10 imaginative ideas that are greening the urban environment.
Urbanization is often associated with environmental decline, but what would happen if cities flipped the script? What if they used some creativity to make urban development sustainable?
These initiatives are as groundbreaking as they are inventive, exploring new ways to use tech to get the best of both worlds. You could see these transformative, green ideas in a city near you.
1. The Gardens by the Bay
These Supertrees are quite possibly the most famous example of mind-blowing sustainable architecture. The Gardens by the Bay in Singapore include a clump of human-made trees between 80-160 feet tall. The towering branches have several sustainable benefits.
Around 200 species of greenery are growing on the towers, which helps with temperature management, storing carbon and collecting rainwater. They are also equipped with solar panels, making them powerful renewable energy generators for urban citizens.
An unexpected benefit is tourism. While tourism usually negatively impacts green spaces, this is a different brand of visitation called ecotourism, which introduces people to sustainable wonders in protected environments. The rest of the area contains a massive greenhouse space and innovative landscaping like the Cloud Gardens.
2. Sponge Cities and Vertical Forests
Sponge cities are urban designs incorporating greenery to collect water and carbon. Vertical forests are structures like the Supertrees which prove gardening can happen upward — not just horizontally. Neo-walled gardens incorporating hydroponics and living walls with biomass power generation invent new ways to explore architecture by existing alongside nature.
These designs assist with natural disaster mitigation, such as flood management. Homes are better protected with flora surrounding them to catch rainfall. The cooling effect of the stored water reduces the intensity of urban heat islands, which makes warmer areas use more energy and resources for cooling the buildings in the region.
3. Pop-Up Parks
Urban dwellers constantly lament the loss of green spaces. If there’s no room in the neighborhood, why not have a service that brings nature to you?
Pop-up parks are one of those innovations. The invention of Park(ING) Day brought this idea into the mainstream, reimagining what cities could do with surplus street parking spaces. People are setting up microparks near curbs with benches and activities for passersby.
4. Sharing Economies for Commuters
The sharing economy is all the rage, primarily for urban commuters. Don’t have a bike? Rent one from an app to pick up any eligible motorized bike or scooter around town. Connecting apps make this experience even more convenient and eco-friendly by giving riders optimized routes for reducing emissions and energy consumption.
5. Rainwater Collection
Harvesting rainwater with cisterns, gutters and barrels has been a staple of rural homesteads forever. What if these ideas were applicable on an urban scale?
Mexico City’s water crisis needed imaginative thinking like this, so it installed 100,000 capture systems to alleviate how much water it imports from other areas in Mexico, which is around 40% of its supply. The willingness to modernize an age-old idea for storing, filtering and purifying will target water scarcity and poverty in the city.
6. Footfall Harvesting
Humans use a lot of energy to walk to and fro — it turns out the strength in every step can create even more power. Novel tile technologies can weave seamlessly into sidewalks to recover the kinetic energy from walking.
High-traffic areas like shopping districts and tourist attractions have monumental potential for converting energy. In Rotterdam, Studio Roosegaarde incorporated a sustainable dance floor, which powers the venue with dancing and jumping partiers. Combine this unique tech that uses body heat for power and you have an unstoppable combination that could transform nightlife forever.
7. Green Burials
Conceptualizing a green city requires analyzing every corner, including cemeteries and memorial areas. The funeral industry stresses the planet as it tears up soil, confuses microbes and displaces species underneath the grass. Coffin materials seep into the ground, such as paint and metal fragments.
Therefore, urban sustainability must consider more eco-friendly burials. Innovations in biodegradable coffins may pique the interest of urban funeral homes. Another option is water cremation, which allows people to help nature even after death.
8. The 20-Minute City
Eliminating the carbon emissions from transportation requires cities to have robust public transit and to make necessities closer to pockets of people. People are motivated to use gas-guzzling cars if supermarkets, government agencies and coffee shops are more than 15-20 minutes away.
Designers fix this by placing these essential services within arm’s reach. Cities like Melbourne and Paris are on their way to making everything from leisure activities to education closer to the people who need it.
9. Repair Cafés
Throwaway culture and overconsumption under intensified capitalism means people buy more than ever and throw away just as much. Once something breaks, it goes directly to the landfill. Repair cafés are establishments appearing in urban areas that allow people to fix their phones, gaming equipment and other electronics, encouraging two sustainable ideals — the right to repair and circular economics.
These businesses are revolutionary because they provide customers with protection to freely fix equipment without risking legal action — even if a warranty is expired. People may start defaulting to a repair mindset, replacing the urge to buy something new from Amazon.
Alongside the repair services are product passports, which help consumers understand the supply chain impact of what they purchase. It increases transparency and forces corporations to hold themselves accountable if they want to keep consumers committed to their business.
10. 3D-Printed Communities
Why use wood, steel and other raw materials to build a house if 3D printers are available? Urban areas need more dwellings for an increasing population. There aren’t enough places to put people, which means expedited solutions must enter the picture. Modular, 3D-printed homes are a solution, especially as the technology becomes greener daily.
Consider the amount of cement used in traditional homes. It is one of the most carbon-polluting materials to make on the planet. Substituting it with 3D-printed cement replacers could slash the majority of its carbon footprint.
It promotes sustainable development by embracing eco-social justice and eliminating homelessness, poverty, classism and racial disparities. Making urban regions greener must encapsulate social fairness and ethics for a well-rounded, long-term solution. Plus, adding homes in cities will assist in regulating prices to make rental and ownership accessible to more demographics.
Green Is the New Gray
The drab colors associated with cities are about to experience a glow-up. Innovative environmental activists are collaborating with urban designers to make cities a more eco-friendly place to live.
You’ll notice a community garden pop up down the block or bike chargers starting to line street corners. In time, urban regions could be sustainability havens, giving humanity a glimpse into the climate-aware lifestyles of tomorrow.
