Imagine a city with room for modernity and wildness. A city that feeds us and supports our health. A city where people live in harmony with the nature around them. A beautiful vision, right? Kasper Jakubowski tells us how we can take a step towards realizing it.
Kasper JAKUBOWSKI - landscape architect, lecturer, environmental educator, president of the Children in Nature Foundation, popularizer of the concept of fourth nature and pocket forests using the Miyawaki method. In 2019 he defended his doctoral thesis on the natural and social potential of urban wastelands and urban parks. Between 2012 and 2018, he studied European cities from their wild side, analyzing parks that look like "urban nature reserves," new environmental education centers or urban nature restoration projects. In collaboration with Kwiaty i Badyle, he designed the greenery in the Nowy Strzeszyn estate in Poznań (proj.: Insomia), and with the Archigrest studio and Kaja Kusztra he developed a permanent exhibition and educational path on the fourth nature on the Warsaw Uprising Mound.
Ola Kloc: On the one hand we are aware of climate change, we feel on our own skin the acute lack of greenery in the city, and on the other hand it turns out that the design of greenery in investment areas is not good at all. So what should we do?
Kasper Jakubowski: We need very diverse solutions, tailored to specific sites and needs. Indeed, we can ask about the sense of planting small trees, especially since they come from the Netherlands, for example, their cultivation is based on peat, the effects of mining of which are devastating for the climate and biodiversity. In cities, we should primarily plant very large trees, fruit trees and pocket forests. We should also rethink the subject of nature compensation, and it should not consist only of so-called replacement plantings, but of habitat restoration. In our country, this compensation is practically non-existent. So if we invest in an area, deprive it of natural plant cover, biodiversity, we should think how we can compensate for this in the environment, perhaps we should restore marsh areas, plant microforests or remove invasive species.
AskØgade, Copenhagen
Photo credit: Agata Cieszewska, CoAdapt
I'm also in favor of clever greening of buildings, introducing greenery everywhere so that architecture also becomes an element of the biotope. Maybe not necessarily in the form of vertical gardens, more by introducing climbing plants. We have so many vertical walls in cities that could be successfully covered with photosynthesizing plants, and by doing so we could also achieve other benefits, such as lowering temperatures and creating additional habitat for birds. I am also not against green roofs, they contribute to reducing urban heat dump.
Cities, especially Polish cities, are also still areas that are not built up. This creates a conflict between a dense, compact city and a reserve of semi-wild, semi-natural areas subject to ecological succession. This raises the question of what part to designate for development and what part to protect. It seems to me that it is time to start protecting large green areas around built-up areas, to return to the idea of green rings around cities, settlements, to create green buffers.
To sum up: today we need multifunctional greenery, not only aesthetically pleasing, but also one that retains water, absorbs dust, which will be an element of ecological corridors and allow the movement of animals, will be a refuge for them. We also need greenery that educates and provides food.
Tiedemannsparken estate in the Ensjo district, Oslo
Photo: Agata Cieszewska, CoAdapt
Ola Kloc: How do these elements reconcile with urban development? Can there be a place in the city for both humans and other beings?
Kasper Jakubowski: It's a matter of wise planning, political decisions, grassroots pressure from residents and scientists, thinking about space to a higher standard.
We have already started to take care of this greenery in the city, pocket parks are being built, the landscaped greenery is getting better and better, so it's time to think about making it more biodiverse, so that there is also room for wildness in the city. This is not a matter of fashion for ecology or loud demands by a group of enthusiasts, the need for more biodiverse greenery is emerging from the bottom up, increasingly demanded by residents. This was helped by the pandemic, then we saw the importance of greenery around us, that we need it not only in an organized form, but also, for example, woodland relatively close to where we live. Greenery is appearing today in all the demands, just look at the civic budget projects, at the surveys of residents. It's starting to become really important, and it's not just about those nicely landscaped lawns, flower beds, individual trees, but about meadows, forests, so that there is simply more of this greenery.
