The Small and Benevolent Green- Bartlett Landscape Dissertation

Fig 1. Firefighters on London's Red Cross Street started a vegetable plot in 1940 (A London Inheritance, 1940. Post in 2019).

Forget six counties overhung with smoke, Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke,

Forget the spreading of the hideous town; Think rather of the pack-horse on the down, And dream of London, small and white and clean, The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green.

(Morris and Boos, 2010 [1868])

The Small and Benevolent

Abstract

Benevolent

In the Cambridge dictionary, the word benevolent is defined as "being kind and helpful, giving money or help to people or organizations that need it" (n.d.). This thesis's interpretation of the word is not the typical top-down benevolence, but rather a collective nurturing in a participatory landscape.

It is increasingly evident that green landscape elements not only actively improve human fulfillment but also better for nature and the environment. However, with urban sprawl and densification, the original vitality of urban green space (UGS) is slowly degenerating under the compact city's epidermis (Johnson, 2001; Haaland and Van Den Bosch, 2015). Even while some original large-scale green spaces remain, urban areas' densification often reduces accessibility (James et al., 2009). In order not to derail from nature, interventions are required to turn remaining gaps into green space. While top-down urban green infrastructure (UGI) planning is increasingly on city planning agendas, this process often does not reflect the community's needs, and the resulting spaces often lack emotion and flexibility. Community-based small-scale responses provide more definite community value by building connections through participatory engagement (De Certeau

Johnson, M. P. (2001). Environmental impacts of urban sprawl: a survey of the literature and proposed research agenda. Environment and planning A, 33(4), 717-735.

Haaland, C., & van Den Bosch, C. K. (2015). Challenges and strategies for urban green-space planning in cities undergoing densification: A review. Urban forestry & urban greening, 14(4), 760771.

James, P., Tzoulas, K., Adams, M. D., Barber, A., Box, J., Breuste, J., ... & Handley, J. (2009).

Towards an integrated understanding of green space in the European built environment. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 8(2), 65-75.

De Certeau, M., & Mayol, P. (1998). The Practice of Everyday Life: Living and cooking. Volume 2 (Vol. 2). U of Minnesota Press.

Otto, J., Zerner, C., Robinson, J., Donovan, R., Lavelle, M., Villarreal, R., ... & Pearl, M. (2013). Natural connections: perspectives in community-based conservation. Washington DC: Island Press.

and Mayol, 1998; Otto et al., 2013). These small-scale participatory projects include both landscape architects, who provide professional perspectives and knowledge, and the residents, who contribute to long-term and spontaneous changes to the living environment.

To take accurate interventions, experts need to understand how to propose user-centered benevolent approaches that work closely with the local; simultaneously, individuals and communities also require the guidance of relevant knowledge. This paper stands at the perspective of both, demonstrating the process and value of such collaborative and participatory processes in the urban landscape through a study of London. Multiple research methods, including case studies, interviews, typological study, historical and theoretical research, are taken to evaluate different types of small-scale sites in terms of their participatory extend, and how their

function is developed and sustained. This discussion's significance is that it raises awareness of the environmental problem left over by urban growth, will be a chance to revitalize the forgotten city gap and highlights the potential that many small spaces have in contributing to revitalizing both the environment and community. Ultimately, give a broader spectrum of meanings for the landscape architect's responsibilities: observing and working for users' requirements with empathy.

Abstract Introduction Ⅰ Everywhere greening

The healing green

Changing gaps into seeds

The forgettable but mighty small

Ⅱ The benevolent design

Top-down, bottom-up and co-design

Pervious theories and practices

Case studies Ⅲ City as a plant nursery

The defective space

Criteria used to evaluate the intervention

Site typology methodology

Site common characteristics

1 5 17 31

7 19 33

10 20 35

12 24 38 38

Site types Guidebook

Ⅳ Discussion

Discussion about small green approaches in urban detective space

Discussion about community engagement with a nurturing attitude

Further discussion: protection and maintenance

Limitation

Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendix-

Talk with experts

Print version

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41 98 104

94 112 112 130

94 101

Introduction

The growth of London promotes urban prosperity with enormous planning schemes that emerge consecutively. However, this action left many sickly spaces germinating injustice and deprivation in living conditions (UIC, n.d.). Studying and living in London, I saw both problems and positive sides, particularly in UGS, and luckily Londoners are working on themselves from small aspects to improve their living space. By conducting these discoveries into the thesis, I aim to study the participatory small-scale UGS design in London, give guidance to the urban context with a similar issue.

The dense character of modern cities, although associated with higher energy efficiency and innovation rate, people realize that the rapid urbanization of the world leads to inadequate and overburdened urban infrastructure services and low ecosystem functions, which cannot meet social and economic sustainable development requirements (Williams et al., 1996; Burton et al., 2003). This urban density reduces urban green spaces (UGS) per capita (James et al., 2009). According to data from 77 countries, few cities can implement a UGS system accessible to all residents (United Nations, 2019: 45). That means that while open UGS can make cities more inclusive, many residents cannot easily access them. In such places with insufficient public areas and inadequate facilities, the living environment is becoming isolated. The problems of UGS caused significant city issues like urban heat island effect and air pollution. Inevitably, it impacts health, wellbeing, and broader social, environmental, economic problems (poverty, unemployment, crime, social disconnection, loneliness) (Haaland and Van Den Bosch, 2015).

UIC. (n.d.) London SEE Challenges. Coolgeography.co.uk.

Williams, K., Burton, E., & Jenks, M. (1996). Achieving the compact city through intensification: An acceptable option. The compact city: A sustainable urban form, 83-96.

Burton, E., Jenks, M., & Williams, K. (Eds.). (2003). The compact city: a sustainable urban form. London: Routledge.

James, P., Tzoulas, K., Adams, M. D., Barber, A., Box, J., Breuste, J., ... & Handley, J. (2009). Towards an integrated understanding of green space in the European built environment. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 8(2), 65-75.

United Nations. (2019). “United Nations Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” in The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2019 Fig 2. Nultylighting. [Online image].

CONCEPTS FOR COMPACT CITY LIVING.

Fig 2. The Compact City (Nultylighting, n.d.)

Peschardt, K. K. (2014). Health Promoting Pocket Parks in a Landscape Architectural Perspective. Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen.

Fuller, R. A., & Gaston, K. J. (2009). The scaling of green space coverage in European cities. Biology letters, 5(3), 352-355.

Lefaivre, L., & Tzonis, A. (2003). Critical regionalism: architecture and identity in a globalized world. Munich: Prestel Publishing.

Despite the threats, valuable opportunities exist to correct the shortcomings in the urbanization process and improve the urban environment by focusing on UGS systems and building UGI. Small green spaces and green interventions (such as small parks, street trees, and private gardens) are more accessible and more easily integrated into dense urban structures than large UGS and also offer opportunities to engage the community in participatory development, creating community growth. Environmentally, they can be used as steppingstones between other UGS classes to improve UGI quality (Peschardt, 2014). Although UGS systems' benefits have been extensively examined, most studies are about large green spaces, while fewer studies concentrate on the small green units (Fuller and Gaston, 2009).

This thesis focuses on London's defective space with low participation and studies the potential of turning these sites into small-scale UGS with citizens engagement. Observation found that many small UGS are often the result of citizens' spontaneous practices, such as community streets and their front gardens, which prove the necessity of studying the limitations and opportunities of designer-involved top-down and user-oriented bottom-up approaches (Lefaivre and Tzonis, 2003). As landscape architects, we have to observe this spontaneity and design UGS in a more diversified manner while learning to engage with and foster community participatory processes and understand how to improve our surroundings in this current urbanization status.

Overall, this thesis consists of an introductory part, four sections, a conclusion, a site typology Booklet, and an appendix of interview transcriptions. The introductory part describes human-related issues linked to green space brought about by urban development and how humans

respond to the environment. The main body first briefly describes the background, introduces the importance of urban green research, followed by presenting the thesis's range and definition, including the top-down and bottomup approaches, previous practices, and case studies of London's projects. In the method section, I tried to clarify why and how to use selected criteria to evaluate the strategy and different typologies of sites shown in the Guidebook. Discussion is described afterward to expand the topic in a broader and deeper perspective.

Everywhere Greening

"Like a property developer, my eyes are always peeled for unused spaces – though rather than build on them, I want to de-pave them and turn them green. They do not need to be big areas but could be margins of pavements or areas of estates that are unnecessarily paved over."

(Kate Poland, 2019)

Fig 3. Kate is continually looking for unused areas for green-up, like this dull plot, which could be transformed into a mini-park (Poland, 2019).

Poland, K. (2019) The Citizen Gardener: ‘Turn dead, grey space into steppingstones for insects. 6 September 2019. www.hackneycitizen. co.uk/2019/09/06/the-citizen-gardener-turn-dead-grey-space-intostepping-stones-for-insects/ (accessed 20 May 2020).

Directly between studio and home, day in and day out, the common courtyard on College Place that I pass every day is my happiness source. Although it is tiny, I can find that every seedling and tree is being carefully maintained. This kind of mutual giving between people and nature radiates warmth. Apart from the vast royal parks near me like Regent's park, that is my favorite place to visit when I was upset, when the project was stuck, or when locking down.

The healing green

Fig 4. View on the College Place

Ulrich, R. S. (2006). Essay: Evidencebased health-care architecture. The Lancet, 368, S38-S39.

Martinez-Gonzalez, M. A., Varo, J. J., Santos, J. L., Irala, J. D., Gibney, M. J., Kearney, J., & Martinez, J. A. (2001). Prevalence of physical activity during leisure time in the European Union. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2001;33(7)

Prince, M., Patel, V., Saxena, S., Maj, M., Maselko, J., Phillips, M. R., & Rahman, A. (2007). Global mental health 1-No health without mental health. Lancet, 370(9590), 859-877.

Souter-Brown, G. (2014). Landscape and urban design for health and well-being: using healing, sensory and therapeutic gardens. London: Routledge.

Dinnie, E., Brown, K. M., & Morris, S. (2013). Reprint of “Community, cooperation and conflict: Negotiating the social well-being benefits of urban greenspace experiences”. Landscape and urban planning, 118, 103-111.

Mumford, L. (1968). The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects. New York: Harvest Books.

Groenewegen, P. P., Van den Berg, A. E., De Vries, S., & Verheij, R. A. (2006). Vitamin G: effects of green space on health, well-being, and social safety. BMC public health, 6(1), 149.

Escobedo, F. J., Kroeger, T., & Wagner, J. E. (2011). Urban forests and pollution mitigation: Analyzing ecosystem services and disservices. Environmental pollution, 159(8-9), 2078-2087.

Nowak, D. J., Crane, D. E., & Stevens, J. C. (2006). Air pollution removal by urban trees and shrubs in the United States. Urban forestry & urban greening, 4(3-4), 115-123.

London Biodiversity Partnership. (2002). Our green capital. Strategy Directorate. Greater London Authority.

Many people living in the city will feel this way: looking at the skyscrapers, traveling through the bustling crowd, often feel anxious and upset. Studies indicate that residents in the city center are more likely to face higher rates of lifestyle and stress-related disorders like diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, depression and mental fatigue in urban populations (Ulrich, 2006; Martinez-Gonzalez, 2001). UGS is our window to maintain contact with society and nature. Many theories describe the role of green environment in the human and cultural aspects, explaining that the natural environment can promote physical health by increasing outdoor activities, restoring attention, reducing stress, and evoking positive emotions (Prince et al., 2007; Souter-Brown, 2014). Furthermore, it promotes a deeper level of urban economic and cultural benefits through social integration and participation. Notably, participatory engagement with local greenspaces development can build community relationships and strengthen cultural and landscape resilience (Dinnie et al., 2013).

