How a Colombian city cooled dramatically in three years
Focusing on plants and people, Peter Yeung writes about how Medellín, known as the City of Eternal Spring with its year-round high temperatures, has created a people-led scheme of ‘green corridors’ to keep cool on the website ‘Reasons to be Cheerful.’
The project to plant and maintain hundreds of thousands of trees and plants across the city is carried out by 150 citizen-gardeners, who come from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds, with the support of 15 specialised forest engineers.
Yeung said: “The $16.3 million initiative led to the creation of 30 Green Corridors along the city’s roads and waterways, improving or producing more than 70 hectares of green space, which includes 20 kilometres of shaded routes with cycle lanes and pedestrian paths.
“The corridors are also designed to mimic a natural forest with levels of low, medium and high plants, including native and tropical plants, bamboo grasses and palm trees.
“Heat-trapping infrastructure like metro stations and bridges has also been greened as part of the project and government buildings have been adorned with green roofs and vertical gardens to beat the heat. The first of those was installed at Medellín’s City Hall, where nearly 100,000 plants and 12 species span the 1,810 square metre surface.”
This project began with 120,000 individual plants and 12,500 trees and by 2021 had reached 2.5 million plants and 880,000 trees. Yeung says it could result in the city becoming “five degrees cooler over the next few decades.”
Though Yeung writes of the challenges too: “The corridors in the inner city areas have to contend with huge amounts of pollution as traffic piles up. Often drivers will also dump trash along the corridors. And the city’s homeless are forced to take shelter in the spaces.”
Image: Mayor’s Office of Medellín.
Los Angeles just proved how spongy a city can be
Using sewers, gutters and infrastructure to channel rainwater out of cities quickly and avoid urban flooding is no longer working, writes Matt Simon of Wired. Instead making a city ‘spongy’ creates a ‘new bounce’.
Simon says: “The trick to making a city more absorbent is to add more gardens and other green spaces that allow water to percolate into underlying aquifers — porous subterranean materials that can hold water — which a city can then draw from in times of need. Engineers are also greening up medians and roadside areas to soak up the water that’d normally rush off streets, into sewers, and eventually out to sea.”
Rather than seeing 9 inches of rain over three days in Los Angeles as problematic, the city has taken measures to prepare. This includes replacing urban surfaces like concrete with natural surfaces, like dirt and plants, to create a ‘spongy’ city. Simon writes, “It has also built out ‘spreading grounds,’ where water accumulates and soaks into the earth.”
Manager of watershed management for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Art Castro, says: “There’s going to be a lot more rain and a lot less snow, which is going to alter the way we capture snowmelt and the aqueduct water. Dams and spreading grounds are the workhorses of local stormwater capture for either flood protection or water supply.”
More urban spaces are starting to get ‘spongy’ too. Read more on Wired.
Successful products are often followed by copycats. Over the past year we have become aware of an increase in reproductions of the Linea range attempting to create a similar aesthetic at a lower price. This can compromise the overall durability and environmental credentials of projects being delivered, affect ongoing maintenance requirements, and in some instances pose a risk of injury to the public. The design of Linea is deceptively simple while delivering exceptional attention to detail. Details matter not only for beauty, but also for providing durability, and safety, that will last decades. Linea strictly uses the highest quality and sustainable materials, has passed rigorous strength tests, and is designed for longevity, with easily replaceable parts. The product range is the result of hundreds of hours of research and development …
Melissa Gerke, our Communications and Education Specialist, is bringing a fun, interactive and informative presentation about our carbon neutral journey and latest products to customers in cities around Australia and in the US. In 30 minutes (plus Q&A) we will explore materials and finishes, touch and feel samples, and bond with your colleagues over delicious treats. There will also be a mystery prize for a lucky winner (optional). 2024 cities and dates include: Select from three catering options (optional): To book, contact Melissa Gerke mgerke@streetfurniture.com
Street Furniture Australia’s entire product range and manufacturing operation has received carbon neutral certification through Climate Active™. Achieving carbon neutral certification marks a significant milestone in our operation and the culmination of a four year long process of detailed measurement and analysis. Climate Active™ is the only Australian government-backed carbon neutral certification programme for businesses to measure, reduce, and offsets their carbon emissions. It is one of the most rigorous carbon-neutral programs in the world. An approved Emissions Reduction Strategy (ERS) is central to achieving certification through Climate Active. Street Furniture Australia has elected to use SBTi validated science-based targets to ensure their ERS is meaningful and aligns with the 2015 Paris Agreement – to limit global temperature rises to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels. For those emissions that can’t be …
Children living near green spaces ‘have stronger bones’: The link between stronger bones and green space for children is likely to be the result of more physical activities, Damian Carrington writes for The Guardian. Carington says, “Scientists found that children living in places with 20-25% more natural areas had increased bone strength that was equivalent to half a year’s natural growth. The study, the first of its kind, also found that the risk of having very low bone density was about 65% lower for these children.” The study took place in Belgium with Professor Tim Nawrot at Hasselt University. Nawrot said, “So the real public health message from this study is that urban planners can make stronger bones of children, and that has long-lasting consequences.” Carington adds, “The researchers said …
Image: Carroll Go-Sam. Are yarning circles the new decal? With requests for yarning circles becoming increasingly commonplace in design briefs, Carroll Go-Sam, Indigenous research fellow in the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre at the University of Queensland’s School of Architecture, writes on ArchitectureAU how they might be more meaningfully incorporated into projects. In the early stages of a project design, she writes, a yarning circle concept is often supported by Indigenous engagement. “But, after the initial meeting and discussion, human-centred design, iterative development, empathetic accommodation, questioning and dialogue all stop, with the result that poor built examples outnumber good ones,” she said. Go-Sam is concerned when yarning circles become “quasi-sacred zones of exclusion, set aside for one day a year during NAIDOC Week.” She outlines five recommendations for designing a yarning …
Plant diversity in urban green spaces led to sevenfold increase in insect species New research suggests that the introduction of even small green urban spaces can dramatically improve local biodiversity. A study lead by Dr Luis Mata of the University of Melbourne and Cesar Australia examined the ecological outcomes of planting 12 indigenous plant species on a small 195 square metre plot in Melbourne, adjacent to a major road. The research, Mata told The Guardian, “Was conducted in a very densely urbanised area, completely surrounded by streets and relatively tall buildings, and with limited access to surrounding green space.” The researchers identified the presence of 94 insect species, with 91 indigenous to the Australian state of Victoria. They estimated that by the final year of the study there were about …