Queen Elisabeth Olympic Park in London
Photo: Kasper Jakubowski
It is also worth thinking about the fact that in the budgets for greenery there should be money not only for the maintenance and establishment of new parks, but also for the purchase and protection of areas that today are not protected, that are in private hands. Seeing the green space reserve, which does not yet belong to the City, as a pro-environmental investment is crucial, especially since many of these areas do not need to be landscaped with high-cost investments. A perfect example is the riparian forest in Warsaw, on the Praga side. It is unique in the world! A single path has been made available there, which is used daily by hundreds of joggers, cyclists and residents. Diverse greenery along the river has been made available with minimal means - you don't need huge revitalizations to make a lot of green areas available.
Today we need to reclaim every bit of space for greenery. In cities, these areas for greenery are simply less, so these fragments are more valuable. We should also change the way we design, put it in line with global and European trends, so that parks are accessible, multifunctional, but also biodiverse. The biodiversity trend is something permanent in landscape architecture, there is no escape from it. If we understand this, we will, as designers, create a better space for people and other beings with whom we share cities.
Ola Kloc: We'll talk more about trends, let's go back to climate issues for a moment. Can this thinking about biodiversity and systemic green infrastructure design be the answer to the challenges of climate change adaptation?
Kasper Jakubowski: Yes, it seems to me that we haven't invented anything better, we won 't create better technologies than trees, soil and ecosystems, that is, whole plant communities and wetlands. We can take a lot of solutions from nature and inculcate them in new developments. This is demonstrated by the concept of Nature-based Solutions, or nature-based solutions.
We are moving away from treating greenery as a nice, final stage of a development to help sell apartments. We are beginning to see it as part of a working landscape, noting that nature as a system works for us, cools us, improves our living comfort, absorbs dust, provides life-giving oxygen, dampens noise and makes for better and healthier living in the city. Studies say straightforwardly that in places where there is more greenery, we live several years longer, we are more inclined to an active lifestyle, we go outside more often, we are physically and mentally healthier. This is very important. In a poorly designed space, devoid of greenery or with rachitic greenery, we feel worse and lead a more sedentary lifestyle.
Queen Elisabeth Olympic Park in London
Photo credit: Kasper Jakubowski
Ola Kloc: We know how much we owe to greenery, but what can we give it in return? What is the role of cities in nature conservation?
Kasper Jakubowski: The most important tool for nature conservation is environmental education; this is already being invested in in many European cities. Investments are made in people who educate, in educational infrastructure, and in areas - they are protected in order to educate.
New categories of parks are also being introduced, virtually absent in Poland, such as ecological parks, environmental parks, educational parks, adapted to educate 365 days a year. Green classrooms, environmental education centers and facilities are being built, attracting tens of thousands of users throughout the year. Classes are being organized for schools and kindergartens or weekend classes for residents.
What's very important is that through these solutions causality is restored, it's not education by lecture or mere funding of these facilities, but participation of residents in conservation activities - joint digging of new amphibian reservoirs near the estate, removal of invasive species orplanting pocket forests, restoring meadows, educating about the fact that sometimes conservation involves removing certain plant communities in order to restore biodiverse meadows. I think such education in the city has a very strong impact. On average, we spend 95 percent of our lives in cities, and what kind of nature we deal with in cities, how education is developed in cities, has a huge impact on our perception of nature and de facto affects the protection of ecosystems outside cities. It is in the cities that decisions are made, it is in the cities that there is a huge amount of capital with which we can protect really valuable areas outside the cities. I would even venture the thesis that nature conservation in the 21st century is decided in cities.