The benefit of green is also linked to the environmental perspective. Population density has caused people to complain about urban problems such as noise, filth, and lack of greenery (Mumford, 1968). Green space can fix issues like the heat island effect by filtering air, eliminating pollution, reducing noise, lowering the temperature, infiltrating rainwater, replenishing groundwater, and providing food (Groenewegen et al., 2006; Escobedo et al., 2011). For example, by absorbing certain pollutants, street trees can isolate noise while reducing air pollution (Nowak et al., 2006). Additionally, the London Biodiversity Partnership indicated that London parks have an essential role in the conservation of wildlife species (2002).

Fig 5.

Author's photography.

Gasholder Park, Kings Cross. 3 July 2019.

Ritchie, H & Roser, M (2018) - "Urbanization". OurWorldInData.org. September 2018, revised November 2019. www. ourworldindata.org/ urbanization (accessed 22 May 2020).

Beatley, T. (2011). Biophilic Cities. Integrating Nature Into urban design and Planning. Washington DC: Island Press.

James, P., Tzoulas, K., Adams, M. D., Barber, A., Box, J., Breuste, J., ... & Handley, J. (2009). Towards an integrated understanding of green space in the European built environment. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 8(2), 65-75.

Poland, K. (2019). The Citizen Gardener: ‘Turn dead, grey space into stepping stones for insects’ [Photography]. Hackney citizen. www.hackneycitizen. co.uk/2019/09/06/thecitizen-gardener-turndead-grey-space-intostepping-stones-forinsects/ Laker, L. (2012). How a Little changed a lot in Clapton Park estate. 11 October 2012. www. theguardian.com/ environment/blog/2012/ oct/11/clapton-parkestate-john-little (accessed 13 November 2019).

Changing gaps into seeds with the appropriate approach, which did not destroy the site context, but through small-scale interventions has over time transformed it. Just like John planted a 'seed' here, it was watered and nourished together by his team and residents and gradually became a comfortable living space that improved according to the community's needs.

Presently, more than half of the worldwide population lives in the city area (Ritchie and Roser, 2018). Cities have become a new habitat for modern people, supplying people's needs for outdoor exercise, social interaction activities, and living experiences. Paradoxically, modern cities often provide limited access to greenspaces and leave people disconnected from nature outside the city (Beatley, 2011).

As a result of densification, the area of green space per capita has decreased while the distance between UGS and residence has increased (James et al., 2009). Therefore, urban gaps that are more easily overlooked and are closer to lives, such as "margins of pavements or estates area that are unnecessarily paved over," may receive increased attention (Poland, 2019).

On 14 November 2019, our studio had a field visit with John Little (Director at Green roof Shelters and Partner at Grass Roof Company) to the Clapton Park Estate in Hackney. The estate nicknamed 'The Poppy Estate' by residents, has been cared for and managed by John Little for nearly 20 years. He was very excited to show us how the residential courtyard's face has changed from the empty lawn covered with strange bushes to food growing gardens with permaculture and glamorous views. In John's words: "It all started here. We noticed that Fatima (resident) was sowing coriander around the edges. It seemed blindingly obvious that she was keen to grow, and I was keen to find some growing space." (Laker, 2012).

Rather than how beautifully the estate's gardens have been designed, the most attractive aspect for me is how the space is integrated into people's lives. The garden began with residents' spontaneous behavior and has developed

Community initiative and participatory processes are also seen in efforts to improve other urban sites, like derelict spaces. This intervention's simplicity and innocence is a direct response to the limited conditions, lifestyles, and values in a specific area, and it can better reflect the authenticity of the place (Lefaivre and Tzonis, 2003).

As for designers, the discussions on human-oriented urban design can be traced back to Jane Jacobs's criticism of Le Corbusier's large-scale urban planning: that the park will become lifeless, unsafe, and deserted (Jacobs, 2016 [1961]). Projects such as Clapton Park Estate seem to be a combination of designers' knowledge and users' wishes. So, I started the intention to collect more such 'seeds' that can turn the city's gaps into dense groves. What kind of potential do they have?

See the video of The Poppy Estate (French, 2014): https://vimeo.com/108000075

Lefaivre, L., & Tzonis, A. (2003). Critical regionalism: architecture and identity in a globalized world. Munich: Prestel Publishing.

Jacobs, J. (1960). The death and life of great American cities. Reprint, New York: Vintage, 2016.

Fig 6. Resident Carol (right) with John in the training course on sustainable management of housing estates (Laker, 2012).

Sandalack, B. A., & Uribe, F. A. (2010). Open space typology as a framework for design of the public realm.

The Faces of Urbanized Space, 5, 35-75.

Roy, S., Byrne, J., & Pickering, C. (2012). A systematic quantitative review of urban tree benefits, costs, and assessment methods across cities in different climatic zones. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 11(4), 351-363.

Wolch, J. R., Byrne, J., & Newell, J. P. (2014).

Urban green space, public health, and environmental justice: The challenge of making cities ‘just green enough’. Landscape and urban planning, 125, 234244.

Simon, H. A. (1969). The sciences of the artificial. Reprint, New York: MIT press, 2019.

The forgettable but mighty small

During the field visit, I remember John was carefully respecting the design of a small sign and saying that even signs are alive. Whether in life or design, discrimination of small and neglected details often causes the project to lose its foundation or lack of soul. For the city scale, the front garden of a family is small, whereas, for this front garden, one block of plants is small. It is these little ones that make up a complete and exciting project. When grasping the correlation between places and users, a micro strategy can also achieve great results. Small things like pavement in the front garden or tree pits on the street (not even called a space) may become a significant target area to fill the UGS patches.

Urban space types include street, square, greenspace, linear system (path, corridor), and other outdoor recreation facilities, which are further divided into more forms (Fig 7.) (Sandalack and Uribe, 2010). Public UGS include gardens, nature reserves, playgrounds, community yards, riparian areas such as rivers and trails, and less traditional spaces like green walls and cemeteries (Roy et al., 2012; Wolch et al., 2014). There are many opinions on the study of the concept of small-scale space in landscapes. Herbert A. Simon stated in The Science of the Artificial (2019 [1969]) that landscape design is classified into three categories according to the scales and proportions of objects: the first is extensive area watershed management and overall city design. The second is the design of urban squares and communities with more than 340 hm² and a relatively large area. That is, the intersection of urban planning and architecture belongs to the discipline of urban design. The third is the amusement garden spaces, such as gables, paving, sculptures, pergola, seats, street lamps, pools, and turf are all small-scale urban

landscape design. Small-scale space can also be understood as space where the distance between people is relatively small, and the intensity of communication is relatively large in various communication occasions. It can be a courtyard, a patio, an atrium, a gap between buildings, roof gardens, and other forms.

Large scale biodiversity space indeed has a more notable impact worldwide. For example, deforestation in the Amazon could increase carbon emissions by 25-40% (Laurance, 2004). However, due to urban conditions' limitations, small-scale interventions have the advantages of small footprint, direct and straightforward functions, reliable accessibility, and high utilization rate, pays more attention to interpersonal communication. Also, small-scale approaches require less preparation time and financial support so that designers and communities can try things without many risks (Whyte, 1980; Nordh et al., 2009). Therefore, the forgettable small things are actually mighty and powerful being a treatment to tackle urban diseases.

Laurance, W. F. (2004). Forestclimate interactions in fragmented tropical landscapes. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 359(1443), 345-352.

Whyte, W. H. (1980). The social life of small urban spaces. Washington DC: Conservation foundation.

Nordh, H., Hartig, T., Hagerhall, C. M., & Fry, G. (2009). Components of small urban parks that predict the possibility for restoration. Urban forestry & urban greening, 8(4), 225-235.

Fig 7. Urban space typology and scale of landscape design (own illustration)

Ⅱ

General range and Definition

The Benevolent Design

"We need to reflect on the conflicts- as a bottom-up approach to design, that recognizes the value of the identity of physical, social, and cultural situation, rather than mindlessly imposing narcissistic formulas from the top-down." (Tzonis, 2008)

Tzonis, A. (2008). Peak and Valleys (by Architecture) in a Flat (Digital) World. Weimar: Professorship Theory and History of Modern Architecture.

Fig 8. Aldo Van Eyck's playground. He proposed a method based on the interpersonal relationship model (Post by CircA, 2014).

Top-down, bottom-up and co-design

Top-down and bottom-up can be seen in the leadership style in practice. The top-down approach starts from the whole and is further decomposed into smaller parts. In most cases, some leaders directly issue commands. On the contrary, the bottom-up approach is based on incoming data from the environment (like initiated within the community) to form a more extensive system (Three-Toed Sloth, 2012). It is a process that starts at the grassroots level and involves people working together in decision-making (Stewart et al., 2015: 240 -246). In UGS schemes, both forms can exist in projects, the top-down is more presided over by LGAs (Local government association) and private enterprise, or government allows participation in the planning processes, the latter features users (locals, community groups) actively participate in the scheme by self-organization (Fredericks et al., 2019). In the early 1960s in Britain when cities are quickly changing, the contradiction between the two models emerged as people argued that "a more finely tuned, community-oriented and environmentally sensitive strategy is needed than the large-scale, top-down strategies set out in the Sustainable Communities Plan" (Power and Houghton, 2007: 9). Then the expert design and diffuse design show the trend of accommodation, forming a practice model of experts and users’ coalitions' co-design (Manzini, 2015). Designers start to rethink this top-down mode, eager to find a more benevolent approach to capture regional site characteristics and how various aspects collaborate through the mutual negotiation system to engage communities (Lutzoni, 2016).

Community-oriented UGS can maximize the benefits of green intervention, and green space can promote social cohesion and communities' sustainable development

Three-Toed Sloth. (2012) "Top-Down Design (Introduction to Statistical Computing)". 24 September 2012 www.//bactra.org/ weblog/950 (accessed 8 March 2020)

Stewart, G., Manges, K., & Ward, M. (2015). Empowering Sustained Patient Safety. Journal Of Nursing Care Quality, 30(3), 240-246. doi: 10.1097/

Fredericks, J., Caldwell, G. A., Foth, M., & Tomitsch, M. (2019). The city as perpetual beta: fostering systemic urban acupuncture. In the Hackable City (pp. 67-92). Springer, Singapore.

Power, A., & Houghton, J. (2007). Jigsaw cities: Big places, small spaces. Bristol: Policy Press.

Manzini, E. (2015). Design, when everybody designs: an introduction to social innovation. Cambridge: MIT press.

Lutzoni, L. (2016). Informalised urban space design. Rethinking the relationship between formal and informal. City, Territory and Architecture, 3(1), 1-14.

Burrage, H. (2011). Green hubs, social inclusion and community engagement. In Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Municipal Engineer (Vol. 164, No. 3, pp. 167-174). Thomas Telford Ltd.

Wayward. (n.d.). What we do. Wayward website. www.wayward. co.uk/#whatwedo (accessed 30 June 2020).

Power, A., & Houghton, J. (2007). Jigsaw cities: Big places, small spaces. Bristol: Policy Press.

(Burrage, 2015). The paper looks at global pioneer theories over the last 70 years and recent precedents projects from London. In some residents highly involved small-scale UGS manner, plants act as tools to communicate and form the basis of participation to meet people's desire for nature. The Wayward collective in London offers an example of this, where designers, artists, and urban growers have been creatively transforming abandoned sites into community-engaged, interactive spaces with planting. Successful projects like Union Street Urban Orchard, The Queen's Walk Windows Gardens, and even furniture like Better Air Benches attract local communities and international audiences (Wayward, n.d.). What the collective is doing strengthens the definition of 'benevolent' of this thesis- nurturing a space that offers collective, community benevolence through the gift of participatory giving (Power and Houghton, 2007).

The city as a playground

Previous theories and practices

This section is not an exhaustive list of small-scale UGS research, but the models that looked at in the related study provide knowledge and inspiration.

