoming well defined, some of the mechanisms remain unclear, and details of the design blueprint for maximizing these benefits will rely on an understanding of the causal pathways. For example, how can urban vegetation be spatially arranged in cities to maximize daily interactions with nature? Connectivity modeling is rapidly evolving in cities and is already used to prioritize locations for biodiverse greening (Bolliger & Silbernagel, 2020) and to determine how people move around urban areas (Yang et al., 2020). Can the combination of these efforts be useful to guide decision‐making about delivering everyday nature for people?

Further, what types of biodiverse plantings deliver multiple ecosystem services (e.g., air quality improvements, greenhouse gas sequestration, psychological restoration, water filtration)? The cobenefits of urban greening have been explored (Li & Wang, 2021), but the exact characteristics of biodiverse greening that maximize cobenefits are still largely unknown. And, although these are likely to be context dependent, can general principles or frameworks (e.g., Raymond et al., 2017) be derived?

Researchers need to scrutinize status quo design methodologies and compare them with alternative (biodiverse greening) approaches to inform ongoing debates around safety, maintenance, and costs of providing diverse vegetation types and structures. What are the features of existing designs that minimize animal welfare concerns and avoid ecological traps? For example, there is much research around road design to minimize wildlife collisions (Glista et al., 2009), but these interventions are focused on large, high‐volume thoroughfares. Can these provisions work across multiple contexts, including local roads?

Finally, the boundaries of how wild cities can become have yet to be tested. Balancing the ecological understanding of what is feasible along with thresholds of community acceptance is an exciting new area of interdisciplinary research between conservation and social sciences.

Lack of knowledge is not an excuse for inaction. Research to interrogate the multiple benefits of nature in cities can go hand in hand with experimental interventions, further reinforcing the importance of collaborations among ecologists, planners, and design professionals. When designed carefully, living labs and other forms of action research can enable transformative change needed in cities (Croeser et al., 2024) to achieve the vision of everyday nature. And the demand for transformative change is real; cities across the globe are urgently seeking solutions to profound livability challenges that everyday nature can potentially address.

Visintin, C. , Garrard, G. E. , Weisser, W. W. , Baracco, M. , Hobbs, R. J. , & Bekessy, S. A. (2025). Designing cities for everyday nature. Conservation Biology, 39, e14328. 10.1111/cobi.14328