Queen Elisabeth Olympic Park in London
Photo: Kasper Jakubowski
The second way we can help nature today is through renaturalization - restoration, reconstruction of ecosystems. Often in Europe, new housing developments, road infrastructures, sports facilities are accompanied by large-scale renaturalization projects, in which riparian forests are being restored, rivers are being restored to their meandering course, floodplains are being restored, the banks of watercourses are being concretized, native plant species are being propagated and grafted into new parks, and rivers that formerly flowed underground are being uncovered. These activities are indeed numerous and involve very large ecosystems. This European trend is a huge achievement, after years of an instrumental approach to nature there has been a turnaround, ecosystems are being rebuilt, their functions are being restored, and residents are participating in the process. When we are in London or Berlin, we can see in many places restored smaller watercourses, parks that look natural, where we can feel like we are in a small nature reserve, and which only ten, fifteen years ago looked completely different. Their advantage is that they are within reach of daily human accessibility on foot - we don't have to go outside the city to have contact with such nature. At the same time, they are safe, accessible, they are alive, they educate, residents can feel part of the recovery processes taking place in them, and this is very important. Today London, after twenty years of policy change regarding restoration, is introducing the concept of a national park city, that is, a city that will be a network of protected areas, nature. A city that wants to be modern, with an innovative economy, in which nature is also an element of this modernity.
Bow Creek Ecological Park in London | New Strzeszyn estate in Poznań - architectural design: Insomia, greenery design: Katarzyna Martyna-Jakubowska, Kasper Jakubowski
photo: Kasper Jakubowski
Ola Kloc: You talk a lot not only about the impact of nature on our health and well-being, but also about the social aspects of creating green spaces together. Together with residents, you are creating pocket forests in Poznań. What are your experiences with such initiatives? Do you need to encourage residents to do them?
Kasper Jakubowski: A big surprise for me was how much interest there is in such actions. A thousand residents came to an action initiated by a Poznań developer to collectively plant pocket forests near housing estates one autumn weekend! It was incredible energy, and I have a feeling that there is a great need in cities to participate in corrective actions on nature conservation. And this doesn't just apply to otherwise laudable litter cleanup actions - residents expect more. It is important that they are well organized and that public trust is not lost. That this activism of residents is combined with systemic action, which will allow to maintain the achieved effect in subsequent years. The pocket forest is a special pro-environmental investment - we prepare the soil, design a mix of native species suited to the habitat, and plant them together with the residents - but it requires three years of care before it becomes a neighborhood self-growth. If we abandon this care in the initial period, residents' positive perceptions can backfire. Residents are sensitive to greenwashing activities, and they don't mind participating in a developer's action, provided it is based on very fair principles. It also seems to me that residents are open to different activities, we can invite them to restore a meadow, dig amphibian tanks or plant pocket forests. It's best when it's accompanied by some kind of joy, an inclusive element. Joanna Erbel wrote in an article that these microforests, or forests of biodiversity, as they are called in Poland, can be the cornerstone of a settlement, the first element that integrates residents. Many "new towns" in cities are being built today, towns built in an open field for tens of thousands of residents. When these new townspeople, who are anonymous and to some extent uprooted, appear in such a settlement, the joint planting of a pocket forest that will grow outside their windows can become something important. I see great integrative potential in this.
London Wetland Center - a nature reserve
photo: Kasper Jakubowski
Still another element is the belief that there are alternative solutions to nature management. An example is the Żabie Doły area near Krakow, where we managed to convince the municipality and residents to turn a small highly polluted wetland into a friendly place to meet nature. After five years, we have restored the ponds that historically existed there, cut down some of the trees to improve the light conditions, mowed in part and not in part, and created a beautiful bridge. This place functions fantastically, there are several hundred visits there every year, people from Krakow come, education takes place. This semi-wild, semi-natural place is proof that not everything has to be decorated, that residents are also able to appreciate these more natural green space solutions with a minimum of organization. We have also been helped by events such as Station Nature, which are ecological and inclusive picnics for residents and families, during which we educated about local wetland life, and talked about what wetland parks are. There is a great need for such solutions, the program around these areas must be attractive.
Ola Kloc: How do you encourage developers for such actions? Solutions that don't require a lot of money for maintenance should be a nice bargaining chip.