From 1947 to 1978, Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck created a playground system based on Amsterdam's urban gaps to provide interventions for children's play. These interventions were carried out on some temporarily unused sites in the parks, squares, and abandoned grounds (Withagen and Caljouw, 2017). He overthrew the urban system proposed by CIAM (International Congresses of Modern Architecture) and adopted a bottom-up approach, interspersed the playground into tight urban gaps, and interacted with the surrounding urban fabric (Lefaivre, 2007). He hopes to have a playground in every Amsterdam block so that residents can access it at any time and form the playgrounds as the result of citizens' and institutions' participation process (Eyck, 2008 [1962]). This work's importance should be traced to an unconventional concept of open space, which practices started in part of the community and developed a micro-urban form (Lutzoni, 2016). While he was working with inserting play into the city, the strategy of scavenging and opportunistically finding sites available within the urban fabric offers a model for finding spaces in the city, and the radical transformation these small spaces can create.

Withagen, R., & Caljouw, S. R. (2017). Aldo van Eyck’s playgrounds: Aesthetics, affordances, and creativity. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 1130.

Lefaivre, L. (2007). Ground-up city: Play as a design tool. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers.

Eyck, A. V. (2008). The Child, the City and the Artist: An essay on architecture: the inbetween realm. Reprint, Connecticut: Sun, 1962.

Lutzoni, L. (2016). Informalised urban space design. Rethinking the relationship between formal and informal. City, Territory and Architecture, 3(1), 1-14.

Fig 9. Union Street Urban Orchard (Wayward, 2010)

Fig 10. Queen's Walk Windows Gardens (Wayward, 2013)

Fig 11. Playground in a vacant lot, before and after, Amsterdam, Dijkstraat, 1948 (Post by Quigley, 2014).

Fig 13. King George’s Fields, Rotherhithe (ianVisits, 2020)

Fig 12. Paley Park (Barb, 2011)

Pocket park

Pocket Park refers to a type of small public UGS. During industrial transformation, New York's land prices rose steeply, traffic was chaotic, and life pressure enormous. Therefore, the claim that new forms of more accessible small city parks should be developed came into being. Opened in 1967 and designed by Zion & Breen Associates, the world's first pocket park, Paley Park, marked the birth of the micro park (Tate, 2013: 4). Nowadays, there are many hidden pocket parks scattered throughout New York and other cities, like King George Fields in London, providing green refuges to keep people from the city's hustle and bustle.

Urban acupuncture

Tate, A. (2013). Great city parks. Oxford shire: Taylor & Francis.

Solà-Morales i Rubió, M., Frampton, K., & Ibelings, H. (2008). A matter of things. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers.

The theory is proposed by Spanish architect Manuel de Solà-Morales, practiced and spread by Finnish architect Marco Casagrande and Brazilian politician Jaime Lerner. 'Urban Acupuncture' (Solà-Morales I Rubio ́et al., 2008: 24) is a method that precisely applies small interference to the

target area, like "a spark diffusing current" (Lerner, 2014: 4) to produce radiation and a big-scale effect on the surrounding area (Lerner, 2014; Casagrande, 2010). The actions do not change the original site's and structure and can make the most effective changes in urban public space with the least effort and the shortest time. As an acupuncturist acts on the whole body through minimal intervention, it is a more benevolent top-down exercise because rather than imposing large-scale rough planning and unsympathetic management, it lets urban planners see a more targeting and more sustainable spatial strategy that respect sites regionality.

Fig 14. Urban Acupuncture (Casagrande, 2011)

Informal greening

People in the city also have their ways to resist the lack of greenery in the city. They roll up their sleeves and plant green plants by themselves in unexpected corners. Guerrilla gardening is a way to create micro gardens by a group of city residents looking for green spaces that have not been used. Although these growers have not received any official permission, people (sometimes even local governments) appreciate their efforts to green the city (Reynolds, 2014).

Besides, community farms, shared community gardens, wall gardens, mini gardens, window farms, and other informal plantings, all reflect people's desire to introduce nature into the city.

All of the four types contain small approaches dealing with urban issues. The Pocket Park and Informal greening reflect people's green space desires; the latter is a spontaneous community practice, while Urban Acupuncture is a more benevolent top-down mode. More in combination, the playground project depicts a predecessor of the community participatory model.

Fig 15. Richard and Lyla (resident) used pelargoniums and herbs to plant this tree pit (Wilson, 2013).

Lerner, J. (2014). Urban Acupuncture. Washington DC: Island Press.

Casagrande, M. (2010). Taipei Organic Acupuncture. Ruin Academy, 6, 2010.

Reynolds, R. (2014). On guerrilla gardening: A handbook for gardening without boundaries.

London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Dalston eastern curve garden. (2020). About the garden. Dalston Eastern Curve Garden website. www. dalstongarden.org (accessed 3 June 2020)

J&L Gibbons. (2020). Dalston Eastern Curve Garden. Projects of J&L Gibbons. www.lglondon.com/DalstonEastern-Curve-Garden (accessed 3 June 2020)

Turner, T. (2015). “Interview with Johanna Gibbons London landscape architect of J&L Gibbons” from LAA Landscape Architecture Association. 3 August 2015. www. landscapearchitecture. org.uk/interview-withjohanna-gibbonslandscape-architect-ofjl-gibbons. (accessed 18 May 2020)

Case studies

The case studies look at projects ongoing or have already been transformed within London, by studying their green neighborhood approaches, provide ways of identifying and transforming small-scale sites in London or elsewhere.

Dalston Eastern Curve garden

Built in 2010 on London's old Eastern Curve railway, the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden is a classic case of turning abandoned space into UGS that works for the community. The garden is in Hackney, the third densely populated borough of London. Dalston is one of the most Hackney's populous districts, where most people live in apartments, and few have their own gardens (Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, 2020). To transform this 0.2-hectare derelict land with low accessibility into a community garden and cultural center, the year's Making Space in Dalston Initiative brought together Hackney Council, inhabitants, and associations with MUF Architect/Art and J&L Gibbons Landscape Architects to explore ideas to address Dalston's shortcomings in quality open places (J&L Gibbons, 2020). As Johanna Gibbons, the founder of J&L Gibbons, explained her community approach in an interview with Landscape Journal, "We do not do consultation, we do engagement" (Turner, 2015). Rather than doing a top-down consultation, she believes that people need to see their concerns are answered, proving a sincere and respectful attitude as a landscape designer to solve problems.

The garden mainly used plants through a very active, engaged, community participatory process to transform the site's desolate status and increase biodiversity. In addition to

Fig 16. Author's photography. Dalston Eastern Curve Garden. 2 June 2019.

Milliken, S. (2014). Meanwhile spaces. Research.net. 175-177.

Calhoun. C. (1986). Computer Technology, Large-Scale Social Integration, and the Local Community. Urban Affairs Quarterly 22, 2.

retaining the spontaneous vegetation, suitable arbors and shrubs were planted, including hazel, hawthorn, and ferns. Six large cultivation beds were installed to grow food, which attracts more wild animals such as bees and butterflies (Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, 2020). This oasis then has become a place connecting with nature, bringing life to Hackney.

In the summer of 2019, my friend and I visited this community paradise. After passing a narrow entryway, it surprisingly feels like entering another fertile field. The band was playing light music while people were chatting and enjoying the afternoon tea, some were family members, and some were good friends. In addition to outdoor benches, there are many wooden pavilions exported by the architectural collective Exyzt (Milliken, 2014), and a pineapple house for heating in winter. From the Garden's Managers, public events are held throughout the year, involving a wide range of volunteers. All proceeds from the cafe go into the operation of the garden, and educational programs run every summer term like the 'Inspired by Nature,' which allows first-year students to plant their seeds and watch them growing up (Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, 2020).

The secret of the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden's achievement is that it is deeply rooted in the community. As Craig Calhoun, an American sociologist, argues that one of a city's essential social features is to provide a public space where strangers can "communicate and observe, debate, and grow" in multiple contacts (1986:341). This small open space brings together residents and neighbors from all walks of life, eliminating social isolation and providing broad health, environmental, and economic benefits. The garden's success contributed to the transformation of the neighborhood, which led to changes in the garden's management and

community engagement. With the garden becoming more conspicuous to the public, it has lost a large part of the original community, which draws it essential to carrying on the engagement. Thus, it offers lessons on how to build and foster participatory projects, but also on the challenges of sustaining the collective element of these projects over long periods.

Case study- E5 Postcode gardener

What if people want to bring green to their backyards or front walk? The E5 Postcode Gardener Project allows the inhabitants to grow nature at their doorstep without having to become experts in the matter, which is a good case of joint projects to improve living space. As part of the 10XGreener project, the Experiments team at Friends of the Earth developed a 'Postcode gardener' model, raising money to employ a postcode gardener to work with the community dispose of areas such as front gardens and abandoned spaces (Crowdfunder, 2020).

Postcode Gardener is primarily about working with and within communities to build a vision of green streets and providing support through expertise and technology to put it into practice. As a pilot project, the Postcode Gardener initiative starts in Hackney's small sites, trying different things to solve environmental problems. Many of the projects are ongoing, but we can see Daubeney Road being boosted with wildlife (Friends of the Earth, 2018). Joined the project called Plant the High Street with the National Trust to grow greens

Crowdfunder. (2020). 10XGreener project by Friend of the Earth. www.crowdfunder. co.uk/10xgreener. (accessed 15 March 2020).

Friends of the Earth. (2018). UK’s first postcode gardener springs into action in Hackney. Friends of the Earth. www. friendsoftheearth. uk/nature/uks-firstpostcode-gardenersprings-action-hackney (accessed 02 May 2020).

Fig 17. Dalston Eastern Curve garden, plants protect sign (own photo)

along Hamilton High street, the gardener team did depaving for front gardens and made anti-pollution gardens to mitigate the pollution. The team also held a nature makeover project called Rewild my Street with London Metropolitan University working on community yards across the E5 postcode. The project's plan is holding curatorial and live events like a roving garden club to link and discuss the work after the lockdown, then keep going with little things by starting a seed bank, or a nursery to grow plants.

I am very honored to interview Kate Poland, the first British postcode gardener working with London communities. She shared with me stories and experiences cooperating with homeowners during the project's implementation, reflecting both the opportunities and challenges. As she said, the model has more flexibility to work with fewer permissions than council land and has social benefits. Kate recalls, "There was this child who came every week to the little after-school group. He had never done anything outdoors before and had never seen normal and small natural things like a pea plant. I like to do it for this kind of person because they enjoyed it and got a lot of it. I suppose it is like little nuggets or seeds that would develop over time." Challenges are most about working with people and building relationships. People who are less interested in gardening do not have the time and energy to think about the environment so much, so they do not help keep it going, and sometimes people will question their work based on their preferences. "You need a long time to do it well—plants grow slowly, and relationships do, too. It is very much doing things bottom-up. It is easier to do topdown because you just get on with it, whereas this is about building relationships and understanding of knowledge and network. Nevertheless, it is always worth doing that."

Fig

Fig 18. E5's gardener work with the community (Friend of the earth, n.d.).

19. The Daubeney Road Community, schools, and the council support the project (10xGreener, 2018).

Method and Site typology

City as a Plant Nursery

Aldo's playgrounds are interspersed in tight city gaps (Withagen and Caljouw, 2017). What about UGS? Here the nursery as an urban design metaphor questioning how we nurse the plants and let them grow in each block of the city? Reciprocally how they nurture us?

Withagen, R., & Caljouw, S. R. (2017). Aldo van Eyck’s playgrounds: Aesthetics, affordances, and creativity. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 1130.

Fig 20. House of Wayward Plants: Smithfield Greenhouse, inspiration from the Victorians' 'fern fever' to catch ferns and build social networks (Wayward, 2019).

The defective space

Drawing from the case studies, I find that those overlooked small space often hold the possibility to contribute to UGS networks. Therefore, this thesis identifies unnoticed or abandoned space with low community participation as the defective space and focuses it on discussing green intervention guidance further.

