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Before Saturday’s main post, (in which I’ve got all sorts lined up for you, including a quick and easy plant idea, and a daft design idea and some FASCINATING bindweed news1) I thought it might be interesting for a change to have a think about bigger spaces, and so here’s a quick look back at this time a couple of years ago, when I was in the stunning Italian city of Bergamo, for their annual international landscape conference:
If you’ve ever indulged in any guerrilla gardening, or know someone who does this, I’d love to hear more
Walking around a garden, across fields, through woodland, reminds you just how soothing it can be, immersing ourselves in green. Getting out there, into nature, can be the smallest first step to positivity, however bad the weather might be outside. A walk though a wood now even has a name: forest bathing. A simple positive action now has a name which enables us to recognise the power within it.
Forest-bathing is the notion that getting out into green is good for us. A good walk, a wander through woodland, sitting amongst trees: it helps.
BUT, we aren’t all lucky enough to have easy access to green spaces, and this is where the planners, the architects, the councils and boroughs all have to make a proper note to themselves. Everyone has the right to access to green space, something I’ve been banging on about for decades. You can read more of my thoughts on accessible garden design and public spaces from back in 2010 here and here, where I ask this question:
What makes a great communal space, and what can we take from them to apply to the development of our own public or communal spaces, green or otherwise?
The usage of a public urban space can be transformed just by the introduction of trees and green: look at this transformation of the Piazza Vecchia in Bergamo.
It isn’t a transformation of just the view, but of how the space changes in what it offers to everyone.
Bergamo is a beautiful city; divided into two parts, the ancient upper area of the city is a 20-minute heart-pumping walk, or a 5-minute TERRIFYING journey on the funicular railway:
Let’s just say that having done it once, I vowed never to do that trip again - you’re pretty much vertical at some points.
Anyway, I want to talk to you quickly about city spaces:
This is what the main square, Piazza Vecchia, looks like for most of the year:
Once a year, however, the city invites a landscape designer to transform the space, using trees and plants to create an installation which changes the place into something very different.
In September 2022, the landscape designer Cassian Schmidt brought in green: and look what happens. The trees come, and lo and behold, the people come too:
Isn’t it extraordinary? The instant change from bleak (admittedly more beautiful than a lot of city centres I can think of, but devoid of green) to soft. Put the trees inland the people and the pollinators come. We drift towards the beauty and the softness, the texture and the colours.
Let’s take a moment to remind ourselves to get out into green. What can we do to make our cities greener?
I’ve been thinking about writing the occasional feature on public spaces - would you be interested? And by the way, if you’ve ever indulged in any guerrilla gardening, or know someone who does this, I’d love to hear more.
See you on Saturday, where plants, design and bindweed - and more - will be waiting to greet you…
Bet you never thought you’d read ‘fascinating’ and ‘bindweed’ in the same sentence.
Whoa! That really was vertical almost the whole way! Thanks for posting the video, I felt as though I was there on the ride with you.
Access to green public spaces is so important, not only for people's wellbeing but for cooling cities, biodiversity etc. This is something I'm involved with through my day job - and something which needs to be talked about more, so it's always good to see folks writing about it! 🙌🏻