Kasper Jakubowski:If I had to convince developers to introduce pocket forests, I would convince them with price. After three years, we reduce the maintenance of these areas to a minimum, and developers are well aware of the costs of maintaining the greenery that architects and landscape architects design in the following years. The second argument is about retention: we need to think about how to manage rainwater, and we can't escape from this, and this "designed" biodiversity can perfectly receive some of the rainwater. The city of Gdansk is already demonstrating this, in the coming years it will become standard in many developments, so it is good to start implementing it already. The third thing is, speaking after Jan Mencwel, concretosis. This word has appeared in the world of developers; the time for rachitic greenery around investments, some green monstrosities, caricatures of trees is over, we need to think seriously about this greenery. If it is to be part of the development, it is to be impressive, it must be well designed and have multiple functions; green infrastructure must be integrated with gray. We need a different kind of greenery on housing estates - large trees, climbers, in order for these estates to simply sell better, and not be another manifestation of concrete. Developers themselves today are looking for solutions. I work with several, and of course, time, budget and plot area, biologically active area are sometimes constraints - so all the more reason why micro-scale activities, such as micro-forests, can be a solution and add value to the development, increase biodiversity, educate residents. And we can invite residents to interact.
London Wetland Center - a nature reserve
Photo: Kasper Jakubowski
Cross-sector cooperation is also very important. Developers by themselves will not change cities for the better, and neither will residents. What we need today in many cities are roundtables for discussion and standards, to consider what we can do, what we can change in the law, to set ourselves up for sustainable cooperation between different parties - scientists, activists, developers, architects, landscape architects, ecologists, urban planners, economists, visionaries, people who are already implementing innovative pro-environmental solutions in cities today.
I mentioned one example earlier - replacement plantings - they simply no longer work. Planting 500 or 1,000 columnar trees in an investment is no compensation in nature. We need a different compensation policy, maybe fewer trees, but make them huge. If we cut down the so-called volunteer trees in a development, compensation will not be at all the planting of avenue trees with a columnar habit or spherical trees, but the restoration of biodiverse or biocenotic greenery, where it is not the importance of a single tree that counts, but the community in a dozen square meters, which is what landscape architect Joanna Rayss, among others, has recently called for.
London Wetland Center - a nature reserve
Photo: Kasper Jakubowski
Ola Kloc: What in the law is the biggest stumbling block right now?
Kasper Jakubowski: The fact that the penalties for logging have decreased a lot. Another problem is that the interpretation of the Law on Nature Protection allows environmental departments and municipalities to issue decisions in which only the circumference of trees counts. Even if there is no room for planting, or the municipality is not willing to make replacement plantings on its land, we should look for other solutions. As I mentioned, I believe that in Poland the policy of nature compensation does not work at all. If an investment is made at the expense of wet meadows, wetlands or forest, the compensation should be an equivalent comparable to what has been lost, i.e. one should strive to restore the habitat to a state close to the original. We see invasion of alien species in some places, I think compensation in such a case would be the restoration of such a place by removing these species and restoring native species. Or to give active or sometimes passive protection (by not interfering) to an area in the city. We have very many tools. Western European cities also have a shortage of development sites, yet they are striving to balance. Developers won't take it all on themselves, but in cooperation with cities, solutions can be worked out so that when new settlements are built, investments are also made in biodiverse green areas, which will have both their natural, seminatural zones and carefully manicured, landscaped parts for intensive recreation, because we need them in cities, too.
Tåsinge Square, Copenhagen | Warsaw Breweries in Warsaw.
Photo: Agata Cieszewska, CoAdapt | Photo: Kasper Jakubowski
Ola Kloc: You mentioned good solutions in Gdansk - where else in Poland is good happening in this regard?
Kasper Jakubowski: We already have quite a few such solutions. A good example is Cieszyn, last year I planted a pocket forest there, which will open a new park in the southeastern part of the city. It will be established in the spirit of fourth nature: what is there will be made available, what nature has created on its own, taking care of the balance between open areas, meadows, the zone of ecological succession. An urban orchard will also appear there.
Very interesting is the design of the Warsaw Uprising mound prepared by Archigrest and topoScape. It is a successful example, a new benchmark for revitalization in Poland - the rubble heap of post-war Warsaw was adapted in such a way that an interesting park was created, and interference with nature was minimal. The result was a park that was safe, accessible, brilliantly storied, while a path about the rubble and a nature trail were created, which I had the opportunity to design. Much of the successional zone was left undisturbed, the vegetation that has grown on the mound for several decades will continue to evolve there.