The study of defective urban voids can trackback to the midcentury, in response to Jane Jacobs's criticism of modern development's unsatisfactory products and the lack of urban public space (2016 [1961]). Urban designer Roger Trancik introduced the term 'lost space' into our vocabularies (1986) to refer to "undesirable urban areas that need a redesign," including the unused plaza, parking lots, and vacated places. These sites have also been described as illnesses, like urban scars with little energy (1986: 4). Another very much discussed is the 'leftover place.' Generally, it refers to wasted, unplanned, or fortuitous space that is inevitably generated in corner areas, like space between buildings and between communities for various reasons during the development process (Akkerman and Cornfeld, 2010). The leftover space may appear next to planned development projects, greening but undeveloped land, abandoned factory land, old courtyards, alleys, or aisles (Nielsen, 2002).

No matter the lost space or the leftover space, they are often not as easily noticed as the concentrated square spaces and are not fully utilized with no precise functional positioning. As Sartre wrote the space that "does not have the indecent look of bourgeois streets, offering their regrets to the passersby. No one has bothered to adorn it: it is simply the (city's) reverse side" (1964), this kind of space in the city often defined as 'spaces of uncertainty,' and 'urban voids that are

Trancik, R. (1986). Finding lost space: theories of urban design. NYSE: John Wiley & Sons.Akkerman, A., & Cornfeld,

A. F. (2010). Greening as an urban design metaphor: looking for the city’s soul in leftover spaces. The Structurist, 49(50), 30-35.

Nielsen, T. (2002). The return of the excessive: superfluous landscapes. Space and culture, 5(1), 53-62.

Sartre, J. P. (1964). Nausea. Translated from the French by Lloyd Alexander. Introduction by Hayden Carruth. Cambridge: New Directions.

Fig 21. Michigan Theater, Detroit, MI, USA. The Naked City Spleen. Kim looked for decaying abandoned spaces to dissect the city organism system's low accessible layers (Kim, 2009).

Fig 22. A detective space on Crowndale Road, London. A squirrel is looking at me through the railing (own photo).

Solà-Morales i Rubió, M., Frampton, K., & Ibelings, H. (2008). A matter of things. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers.

Jacobs, J. (1960). The death and life of great American cities. Reprint, New York: Vintage, 2016.

considered unutilized,' (Sola ̀-Morales et al., 2008). However, compared to a clean and tidy positive space, the defective space has more potential (Jacobs, 2016 [1961]), which will significantly improve the city's appearance when being noticed and involved by urban dwellers. When considering small site transformation, starting from discovering and studying this kind of defective space's potential would achieve optimum efficiency.

Criteria to evaluate the intervention

Different concepts of planting and growth standards play an essential role in urban environments due to their unique requirements (Kuhn and Bund, 2003; Hitchmough and Dunnet, 2004). To learn more about the growth and evaluation criteria of green strategy in the urban environment, I interviewed Gary Grant, an experienced expert with over 35 years involving hundred UGI and biodiversity projects. When we talked about the sites and tips for small-scale UGS that work best from a functional or community perspective, he believes that various UGI or strategies have different characteristics and need to be discussed separately. Examples of green roofs and green walls, from a functional perspective, they are both excellent at cooling and making the sponge city. Green roofs are not always visible, especially from the street. Therefore, the green wall may have a more significant impact on the community because people can nearly always see them and enjoy them. Nevertheless, the maintenance cost of green walls is higher than green roofs. In greening level, condensed or restricted by space, the plant scale should be suitable for people's close viewing. Compact plant configuration should be used to focus people's attention. Light, shade, and color should also be considered according to the site characteristics to achieve the desired effect (Walker, 1991). The community-level needs to think more about interaction with people, like the location that is safe and accessible for people. When being asked about the sites that not seem possible for plants, Gary clarified that nowadays, plants could grow on likely all hard materials with an air gap or a waterproof layer, like stone, brick, and masonry. As long as the structure is designed can take the weight and have the strength.

Another point is that these small-scale sites are not functionally isolated. These plaques and fragments will form green

Kühn, N. & Bund. (2003). Plants between ecology, technology and design. Event Landscape. Contemporary German Landscape Architecture, 120-131.

Hitchmough, J., & Dunnet, N. (2004). Naturalistic herbaceous vegetation for urban landscapes. In The dynamic landscape, design, ecology and management of naturalistic urban planting (pp. 130-183). Spon Press London.

Walker, T. D. (1991). Planting design. NYSE: John Wiley & Sons.

Hoyle, H., Hitchmough, J., & Jorgensen, A. (2017). All about the ‘wow factor’? The relationships between aesthetics, restorative effect and perceived biodiversity in designed urban planting. Landscape and Urban Planning, 164, 109-123.

Fettes. A. (2018). Landscape Architects Promoting Pollinator Habitats. The field. 27 March 2018 https:// www.sasaki.com/ voices/landscapearchitects-promotingpollinator-habitats/ (accessed 20 June 2020).

Jorgensen, A., Hitchmough, J., & Calvert, T. (2002). Woodland spaces and edges: their impact on perception of safety and preference. Landscape and Urban Planning, 60, 135–150.

Nassauer, J. I. (2011). Care and stewardship: From home to planet. Landscape and Urban Planning, 100(4), 321–323. http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/

Kühn, N. (2006). Intentions for the unintentional: Spontaneous vegetation as the basis for innovative planting design in urban areas. Journal of Landscape Architecture, 1(2), 46-53.

corridors, blocks, and grids to function as a network under certain conditions, thereby influencing the more extensive urban system (Poland, 2019). Gary holds that the best way of measuring networks is through ecological function. One way is to harness the movement of species, such as the pollination by butterflies. It even can be the human being to analyze the transportation of a cycleway or pathway. If we use the pollination effect as the breakthrough point to define a good cultivation scheme, it will be native flowers and biodiversity all year round. What still needs to conceive is the flowering period and soil stability so that local pollinators, butterflies, bees, and other insects (Hoyle et al., 2017) can obtain the minimum nectar and pollen, more breeds of pollinators can also be supported (Fettes, 2018).

Part of the challenge of fostering community value, awareness, and understanding of spaces depends on building appreciation and value and balancing community expectations with the landscape's aesthetic qualities. In the conversation with John Little, Kate Poland, and Gary Grant, they all mentioned the contradiction between tidiness and wildness. Indeed, urban residents' preference for manicured, uncluttered landscapes has been documented (Jorgensen et al., 2002; Nassauer, 2011), but moderate and most natural planting structures are considered more restorative than the most orderly 'unnatural' planting structures (Hoyle et al., 2017). People have preferences on bright flowers because of the 'surprise' they bring. Most green plants grown outside the narrow blooming period are also highly valued because they are more conducive to quiet reflection. The increasing public exposure to natural lawn planting and pollinators' benefits suggests that people may be increasingly accepting of the chaotic 'ecological aesthetics' of urban greening (Kuhn, 2006; Hoyle et al., 2017). On this topic, Gary said: "It is a bigger problem not to have any greenery in the city, so let us get green first, then, over time, we can discuss how tidy it is."

Fig 23. Author's photography.

Cutty Sark Gardens, Greenwich. 21 July 2019.

Sandalack, B. A., & Uribe, F. A. (2010). Open space typology as a framework for design of the public realm.

The Faces of Urbanized Space, 5, 35-75.

Kuroda, J., Kaijima, M., & Tsukamoto, Y. (2001). Made in Tokyo.

Tokyo: Kajima Institute Publishing Co.

Site typology methodology

enlighten us to a new way of life in the urban environment.

The development of urban spatial typology can provide methods for analyzing the design and then serve as a teaching tool for urban planning and landscape architecture.

In this case, the concept of type has become the basis of public domain design (Sandalack and Uribe, 2010). In this section, the paper use a typology research method, combine a series of catalogs and types of defective space and space by-products (like space beneath the viaduct, the roof of the building, and street gaps), attempting to give them new utilization by considering their situation, possibilities, and how the interventions could meet the residents' needs (Kuroda et al., 2001:14). The sites types are under urban space and small-scale site categories defined in section Ⅰ, and the selection of them is drawing on the research of cases in the paper- The Poppy Estate, Wayward projects, Dalston Eastern Curve Garden and the Postcode Gardener project, and through my own discovery like the common courtyard on College Place. The collection will be presented as a guidebook form.

Site common characteristics

Urban living

To seek the comfort of an ideal living environment in crowded urban surroundings with fresh air, one must flee to the suburbs or pay a high housing price as compensation (Kuroda et al., 2001). Sites in this paper tend to be in the urban area with prominent issues that are very close to the community or people's living environment like the Poppy Estate. It is believed that the sites and forms studied

Ignorable and low participation

As mentioned above, these defective spaces are neither attractive nor quality products. In most cases, they come first in terms of function, then supplemented or even without considering experience and aesthetics, such as 1[c] Parking lots, 5[b]Traffic islands, and 6[d]Garbage areas in the Guidebook (Akkerman and Cornfeld, 2010). As part of the landscape, sites like this are not worth noticing, not to say linger. They are constructed because of the necessity of that moment, maybe decided soon without highly valued (Ramírez-Lovering, 2008). Example as the Alley in Wayward's Literalley project (see Wayward, 2016).

Mini-scale

Because of plant growth's spreadability, planting can serve as a soft medium fit well in crevices then maximum the usage of mini bases. Thereby, maybe starting from a mini-scale is more feasible for ecological intervention, which shares the same initial intention with the Postcode Gardener project. Apart from lands such as 1[a]Community yard and 1[d] Car park, facilities such as 6[e]Bench and 7[b]Wall are also selected. Already in practice like 6[c]Tree pits, they provide shade and cooling for high trafficked streets for people to stop and stay with green inserting into the concrete.

Akkerman, A., & Cornfeld, A. F. (2010). Greening as an urban design metaphor: looking for the city’s soul in leftover spaces. The Structurist, 49(50), 30-35.

Ecological and multifunctional

It is difficult for a single function landscape to survive for

Ramírez-Lovering, D. (Ed.). (2008). Opportunistic urbanism. Melbourne: RMIT Publishing.

Lovell, S. T., & Johnston, D. M. (2009). Creating multifunctional landscapes: how can the field of ecology inform the design of the landscape. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 7(4), 212220.

Van Leeuwen, E., Nijkamp, P., & de Noronha Vaz, T. (2010). The multifunctional use of urban greenspace. International journal of agricultural sustainability, 8(1-2), 2025.

a long time in the modern environment. Since 1969 when Ian McHarg published Design with Nature, landscape design has required the addition of ecological functions (Lovell and Johnston, 2009). In most developed regions, UGS shows aesthetics, tourism, welfare for entertainment, and community participation, such as the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden (Van et al., 2010). These sites in the paper have specific functions themselves meanwhile with the possibility and necessity of injecting ecological functions. For example, the 6[a]Bus station could be better if it can make people feel comfort and restoration even if it is a shortstop for pedestrians.

This Guidebook provides types of possible sites for applying green interventions. It is not an exhaustive list, but a guide beginning to reconsider things we see every day that can contribute to community and UGS. Specifically use the sites discovered on Homerton High Street in London where the Postcode Gardener project starts as types' examples. Each sample is illustrated and given a worldwide case study for inspiration.

SMALL FIELD

a. Community garden/ yard

F1. Clapton Park Estate, London (Clapton Park Management Organization, n.d.).

F2. Sometimes there are contradictions between the council and local's informal use of the community land, which requires coordination interventions to develop the area.

SMALL FIELD

b. Unused land

F3. Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, London (own photo).

F4. Some are leftover by construction, with waste materials and rubbish; some are historically there with weeds and do not have many functions.

SMALL FIELD

c. Car Park

F5. Parking OLG Hamm, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany(Blossey, 2017).

F6. Plants can substitute for the dividing parking spaces line.

a. Railway

F7. Grass-Lined Green Railways, Europe (Chino, 2014).

