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Urban Science Lab
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Urban Science Lab

Urban Science Lab

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URBAN PLANNING & GOVERNANCE
people and nature

The Future of Urban Nature

"Cities, designed to keep us apart from wild nature, can in fact turn out to be our greatest allies for environmental education and conservation (Director General, WWF International)". Following this quote, we want to test limits, barriers and opportunities for urban nature in urban planning, governance and society and how Nature-Based Solutions can be mainstreamed and prioritized to advance urban greening and sustainability.

bosco verticale

Urban Sustainability

The creation of greener, equitable and prosperous cities needs to ensure sustainable, long-term, positive outcomes for people, plants and nature. Departures from sustainable trajectories will trump much of the research and practical efforts we place today. Here we work with a diverse range of scholars, professionals, businesses and communities to envision, design and plan how the cities of the future could look like so they can foster sustainability, human wellbeing and ecological health.

yards

Urban Science & Society

Cities are complex land systems managed by hundreds of thousands of decision-makers - us, the yard owners, the renters, the builders. Collective decision-making process dictate much of how urban forests and greening look like and function. In this research stream we apply new ideas and models to improve private-public partnerships, innovative tools and apps to foster inclusive urban greening as well as new approaches to urban governance and planning.

pills

Greening for Public and Human Health

Recent evidence suggests urban greening to ameliorate many public and human health issues. Dosing urban nature can boost mood and improve depression; "green prescriptions" are handled as complementary therapy to drugs and traditional medicine. In this theme we are interested to understand what realistic contributions urban forests and greening can make towards health, such as the decrease of heat-related illness during extreme heatwave events, the therapeutic benefits of gardening post COVID-19 and the relationships between greening and crime.

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