I know that some smaller cities and municipalities are investing in the creation of park concepts, where not trees will be designed, but pocket forests separating individual zones: chillout, dog run, summer recreation. You can also see a more and more ecosystem approach on some developer estates, these are for now single examples, but I hope that there will be a snowball effect and this will become a standard. While designing one of the Poznań housing estates, I received pro-ecological guidelines from the investor on how to design greenery to be biodiverse and multifunctional. My jaw dropped from the impression! It was from the developer that I got the information that the greenery should be biodiverse, that peat should not be used, that instead of an agro-textile fabric under the plants one should give a 100 percent biodegradable fabric.percent biodegradable, mulch with natural materials, such as forest chips, keep a large share of native species, including biocenotic species, so that natural elements, such as dead wood, appear to increase biodiversity. This change is already happening, it is good for it to become a standard in the development strategies of cities and green boards.
Tiedemannsparken estate in the Ensjo neighborhood, Oslo
Photo: Agata Cieszewska, CoAdapt
Let me also mention the Moat and Slopes of the Citadel park in Warsaw: the Warsaw Greenery Board is implementing pilot, pro-environmental solutions there, for example, unmowing, mulching with leaves. This is such a testing ground, and what works will be transplanted and implemented in other green areas. It is fantastic that the Warsaw Greenery Board is not afraid of such experimental solutions, and thanks to this approach, cheaper, more ecological solutions can be introduced in other Warsaw areas. The Cracow Greenery Board is mulching autumn leaves in one of three planted micro-forests, in accordance with the principles of the closed-loop economy. Change is happening before our eyes, it's great to be a part of it and see the effects!
I also appreciate very much the solutions in which with a small outlay of resources - by introducing a path, wooden benches, clearing the area of trash, adding some kind of sculpture - the areas have been made accessible. There is such a not-so-spectacular project in Zabrze to make available post-industrial wastelands on the Bytomka River. Residents use them, they are very natural; not long ago they were heavily polluted, today they look like beautiful urban meadows, in which only this nature is gently maintained and made available. And these, in my opinion, are the future solutions for the city.
Ola Kloc: What are some other important trends in landscape design today?
Kasper Jakubowski:Edible cities and the introduction of areas that provide food. There are quite a few solutions: urban farms, allotment gardens, community gardens, greenhouses on balconies or fruit trees on housing estates. This is also the answer to the biodiversity crisis - fruit trees grow fast, so they can quickly benefit wild pollinators. Thanks to the phasing out of leaded gasoline, cities are starting to become farmable areas, so if you plant fruit trees, you can safely use them. Urban cooperatives and agricultural areas in cities are also a new theme, food growing on rooftops is emerging.
The second major trend in landscaping is biodiversity. There are already a number of parks where integrated solutions are being introduced: half of the area acts as a contemporary, landscaped park, the other half as a more biodiverse area. Different maintenance standards apply.
Bryggervangen, Copenhagen
Photo: Agata Cieszewska, CoAdapt
The third trend is the fourth nature, overgrowth, which is the use of ecological succession processes in design, often even no design or minimalist design. This involves leaving areas to natural succession, but inviting artists, for example. Ruderal, synanthropic greenery is also a very important element, which is even promoted in new projects.
The fourth trend is renaturalization, and is related to the second trend, biodiversity. It is about restoring transformed environments. For example, with new settlement developments, we are restoring watercourses, restoring meadows, creating Miyawaki forests, pocket forests, eco-parks, and establishing wetland parks.
The fifth trend is to seek environmental aesthetics. The late Professor Wojciech Kosinski spoke about this - acceptance of wildness in the city is not easy, so landscape architects must look for new aesthetics for these pro-nature solutions, their new justification. The professor recalled the approach to nature through art, there are still few designers in Poland who are able by the means of landscape architecture expression to make this semi-natural and biodiverse greenery, more attractive in the eyes of residents.
Ola Kloc: From whom can we learn this?
Kasper Jakubowski: From New York, for example, where sculptures are being introduced into these more natural spaces. Also important is the concept of narrative landscapes, that is, telling the story of these places through educational paths, and investing in people. In London, educational pavilions are being set up when such areas are established, and they are staffed by people who were previously involved in preserving these areas.