F8. It suddenly reduces the industry sense of the city when green covers the hard railway.

CORRIDOR 02

b. Pathway

02 CORRIDOR

c. Bridge/ footbridge

F9. Literalley (Literally, a Library in an Alley), London (Wayward, 2016).

F10. Coal Drops Yard, London (own photo)

CORNER

a. Square corner

F11. Public Media Commons, St. Louis, USA (Winkeler, 2015).

F12. Some unexpected areas of a square paved with concrete and asphalt can be de-paved for seedlings.

CORNER

b. Street corner

F13. The Goods Line, Ultimo, NSW (Groehn, n.d.).

F14. Green intervention as the transition of people and avenue, improve security.

CORNER

c. Building corner

F15. Glen Oaks Branch Library, New York (SCAPE, n.d.).

F16. Without much function and attention, this area is often gathering smokers for chatting and relaxing. Why not provide a formal rest area with natural plants for them?

04 TRANSITION SPACE

a. Under viaduct

F17. Bentway park under Gardiner Expressway, Toronto (Lehoux, n.d.).

F18. Although normally derelict and dark, it can be transformed into active public space if it embraces the marginalized feature and uses the right tools.

F19. 1840 residence entry garden, Chicago (Bryan, 2014).

F20. The custom parklet, University City Philadelphia (Barnes, 2013).

INTERSPACE

a. Crossroad

F21. Gansevoort Plaza, New York (Hsieh, 2008).

F22. The streets' confluence makes for an open space, but taming traffic measure was necessitated to avoid the risk of cars and pedestrians.

05 INTERSPACE

b. Space between buildings

05 INTERSPACE

c. Traffic diamonds/ islands/ medians

F23. Grove, Industry City, New York (Terrain-NYC, 2018).

F24. Passage de st Joan boulevard, Spain (Goula, 2012).

FACILITY/ SURROUNDING AREA

a. Bus station

F25. Bus shelter, Sheffield (GREENROOFS, n.d.).

F26. Maybe people can pick or buy plants when they are waiting for the bus and then take them back to their homes or communities.

FACILITY/ SURROUNDING AREA

b. Pavilion/ kiosk/gallery

F27. Handyside Gardens, London (own photo).

F28. Use shadetolerant plants to maintain a cool environment through evapotranspiration when providing shading and shelter.

FACILITY/ SURROUNDING AREA

c. Garbage bin

F29. The Sort recycling center, France (png, 2012).

F30. Apart from cleaners dealing with it every day, there are ways for landscape designers to think to make them tidy.

FACILITY/ SURROUNDING AREA

f. Street lamp

F31. Bricklayer street lantern, London (Photoriga, 2009).

F32. Like the gas lamps left in London from Victorian, street lamps illuminate people's way but are often damaged and need to be endowed with more significance.

06 FACILITY/ SURROUNDING AREA

e. Bench

06 FACILITY/ SURROUNDING AREA

f. Tree pits/ planting beds

F33. Better Air Benches, London (Wayward, 2019).

F34. Upper East Side Street Tree Pits, New York (Erb, 2011).

07 STRUCTURE

a. Rooftop

F35. Regent’s Place green roof, London (Funk, n.d.).

F36. Sometimes with car parks on the roof. Make good use of city rooftop areas can better create a sponge city.

STRUCTURE

b. Wall

F37. Rubens Hotel, Victoria, London (The Rubens, n.d.).

F38. There is more water evaporating on the green wall, and they can absorb the street noise but requires working at height.

07 STRUCTURE

c. Railing

07 STRUCTURE d. Stair/ramp/slope

F39. Battersea power station shopping center, London (own photo).

F40. The Tide, Pier Walk, London (own photo).

IMAGE REFERENCE

* The London example images are from Google Street View; the illustration are own works; below is the case study image list.

F1. Clapton Park Management Organization. (n.d.). THE POPPY ESTATE [Online image]. Clapton Park Management Organization website. www. cpmo.org/our-estate/

F3. Blossey, H. (2017). Parking OLG Hamm, Ruhr area, North RhineWestphalia, Germany [Photography]. Alamy. www.alamy.com/parkingolg-hamm-higher-regional-court-hamm-cars-under-deciduous-treesdeciduous-trees-colorful-cars-pattern-green-trees-parked-cars-hammruhr-area-north-rhine-westphalia-germany-image221330202.

F7. Chino, M. (2014). PHOTOS: Europe’s Grass-Lined Green Railways = Good Urban Design [Online image]. Shutterstock. www.inhabitat.com/europesgrass-lined-green-railways-good-urban-design/#popup-18687

F9. Wayward. (2016). Literalley (Literally, a Library in an Alley) [Online image]. Wayward website. www.wayward.co.uk/project/literalleyliterally-library-alley

F13. Winkeler, J. (2015). Public Media Commons [Online image]. Powers Bowersox Associates, DLANDstudio, Cobalt Office, and/or Nine Network. www.asla.org/2015awards/96907

F15. Groehn, F. (n.d.). The Goods Line [Online image]. CHROFI website. www.chrofi.com/project/the-goods-line

F17. SCAPE studio. (n.d.). Glen Oaks Branch Library [Online image]. SCAPE studio website. www.scapestudio.com/projects/glen-oaks-branch-library/

F19. Bryan, L. O. (2014). 1840 Residence [Online image]. McKay Landscape Architects website. www.mckaylandarch.com/portfolio/1840-residence/

F21. Lehoux, N. (n.d.). The Bentway park opens under Toronto's Gardiner Expressway [Architectural photography]. Post by Cogley, B. on 5 March 2019. www.dezeen.com/2019/03/08/bentway-park-public-workgreenberg-toronto/

F23. Barnes, T. (2013). Parklet [Online image]. SHIFTSPACE website. www. shiftspacedesign.com/portfolio/parklet/

F25. Terrain-NYC. (2018). Industry City [Online image]. LANDZINE. www. landezine.com/index.php/2018/05/industry-city-by-terrain-nyc/

F27. Goula, A. (2012). Remodeling of passage de st Joan boulevard (between arc de triomf and tetuan) [Online image]. LANDZINE. www.landezine. com/index.php/2012/07/passeig-de-st-joan-boulevard-by-lola-domenech/

F29. Hsieh, H (K). (2008). Gansevoort Plaza / Meat-Packing District@Public Space [Online image]. Flickr. www.flickr.com/photos/kh1979/2820754438

F31. GREENROOFS. (n.d.). SHEFFIELD BUS SHELTER [Online image]. GREENROOFS website. www.greenroofs.com/projects/sheffield-busshelter/

F35. Erb, J. (2011). Classy Upper East Side Street Tree Pits [Online image]. Erbology. www.erbology.com/2011/04/15/classy-upper-east-side-streettree-pits/

F37. Png. (2012). Sort recycling center [Online image]. Png website. www. png.archi/

F39. Wayward. (2019). Better Air Benches [Online image]. Wayward website. www.wayward.co.uk/project/better-air-benches

F41. Photoriga. (2009). Bricklayer street lantern [Online image]. Photoriga. www.photoriga.com/2009/09/murnieku-street-lantern

F43. Funke, C. (n.d.). Regent’s Place green roof [Online image]. Post by Cary, S. in Green Roofs Go Mainstream on 20 Feb 2015. www.britishland. com/sustainability/our-views/articles/2015/green-roofs-go-mainstream

F45. Wayward. (2016). Farmopolis [Online image]. Wayward website. www.wayward.co.uk/project/farmopolis

F47. The Rubens. (n.d.). SUSTAINABILITY- WE CARE [Online image]. The Rubens at the Palace. www.rubenshotel.com/about/we-care

Ⅳ

DISCUSSION

Discussion about small green approaches in urban detective space

"For the big schemes, you have landscape architects and designs come in, but sometimes that does not reflect what people want," John Little said during our interview. The success of Clapton Park Estate is due to the fact that the team was there all the time to collect feedback. John's team has translated the things learned on the small estate into a big contract, which allowed them to go on small-scale and rolled out onto more estates. For Kate, she tends to focus on more minor things and individual plants because they can teach people that this is part of nature. As she said, "We think gardens are large, but actually, they are smaller things like daisies. The little things are like steps to change this perception of what nature is."

For the planting design of these sites, suiting the remedy to the cases is fundamental. Every site typology and project involved in the Guidebook has exclusive technical details that can be further discussed. As landscape architects who do not have all the information, we know some fundamental ideas, like more connected and closer together the fragments are, the better for the UGS network. When encountering unusual varieties or contexts, more detailed knowledge and rule-of-thumb for guidance are needed. Alternatively, a field visit investigating with testing, measuring, and mapping could serve as subsidiary methods of community involvement, helping to find the best solution.

Discussion about community engagement with a nurturing attitude

The cases and interviews highlighted areas of resistance to consider when working through an engaged, participatory design process, such as the conflict between public perception of tidiness and wildness, which dictates landscape workers to take on a nurturing attitude to adopt the appropriate approach. This thesis researched some methods that may provide references to engage the community throughout the design process. In the early stage, designers necessitate to observe and deeply understand the site features and residents' preferences to avoid unwarranted strategies. John shared an interesting

experience: When he found that the residents loved food, he introduced apples and pears to the ground, which he remembered as the plants his grandfather used to grow. It turned out, however, that the residents preferred peas, Medlars, and mulberries instead because the majority of them are from the Mediterranean and Turkey. So that is the food that makes sense with their background, history, and families. The garden and plants thereby become a reflection of community culture's specificity and personal relation to the landscape, which can both be strengthened by building closer involvement between the community and the green space.

It is challenging to know what people want, most of the time we are giving them what we think they want. Effective communication is the first step in solving this problem (Valencia-Sandoval et al., 2010; Mangini et al., n.d). The conventional way is to have ongoing forums for discussion —whether it is an online or face-to-face meeting, to engage enthusiastic inhabitants in design or installation. For example, before the project starts, Kate will organize a Zoom event with residents and professions together to discuss the strategy into detail. John's team is continuously holding meetings to collect

Fig 24. Kate shared with me her hand-drawing for communicating with residents.

Valencia-Sandoval, C., Flanders, D. N., & Kozak, R. A. (2010). Participatory landscape planning and sustainable community development: Methodological observations from a case study in rural Mexico. Landscape and Urban Planning, 94(1), 63-70.

Mangini, A., Perlman, S., Fredrick, J., & Arkenberg, C. (n.d.). Strategies for effective communication in the new digital media landscape. City Council Ad Hoc Committee on Technology.

local feedbacks to revising their plan. To know the thinking of people who are not that passionate or may not yet see the scheme's potential, John suggested: "There is nothing better than knocking on the doors." There is a pressing need to let them know what the project is doing and its benefits. Visual materials are imperative, whether it is a feasible sketch or computer-generated graphics (Valencia-Sandoval et al., 2010). It is also good to have similar examples or works already done, so people believe it can happen. Gary mentioned the advanced UGI project installation he saw in Shanghai Expo in 2010, which is an attractive way to communicate because some great ideas can be copied to other cities. Another useful tool is an excursion with locals to a similar project site to chat with people with the same scheme. Often, community members feel more comfortable speaking with another community group than to designers or experts, so this can improve the conversation and communication, as well as develop a clearer understanding of their expectations and desires. Besides residents, talking with other people like the maintenance team and cleaners already on the estate are also entry points.

After an in-depth study, the collected information should all be factored into implementing interventions. In the peopleoriented project, experts need to keep checking themselves, not imposing their own views on projects all the time when designing a scheme. They need to put their background, history, preferences, and aesthetics aside slightly, allow the money and time to go into what people want. Although these methods are sometimes sophisticated and require much time, it is worthwhile because they give honesty as a designer.

Fig

Author's photography.

Coal Drops Yard, Kings Cross. 29 June 2019.

Milliken, S. (2014). Meanwhile spaces. Research.net. 175-177.

