Nature Inclusive Design: A tool for degraded urban areas and climate change mitigation

Master thesis (2022)

Authors

G. SILVEIRA FERREIRA Architecture and the Built Environment

Contributors

A.A.J.F. van den Dobbelsteen Climate Design and Sustainability - Architecture and the Built Environment (mentor)
D. Piccinini Landscape Architecture - Architecture and the Built Environment (graduation committee member)
Faculty
Architecture and the Built Environment, Architecture and the Built Environment
Copyright: © 2022 GUILHERME SILVEIRA FERREIRA
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Published Date

08-11-2022

Language

English

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Faculty

Architecture and the Built Environment

Abstract

At a fast pace, the urbanization level is increasing worldwide and the projections indicate that 2/3 of the population will be living in urban environments by 2050. This implies many concerns, more population and urbanization, nowadays, are directly translated to more consumption counting to the inflated orb that lingers all the climate changes matter. The Built environment is directly connected to most of the damage caused by global warming, counting at least 1/3 of the total emissions.

Urbanization brings a series of problems that make the subject more complex and a sensitive topic that accelerates the global warming effect is the devastation and the conflict of the urban, opposing and dominating the green and blue territories. Recent research has analyzed and noted that the overall quality, and quantity of nature, encompassing fauna and flora are decreasing worldwide. In the Netherlands, since urbanization started to take place and dominate the lands, nature has reduced to approximately 15% of its original state, and with that, a chain of reaction emerges. Humans, by making nature grey, are leading to a general complete problem that confines the entire earth’s balance in terms of ecology: fewer species, and less variety of flora, conducting to other kinds of crisis, such as food, air, water, and weather.

Recent efforts are displaying that the urban lands, apart from being the human biotope, should encompass and blend with the natural environment. For that is necessary to change current scenarios and also consider bringing nature into the design process, which can cause a myriad of benefits and revert the damage that has already been placed. Simply balancing and offering more space for fauna and flora in the cities, the biodiversity can take its path of growing again, not only that, but combining a set of strategies could likewise be used to improve the life quality in the cities, managing weather and lessening the weather stress, and by that, mitigating the effects of the climate changes.