Berlin's Südgelände nature park is interesting. Almost 60 percent of its area is a zone of natural succession, devoid of interference, almost a reserve, where for seventy years we have been able to follow the ecological succession on a track in the middle of the city. About 30-40 percent of the area somewhat models this succession, and the rest is given over to artists who run an art gallery on this post-rail infrastructure.
The problem in Poland is the excessive commercialization of many spaces, especially post-industrial ones. Letting artists into them can bring new life, with soft social-artistic activities we build values that business alone cannot generate. However, care must be taken that these activities do not end up in gentrification. Many post-industrial sites in Upper Silesia, which used to be extraordinary architectural forms and were covered with succession forests years later, are now disappearing under the onslaught of investment or losing their authenticity replaced by low-quality "third nature."
Zahrādky Park in Prague
photo: Kasper Jakubowski
I recently took a walk on the heap of Wełnowiec in Katowice, it's a remarkable place called the Alps by locals, with a beautiful panorama of the entire Upper Silesia. As part of the revitalization, small architecture of very low standards is being built there, and we are losing the extraordinary potential of this place. In the Ruhr, in the Duisburg Nord park, small architecture refers to some extent to the post-industrial style, artists play with space, play with ecological succession, mowing and unmowing, create an unusual framework exposing ecological succession.
Ola Kloc: In view of this, what doesn't work for us?
Kasper Jakubowski: I'm talking to you on one of Krakow's housing estates, which was built in two years, and looking out the window, I know very well what hasn't worked here yet. We lack thinking about vertical elevations as elements of a biotope, about climbing plants, it really is time we covered every wall, every garage exit, every beam with climbing plants and gained additional biologically active areas. There is a lack of large trees, of taking care of existing trees. Large housing estates are being built, but there are no parks between them. If there is no room for them, then let the streets begin to perform this function, let there be taller greenery, shrubs, benches. In the alley between one neighborhood and another there are plenty of parking spaces, but there is not a single bench by the sidewalk, no shrubs to create a minimal buffer. The water flows into a pipe, there is no bioretention greenery, no rain garden of some kind, no retention basin that would at least slow down the water runoff a little.
Zahrādky park in Prague
Photo: Kasper Jakubowski
Ola Kloc: The recent news about planting trees in parking spaces in the center of Warsaw stirred up a lot of excitement. Are we ready for such a revolution?
Kasper Jakubowski: Filip Springer repeatedly emphasizes that the ecological, climate crisis is a crisis of imagination. In Poland, we are often victims not of the fact that there is a lack of funds, but of the fact that we cannot imagine that things could be different. As landscape architects, we should be advocates of nature, not be afraid to implement given solutions for the first time, to introduce more natural greenery in order to get the imagination of officials, investors, architects to work.
Ola Kloc: There is a website using artificial intelligence that converts the view we choose from Google maps into an idyllic, green-filled Dutch version (dutchcyclinglifestyle.com). It's great for the imagination.
Kasper Jakubowski: Revelation! I'm participating in CoAdapt, an SOS project for Warsaw estates run by SGGW and UW. We have created a game called "Settlement with Climate," which will be available digitally for the whole country. During the workshops with the communities of these settlements, it was apparent that they were stuck in a phase of complaining and thinking that not much can be done anymore. Thanks to this game, residents began to think with solutions, noticing where a vegetable garden could be created in boxes, where there could be a flower meadow, a micro-forest, or maybe a large tree, vines on facades. They saw what the results could be, how these activities affect the cooling of the estate, how biodiversity is increased, how much water they retain. This experience, going through the process together, has shown how residents' attitudes have changed. Maybe it's also a matter of better consultations - so that they aren't just on paper, a point to be ticked off, but so that we really start to all take each other seriously, listen to each other and think with solutions.
Ola Kloc: Thank you very much for the interview.
interviewed by Ola Kloc
Photo: Kasper Jakubowski,
Agata Ciszewska (SGGW/CoAdapt)
more: A&B 04/2024 - GREEN CITY,
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