Bartholomew, E. (2020). Hackney Council urged to ‘protect Eastern Curve Garden’ in Dalston Conversation consultation. Hackney Gazette. 03 February 2020. www. hackneygazette.co.uk/ news/environment/ dalston-conversationconsultation-resultsannounced-1-6496493 (accessed 07 July 2020).

Further discussion: protection and maintenance

Some such projects are provisional greenspaces, such as Wayward and Dalston Eastern Curve Garden. Although the public developed a massive attachment to them, as part of the new scheme, the developer plans to transform the award-winning projects into commercial land (Milliken, 2014). Still, these pilot projects bring us pleasant memories and implications for the future. What can we do to mitigate the challenges for a longer-term goal to bring benefits?

The maintenance also demands the coordination and cooperation of users and experts. Primarily, there needs to be a connection between design and maintenance. That is, designers should understand how it will be maintained and who will look after it. It is better to usually go to the site to see how it is going and keep it rolling. The reason that the Poppy Estate is worked over the long-term was, as John said, the team is keeping it tidy. Small things like putting the dumped stuff in the corner into the bins. Simultaneously, community participation can do a lot to keep the project going. As the de-paving example that Kate noticed, if the residents themselves are not enthusiastic about helping it going, it still cannot work. In one of Gary's office projects, the employees take their lunch breaks to maintain their garden. Professional support is still required for technical and complicated expertise, but it can save money because they are not needed that often. For the Dalston Curve Garden, an unprecedented open conversation was launched. Over 4,000 people visited the council's website, workshops, and pop-up stalls flagging up a 'strong distrust' attitude in previous thoroughfare plan, urging to protect the Garden (Bartholomew, 2020). The garden is currently consulting and

Fig 26. engagement and maintenance ideas (own illustration)

Dalston eastern curve garden. (2020). March 2020 Update: Future of the Garden – Dalston Plan Consultation. www.dalstongarden. org/future-of-thegarden/ March 2020. (accessed 07 July 2020).

collecting people's responses to help secure the Garden's future, so there is an exciting prospect of this green space being preserved (Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, 2020).

The maintenance also has a lot to do with funds. John proposed that rather than spend all the budget on the infrastructure, we can always save some money to keep the engagement going with the same effect and benefit. If the pilot projects want to go into the long-term, raising funds through subscription and hold active events to support is also a fascinating aspect. Although the E5 postcode gardener is an experimental project, they will keep the engagements by doing events and activities.

Limitation

This study includes a comprehensive search for social development, urban planning, and ecology. However, given the time and venue limitations during the lockdown, some site visits and experiment research cannot be achieved, limiting the research results' generalisability. Further, given the gap of user-engaged small-scale green intervention in defective urban space, there are no complete metrics to classify the sites, so the Guidebook's typologies only come from my research and daily discovery, cannot scientifically cover all the suitable conditions. For small-scale urban spaces, the urban center's existing structure limits the scope of green interventions, thereby there are more site constraints, which is inevitable to carry out specific and precise design according to the characteristics. Additionally, there was substantial heterogeneity when involving human research. The methods offered are apt to become obsolete with the change and development of lives. The paper can only consult much data and historical studies to conclude applicable in most cases to avoid excessively subjective arguments.

Conclusion

This thesis provides information for designers and users about the regreening potential of defective urban spaces, and the user-oriented, participatory methods to support the interventions. Major gaps addressed in the urban greening literature and UGS, UGI planning is the need to consider small-scale green space co-benefits for both public natural resources and human living in a compact city background, and the use of the neighborhood or furniture scale as a critical experiential context for positive people interactions. Also, the requirement to produce working methods with the community and fostering bottom-up projects for designers to apply knowledge and services to support participatory processes.

The small greening interventions are instrumental in forging the city's greening, decorating, and vitalizing the environment. They could be small vegetative inches that occur in crannies outside of the lands commonly prescribed by planners (Akkerman and Cornfeld, 2010). Meanwhile, such interventions can effectively change people's lives without the promotion of massive, large-scale new field development. British cities are changing rapidly. Early destruction and sprawl have turned some patches into husks that must be reused (Power and Houghton, 2007). The paper studied particularly London-based context, simultaneously hoping to expand into a broader picture of the issue. The typology analysis proposed with 25 space or facility types that can start with considering this green approach, have a glimpse of the future environment, provide some ideas, and help to engage landscape professionals, UGS practitioners and managers, and stakeholders in the design, assessment, and decision-making.

Akkerman, A., & Cornfeld, A. F. (2010). Greening as an urban design metaphor: looking for the city’s soul in leftover spaces. The Structurist, 49(50), 30-35.

Power, A., & Houghton, J. (2007). Jigsaw cities: Big places, small spaces. Bristol: Policy Press.

Meyer, W., Bryan, B., Lyle, G., McLean, J., Moon, T., Siebentritt, M., ... & Wells, R. (2013). Adapted future landscapesfrom aspiration to implementation.

National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility.

Hepburn, S. (2016). Public resource ownership and community engagement in a modern energy landscape. Pace Envtl. L. Rev., 34, 379.

Barron, S., Nitoslawski, S., Wolf, K. L., Woo, A., Desautels, E., & Sheppard, S. R. (2019).

Greening Blocks: A Conceptual Typology of Practical Design Interventions to Integrate Health and Climate Resilience Co-Benefits. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(21), 4241.

In the present resource framework and ownership system, communities are more required to involve in onshore resources and environmental landscape development (Meyer et al., 2013; Hepburn, 2016). A user-oriented design project is better to correspond to the instability and variability in the place's function with more lasting recognition. The theoretical research case studies and interview methods presented have identified and highlighted the relevant theory and project's character, challenge, and practical experience.

Green strategies need local-level design, management, and implementation to respond to context-specific requirements, emphasizing collaboration across experts and urban dwellers, and the co-creation involving multiple disciplinary expertise (Barron et al., 2019). In this thesis, I tried to interpret some guidance into the practical level and connect the topic to the long-term issue, hoping the discussions and the green model presented will contribute to the achievement of smaller-scale greenery initiatives. The ultimate goal is public engagement and participation in implementing purposeful criteria for a more benevolent and successful intervention.

Fig 27. Author's photography. Sopwith Way, Battersea. 13 July 2019.

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De Roo, G., & Miller, D. (Eds.). (2019). Compact cities and sustainable urban development: A critical assessment of policies and plans from an international perspective. London: Routledge.

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Flores, H. C. (2006). Food not lawns: How to turn your yard into a garden and your neighborhood into a community. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing.

Foreign Office Architects, Zaera, A., & Moussavi, F. (2003). Phylogenesis: foa's ark. New York: Actar.

Johnston, J., & Newton, J. (2004). Building Green: A guide to using plants on roofs, walls and pavements. London: Greater London Authority.

Lynch, K. (1960). The image of the city (Vol. 11). New York: MIT press.

Robinson, N. (2016). The planting design handbook. London: Routledge.

Schubeler, P. (1996). Participation and partnership in urban infrastructure management. The World Bank.

Shaftoe, H. (2012). Convivial urban spaces: Creating effective public places. London: Earthscan.

Simon, H. A. (1969). The sciences of the artificial. Reprint, New York: MIT press, 2019.

Wates, N. (2014). The community planning handbook: how people can shape their cities, towns and villages in any part of the world. London: Routledge.

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Fig 11. Quigley, E. (2014). Aldo van Eyck and New Urban Narratives. Playground in vacant lot, Before and after, Amsterdam, Dijkstraat, 1948 [Online image]. Post on 14 March 2014. www.play-scapes.com/ correspondent_post/aldo-van-eyck-andnew-urban-narratives/

Fig 12. Barb, D. M. (2011). Paley Park [Photography]. Flickr. www.flickr.com/ photos/davembarb/6020492426

Fig 19. 10xGreener. (2018). UK’s first ever postcode gardener gets to work in Homerton [Photography]. Hackney Citizen. Post by Eckersley, M on 14 November 2018. www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2018/11/14/firstever-postcode-gardener-homerton/

Fig 20. Wayward. (2019). House of Wayward Plants: Smithfield Greenhouse [Online image]. Wayward website www.wayward. co.uk/project/house-wayward-plantssmithfield-greenhouse

Fig 21. Kim, M. (2009). The Naked City Spleen [Performance art] Michigan Theater, Detroit, MI, USA. www. mirukim.com/naked-city-spleen/ se22t81mnq33ppp9tbhyy61c9lmj8x

APPENDIX: TALK WITH EXPERTS

1.There are a lot of excellent green interventions in your projects. What principles and criteria do you follow the most when dealing with green infrastructures and planting strategies? For example, what type of site is better to make a green approach?

| John Little |

Partner at Grass Roof Company and Director of Green roof Shelters designing wildlife habitat into everything they make; work to improve green space for people within social housing, schools and roofs. He is incredibly passionate about communities and the environment. He believes deeply in the power of shared green spaces to bring people together. As a result of his hard work over many years, Clapton Park Estate has a sustainable growing project, with residents making friends, swapping growing tips and recipes, and making their community a more enjoyable place to live.

(https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-little-41b87b1a/)

Like a maintenance company, which looks after the general maintenance of the estate. There are quite a few things you can do while using the maintenance like how you can influence some green infrastructure. But it all comes on the back of the maintenance contract because it means that you are regularly talking to people. There are certain things you can do within the constraints, that would be helping residents raise funds to change what's outside their houses. It's been a reaction to what people have wanted, your interventions tend to be based on the interaction with people. For instance, we realize that people wanted more color on the estate after chatting, so we introduced the flowers along the railings, which eventually ended up with the estate being called the Poppy estate known for now. Before, it was just called Clapton Park Estate. When we realized that lots of herbicide were used along the edges of all the places, we think it was the right place because it did two things: it reduced the amount of herbicide used on the estate with the seed mixes and gave residents the tone when adding biodiversity. And also, we helped them raise funds to

produce allotments to grow foods. There are small funds out there, but they often didn't necessarily have the expertise or the understanding to know where to apply for them. The important thing is that it came from them, and then we help them to deliver it. It is a loop, I think.

For different scale interventions, the bigger green infrastructure stuff like gardens and some biodiversity interventions tend to come off the back of funding. We managed to tap into 9 or 10 funding streams during the 18 years we were there, it was quite a lot of new funding that allowed us to build infrastructures like community gardens and bug hotels. That's nice and useful, but it’s the small interventions we found are the most successful. For the big founding schemes, you have designs and landscape architects come in, but sometimes that doesn't reflect what people want. It is quite hard to understand what people want unless you're there regularly. So, I suppose that the distinction between the two interventions is, an intervention on a small scale is within the maintenance criteria, and the other intervention comes on the back of funding.

2. Then let's talk about as you said the small-scale interventions and small sites. What do you think are the other advantages of those little sites compare to larger ones? Are they working individually, or they can form a system? How to maximize the benefits of them?

The most significant benefit of working on a smaller side, was that our small team was there all the time, we can try things without much risk. Cut down on the prep time and try a little random intervention, just go on once it's up and running, then get people's reactions from that rather than necessarily ask everyone first and then build it up into a big thing. Sometimes it's better to try a little stretch first. Like we tried 20m of railing first, once it was done and flower in, we asked people's feedback, then we understood that's what they wanted.

the design process? How do you react to make this community approach work well? Do you have some experience to share?

What's been right about the Clapton Park thing is we've translated the things learned on a small-scale estate into the new contract. As a contractor, we've now written the new contract with a large maintenance company called IDVERDE, which look after some big schemes like the Olympic Park, this is an unusual thing. It allowed us to go on a small scale, which could be rolled out onto more estates, then the contracts could change into big stuff. If you change the written in the contract so that all the big companies are forced to think about community and biodiversity. Thus, I think starting up a small scale and expanding it would be a game-changer and we could make that happen.

3. About the community engagement, when you were working with local people, how do you balance the participation extent of both experts and users during

I'd say you've got to keep checking yourself and not imposing your own views into things all the time. We've all got our kind of background, history, and preferences, it's tough to put those to one side. And as a designer, a landscape architect that you guys are going to be, it's hard to put the aesthetic to one side slightly to allow the money and time go into what people want. Instead of spending a lot of time thinking about the individual materials, getting this ambiance and aesthetic, we could spend more money on building a perfect raised bed to grow food, just a simple one. I am not saying you shouldn't have design, we should, and it's cool to have some influence over what goes in. If you impose your design and your personal view on people, sometimes it's good, some people will say: That looks amazing, I would have never thought of that! But it's always good to keep thinking about what this is, what and who I am designing for, that gives you some honesty as a designer as well.

Public engagement is challenging. You could leaflet, bring a gazebo to stand in the square and hand out things, chat with people, but you are usually only getting a tiny part of the demographic and a specific type of person inclined to talk to you. That is a big chunk of the community you miss. If you go into an estate as a designer, gauge what sort of design you feel is right, it's

probably good to engage and connect with the maintenance team or people already there because they may have picked up ideas from the people on the estate as part of your engagement. It could be the ground maintenance stuff and could be the cleaners, who are the people chat with residents and often get a feeling of what they might want. The thing I would say is that there is nothing better than knocking on the doors. It is more arduous because sometimes you might get some abuse occasionally. But don't think that's going to be a problem, you often get some positive stuff. Usually, there are lots of people in their houses looking at what you are doing, they wouldn't come up to you and say " Oh, I like that”. But if you knock on the doors, that comes out. You could get engage people to have some persona, free things to give away, or something to grab their attention. Besides, be careful about noting who you spoke to and who you haven't. And it's good to have examples or works already on your estate, so that we can say it's like what we did down the road there, then people could understand what was going to happen. So, connecting with the people already on the estate and being good at knocking on doors are two useful tools to think.

bigger community. So, the people close to there are getting a priority. And also, you'll find a lot of people live around that part of the garden got questions, like about kids hanging around, the benches there, what's going to happen. It depends on the community. I'm not forgetting all the people got internet access. I guess within social housing, where there was a big chunk of the community, they had access to the internet, but they don't use social media very much. Whereas if you move outside of our estate, where all the terrace houses are, social media may will be your primary tool.

- I think it is quite hard to know what people really want, most of the time what we do is what we think they want. What do you think of it?

- Does it need a lot of time to knock on everyone's houses?

Maybe you need to focus. With the housing estates, they are very much for the people live there rather than necessarily for the

Of course. And it's difficult not to fall into that trap. I did it on the estate where I thought people wanted food, so I planted fruit trees, apples and pears, which my grandfather planted and used to have. But people on the estate wanted peas, medlars, and mulberries. Basically, they wanted fruit that they were used to have. It is a big majority of people from the Mediterranean and Turkey, so they wanted fruit that has relationships with them, not with my grandfather. I guess the same for your community, if you were asked what you'd rather have outside your house, you'll probably say the food that makes sense to you with your background, history, and your family. Once they were

planted, we realized that people wanted a different thing, so we changed all the new trees. The good thing is we would make mistakes gone away because we were there.

4. Apart from this, have you ever faced any other resistances and difficulties when doing it? How did you solve them?

One of the best examples was that we had some trees located where we were going to plant and had a meeting to discuss it. Generally, people were happy about it. But within a week, there were lots of people complaining that they didn't want trees. Then we had another meeting arranged, a lot more people came out this time. It turned out that most people did want trees. So, we said to them: if that's the consensus, we'll take the trees out and put them to another part of the estate where people like them. I remembered that they looked at me thinking I was mad and said: Would you want to do that. Because they are so used to not being listened to. People are very used to local authorities, they think you are in power, ignoring them. Then we took the trees out to a place where people wanted them, the people on that part of the estate then had some trust in us because we did what we say, that later became an advantage. So, try to get a consensus and then always doing what you promised you are going to do is necessary.

The other resistance we got is to the tidiness. It is probably my instincts to

produce a landscape that is a bit wild, but I have to make sure I check myself and think if it's too messy that need to tidied up, because these landscapes are outside other people's houses, not outside mine. But overall, people would like more natural-looking areas, much more than I ever thought they would. In the end, when we serve at one-year, the tidiest area on the estate was the trim shrub area that every social housing has, which was kind of nice.

- Is it essential to have a plan and communicate with local people first?

If you are going to significantly change the use of any scheme of any sites. For instance, you are going to change a garden into a community garden, or into a food growing space. Because you would need to get the people live around there on board. But I would say that you could tweak and change the planting schemes and the feel of an area without too much engagement. Because as it changes gradually, you will get a feeling from the community of what they thought. If we have times, a little bit extra money from somewhere, or some plants left over that we want to give to the estate, you could just try stuff. I think you need to have that flexibility. And sometimes, it's good to have an extended lead time if you're lucky enough, because it takes two or three goals back and forward to catch.

5. How do you consider the phasing

strategy of this kind of project? How are they going to be maintained to reach the long-term goals? Do you have ideas or experience on how to protect these spaces?

The most significant thing about longterm goals is when you design a scheme, you must understand how it is going to be looked after and who is going to look after it, it's got to be a direct connection between the maintenance and your design, otherwise it is a bit pointless.

maintenance that props up and keeps the thing taking over, maybe do the more mundane stuff, and then people can do the more exciting things themselves. If people have more spare time and money, that could work well. But on our estate, I would say the reason it is worked over the long term was that we kept them tidy, just basically to care for them and keep them rolling. I'm not talking about people being there all the time, it’s just if we see some stuff dumped in the corner, the compost should have been in the bin, then we go and do those things.

If anything comes out from the maintenance thing, it's the fact that you can react to people who live there. We also try and speak to the maintenance people that are going to look after it because they might have some suggestions for you. They might say: You got only a meter left between those two bits of infrastructures, so our mower won't shift—little things like that. You might be able to pick up from the maintenance people during the design phase, which might make the scheme more successful long-term. Unseparated, there must be some sort of understanding of whether people used it. Sometimes you see a scheme that looks good, but no one's sitting on the bench in the space.

6. Do you have any suggestions for both experts and the user's perspectives when doing a co-design project?

One of the most useful tools is having a road trip or a little trip out. Take people somewhere there's a similar work, so they can chat with people with the same scheme, because they often feel more comfortable with those people than to designers or experts. Or if you can ask them to come to your estate and talk to the residents about what's their experiences. Often when people get together like that, you get quite a lot of information just listening to what's happening.

- Like the Clapton Park estate, are local people themselves kind of maintaining their gardens?

This is another interesting area. I think there needs to be the level of paid

Don't be too ambitious if you've got funding, always think about do I need that expensive pieces of infrastructure or can we make that work without spending that much. We can keep that money to either spend on the softer part like the planting

and, more importantly, save that money to engage, maybe with a local gardener. We've managed to keep our funding to pay a postcode gardener. If you can look at the design and think, I can still make this work well, but I can also have a gardener comes, even if it's once a month for three months in the summer, or just something that would keep that engagement going. I tend to think that would be money well spent, rather than spend all your budget on the infrastructure.

A community organiser and gardener, teacher, (ex) multiplatform journalist and champion of weeds. Britain's first Postcode Gardener, supporting the community in E5 to become 10X Greener. Also co-director and founder of a social enterprise, Cordwainers Grow CIC, which provides environmental and creative classes in the community and also promotes volunteering. They find creative ways of engaging communities with their environment - and each other. They regularly run a course for people wanting to start or maintain community gardens. Also working as a teacher of adult literacy, run community workshops teaching dyeing with plants and other garden-related subjects.

Specialties: Community gardening, teaching English/literacy, running community and participatory art, media and environment workshops, creative presentations, making radio features, podcasts and news films.

(https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-poland-4313bb26/)

1. I have read some of your articles. They show your concern about greening the city. The article” Turn dead, grey space into stepping-stones for insets” has a similar typology as I am focusing on. My question is how you usually discover and define an area with the potential to be greened and start to take approaches. Do you have some examples to show?

- I guess the best places are where both people and designers all want to engage in?

to do workshops responding to people's needs.

are the future plans?

The area for the postcode Gardner was already defined by the 10Xgreener, Friends of the Earth project. Within that, you got a piece of land that belongs to the council, and then you got private spaces. The idea is to use people's private spaces as public. Because you always need lots of permissions to use council land, it's harder to get things done, and it is much slower. Whereas if you are just working with an individual in their own house or their front gardens, it's very up to them.

One of the people in the 10Xgreener group said: You go where the energy is. If someone is interested in greening up their space, you go to them. There are different spaces we tried. We tried using someone's front garden and de-paving, taking up some of the paving and letting go, which was a bit of the problem because she's not interested in gardening. So she doesn't help keep it going. By contraries, we'd also taken over a park, which is part of an estate. That works quite well in what we've planted because people are caring for them.

Yeah. I have a bit of a conflict because I want to transform someone like the people in John Little's estate project. These people often don't have the time and energy to think about the environment so much. It's about money. The people in the nice houses with a bit of extra money are more likely to want to do something. They will get very engaged and involved. So, I worried a bit because of the social profile of the people I tend to work with. But that is where the energy is mostly, I find. And then before lockdown, last year I was doing a garden club. That works quite well because you get children, and you get parents often through children, so it's much more diverse. We will try and do that again, which is still starting at the bottom.

-When you start a project, is your team first finding that place or the community comes first?

Ideally, the community comes to us and says we want to do this, then I will respond. For example, we have a WhatsApp group that is quite active, and if someone said: I want to build a pond. I will find someone who is an expert in ponds that can help, setting up a little zoom event where we look at people's gardens and talk about wildlife in ponds and things like that. That's one way of doing it. Similarly, we have done stuff about rainwater collection. I try

2. Many of your research have mentioned places that are not big, like street scale or small gardens. What do you think are the advantages of those small space compared with larger ones?

People love street trees; they are very important. Hackney is going to plant thousands of trees. I tend to focus on the smaller things growing in the street, so I am trying to educate people and say this is nature too, you got your trees, and got these wild things. This is a conflict, many people like the tidy street, and they see these wild things as messy. And I think that as a landscape architect or as a designer, starting to incorporate this wildness into the design would be amazing. Because it's a whole new perception of what wildlife and gardens are. We think gardens are big, but they are smaller things, they are daisy or stuff like that. That underlines the whole kind of ethos is this idea as nature. We've been planting little parks or little gardens, and what we try to do is put some more formal plant in but also allow wild weeds to have a mixture, and I think that's how we have to do it. The smaller things are like working one by one and small steps to change this perception of what nature is and what a garden is.

3. About the E5 postcode gardener project, could you describe a little bit to what extent has the project progressed? What

As a pilot project, we tried different things. For example, we had a day when we tried de-paving was a lot of front gardens and taking up paving. That's one of the first week's things we did try to release nature. It would be good to revisit that if we have some money to do it again or make it an annual item because it's quite big events where people can all get together. They like that. Part of it is about the community getting to know each other in the streets. That's important; We joined the project with the national trust, which we called plant The High Street. It was to have green spaces along Hamilton High street. We also did this anti-pollution garden, which is an ongoing thing, trying to plan something to mitigate the pollution on Hamilton High street. We did a rainwater harvesting session doing cutting session seed sowing.

It's a mixture, and still, it is very doing things sort of bottom-up. It is much easier to do top-down because you just get on with it, whereas this is about building relationships and understanding of knowledge and network as well. You need a long time to do it well—almost one by one every person in the street. But it is worth doing that. There was this child who came every week to the little after school group. He has never done anything outdoors before and has never seen a bean and a pea, normal and small things like that. I like to do it for that kind of people because they really got a lot of it and enjoyed it

and would benefit most probably. Little things like that, little nuggets, or important seeds, I suppose, would develop over time. But it's challenging to see what progress you've made because plants grow slowly, and relationships do too.

The plan is we are trying to raise money through subscription. And I've been trying to keep going with little things just to keep the presents, doing some online stuff called Nature Makeover. And we are doing another one on the 21st where people will take short videos of their gardens to show their children or families or whatever so we can see each other's gardens. The idea is when we can get together again, they still have a roving garden club that maybe goes one week to links on the garden discussing some work on the estate. We will start a seed bank, or a nursery to grow plants.

4. Who participates in the design aspect more when working on a private garden, experts (gardeners like you, Friends of the Earth, etc.), or the residents? What proportion do both account for?

This spring, we got some money to do 4 front yards. What I am going to suggest is working with an organization called Rewild my Street from London Metropolitan University to get ideas. People do their own private gardens and sometimes ask me for advice about plants, ponds, or whatever, but they are just getting on with it. I think that's the best way because like I said the first garden we did as a sort of

makeover thing where we de-paved. We took out every other paving-stone, it was like a checkerboard-like a chessboard. She was very willing at first, but then she just let rubbish comes in, and she doesn't clean it and water it. It was a lesson. You need to go with someone who wants to change and have enthusiastic enough to follow the maintenance. So, it only works if the householder wants to do it and are committed to the idea of more nature in their gardens.

-Is that they have some idea about what the garden looks like and then you provide some knowledge of it?

Yes. What surprises me is how little people know about plants, although they may be active in environmental ways. That's the big thing that I've noticed, the lack of knowledge. It's quite a significant gap in people's understanding. They don't know about seasons, how plants grow, how they seed. So, on a bigger scale, people need to understand more. It's also a kind of education during the process of the project.

5. What experience do you gain when working with communities? Have you ever faced any resistance and difficulties? How did you solve them?

Like the garden, I was telling you about the one we de-paved. You think you are doing something that will benefit everybody. Still, there will be someone who doesn't

understand it for whatever reason. So I think planning is very important to consult everybody if you can, but that takes time, money, and resources. Like John Little's design, which is lovely at this time of year with lots of poppies, but some people are thinking it's not looked after. I think you need to show that you are looking after it and it's designed to be like that. Do some diagrams or sketches that tell people what you are doing and tell people how useful it will be in your environment.

6. Do you have any suggestions for both expert's perspective and the user's perspective when doing a co-design project?

For users, they need to see a benefit for them. People will put a lot of energy into it if they feel their family or their community's values will be satisfied. As an expert, you need to find out what people think will benefit them, and I think a lot of the time is through their children. Lots of people interested in gardening if their children come home and say: Look, I grew this! That's why I sometimes focus more on health or pollution. Also, there's a massive amount of education. We are trying to get experts in their specific fields like entomologists to come and talk about people's insights and say these are wonderful things.

TALK WITH EXPERTS

| Gary Grant |

Chartered Environmentalist, Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. More than 35 years of experience involving several hundred projects of ecological survey and assessment, environmental design and planning, biodiversity action planning, habitat creation, wetland restoration, urban greening, site design and management planning. Expert on green roofs and green walls (contributor to the London Plan Policy on Living Roofs and Walls and the Green Roof Guidance for Greater Manchester).

Specialties: Green walls, green roofs, rain gardens, green infrastructure planning, water sensitive cities, urban biodiversity, GIS, ecological restoration, ecological networks, masterplanning, climate change adaptation, smart cities.

(https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-grant-34170818/)

1. Last year, you gave us a lecture about Green Infrastructure and showed us some projects like green roofs and green walls. My question is, what the best kinds of sites are? Or what places have you found work best — either from a functional perspective, that they add the most value as functioning UGI or from a community/ culture perspective, that they are most successful in the long term and embraced by the community?

Let's start with green roofs. Green roofs are not always visible, especially from the street; people may not know they are there. For instance, in London people read about the proposals for green roofs in Paris and they say to me isn't it a pity that we can't have green roofs in London as Paris. I always say there are more green roofs in London. You just didn't know it because you couldn't see them, this is a disadvantage with green roofs. And if they are in another building looking at them, it's not their green roof. It's somebody else's. But green roofs nearly always work well functionally, and there's almost always a way of creating a type of them that works if you're making the sponge city. And nearly all roofs can be a success if they are low maintenance. So, although they may not be known about by the community, they benefit the community.

whether it's north-facing or south-facing. In the northern Hammersmith, if you have a south-facing wall, it gets more sun, it could be more challenging to keep it irrigated and to choose plants like the sun. So, in the north area like there, it would be easier to have a north-facing wall with shade-loving plants. It can also be expensive to maintain the walls. So, there are more questions about location and access for maintenance. However, unlike roofs, people can nearly always see the green wall, and they do love them, they can enjoy every day so it can have a more significant impact on the community. The green walls are good at stopping the air pollution in the streets, and they are suitable for cooling because they are watered. That is, in some ways, they are even better than green roofs at cooling because there's more water evaporating. Thus, different green intervention has different characteristics. It would be best if you looked at them differently.

- Can I say the green intervention can happen on every hard material?

The walls are different. It's challenging to find the wall that doesn't have problems with access for maintenance. Because you must work at height, it's not easy to drive the machine to the bottom of the wall. In some places, the aspect is essential,

Probably, because you can fit, as long as the material has the strength, you can make a waterproof layer between the material and the planting. However, there are some problems with some materials. Like in Arabia, the metal can get too hot, so it isn't easy to green on metal in Arabia. But with stone, brick, and masonry, you can create an air gap or a waterproof layer. But of course, if the building wasn't designed to take the weight, then maybe there's a problem with the roof's strength, it's usually okay with a wall.

2. If you find sites have advantages, how do you communicate this to the public, who might not see the potential of these sites?

That can be difficult. We usually use computer-generated graphics to communicate. Like with Photoshop, to show people what might be possible, different options and so on. But we have to be careful because we don't want to show something impossible. It's easy with photoshop to make something look good, but will it be like that, will it be possible to maintained like that. An architect who doesn't know anything about maintaining UGI can image it; however, maintenance people or the specific experts may realize it's not feasible, so they need to be involved.

Also, with the public, you need to explain the benefits because often they don't know about all of them. They may think they like or dislike the look of it, but it's not the same as all the benefits, so I think there's some certification required in the communication with the public. That might be your job as well. You can share with them some examples from other places. It's easier now because, for instance, you must have many cases with green walls so that you can show people the models. Ten years ago, when these were new, it was more difficult. There may be a town where they didn't have it, we used to say they have done it in another city and people would always say, but that's easier in that

town, in our town you can't do it. I went to the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010, there were a lot of UGI there. That was very important because people who haven't seen that before could go to the Expo and saw many UGI. Then they believed because they have seen it. In China, that helped a lot because if they examined it in the Expo in Shanghai or saw the photographs, they thought we could do this in Beijing, Guangzhou, or other cities just copying the idea. So, I guess Expos and temporary installations may be a good thing to help communicate the new ideas because it's temporary. The politician would say: don't worry, we only put it there for the summer, if you don't like it, we will take it away, and everyone can relax. But if they want it, they can make it permanent or copy it to somewhere else.

3. Last week I interviewed Kate Poland, the first postcode gardener working with communities. She said one conflict is some people like tidy streets; they think the wild things as messy. What do you think of it, and how do you deal with this kind of thinking?

That is a severe problem, especially with grass, people like it to be short, some people don't like the wildflowers while some like them. And I think older people are used to everything being tidy, and the younger people might be more openminded about the possibilities. My view is it is a bigger problem not to have any greenery in the city. So, let's get greenery

first; then, over time, we can discuss how tidy it is. There are different degrees on their tidiness, you could have a scale of neat from one to ten, where ten is very tidy, and one is untidy, maybe both groups like five. So, get the green first, then we can worry about biodiversity, tidiness, and so on.

understand that species, then we can do some mapping and some biology. It isn't straightforward. There's no one way of testing your system, but I think that's a method to test the effectiveness.

4. For those small-scale sites, can they still function as a network? What criteria do you use to evaluate how these sites perform as a system? Are there standards, rules of thumb, or other criteria that you use to design and evaluate?

I think the most useful way of measuring networks is through ecological function, that ecological function might be a species. It is different for different species—for example, a type of bird, like a fly from one area to another. A butterfly might be able to move between different areas to plant, which can lead to a kind of plant and feed on other flowers to analyze your network. Maybe you start with one species then move to the other, you may eventually have to check it for many different species. It might be birds, butterflies, but also for human being. You could see how the network works for people. If it is a cycleway or pathway, you can analyze it by transport. Sometimes that requires some detailed knowledge of the requirements of that species we may not know much. Say it was for a type of bat, there are probably 30 different species of bat, so we have to choose which species and make sure we

- Is it necessary to do more test and experiment, or more often we can get information from other resources like internet and so on?

The simple thing is to say, the more UGI there is, the better connected, the closer the fragments are, the better, this is common sense. You don't need to do a master's degree in bats to know that. This is your rule-of-thumb. You are a landscape architect who doesn't have all the information, but you know some common sense. Yet if someone says about a rare butterfly, you may need to look at it in more detail.

5. In a more professional or technical perspective. What principles and criteria do you follow the most to evaluate your strategies? For example, if I want to know more about urban plant nursery, pollination, or seed dispersal, how does it work in an urban context.

If you mean you're growing the plants in the urban context, and you're giving or selling them to others for community engagement, then it's about the location where the people can use it efficiently. If it's a housing estate, it needs to be very within the housing estate or close to it. It

needs to be secure; you can lock the gate may be. And it needs to be easy to access for everyone, maybe the older people, and the mothers can come with the children and have some playtime.

A lot of this is about the practical site of it. A rooftop might be suitable if you have these safety barriers and water supplies; you can get the elevator to the roof. Or the podium above the commercial may be the right place for this as well. Although usually, the podium is ornamental, sometimes there is space not used. In the 60s of the UK, when they designed it to be high rise with the podium, they showed gardens on the podium in the architect drawings, but when they built it, it is just nothing there. It would be good to make a garden now on that kind of project.

meditations, tai chi, or other exercises people want. That's a different kind of atmosphere. So, start with one thing that people like, like food, but try to do other things. I'm sure you can find some excellent cases of that kind of project like community gardens all over the world.

7. I think maintenance is an important part. Some of the green spaces are meant to be temporary, and some are working as a long-term project. For both temporary and long-term plans, what the value and challenges are? What are the best approaches to mitigating these challenges?

There's something they can't do because it's too technical and complicated or doesn't have the expertise. So, you will still need professional support, which doesn't have to be very expensive, it may not be required every day. And sometimes that professional support might give you some emotional support, just to give people the confidence. It's imperative. In a word, probably the way forward for that kind of project is for a hybrid where it's some volunteer input and some professional input.

improve the status of the gardeners or UGI maintenance technicians.

6. Some of the GI projects need to work with local communities. What kind of green intervention projects do you think are respect the original site and satisfy the residents' needs? Or how can we know what people want? Do you have some examples of projects to show?

Food is always good for getting everybody interested because nearly everyone likes food, everybody has to have food. Did you go to a lecture by John Little, his project the Poppy Estate, where before just have grass and now they have food growing, bread making and all kinds of activities. And ideally, we would have other events, biodiversity, relaxation places for

This is a big problem for us. In the UK, they don't like to spend a lot of money on maintenance because of the way the economy works. They can always borrow money to spend on construction while they can't borrow money for maintenance, the maintenance money has to come out of a revenue budget, it's a different way that is funded. That means they're always worried about spending money on maintenance. One of the ways that will overcome is engaging volunteers. For instance, we did a project in an office, and we noted that the office staff could maintain the garden and the roof terrace. The boss said, " I don't think they are interested," but actually there are plenty of people in that office who want to maintain that back garden. They enjoyed that 20 to 30 minutes in their lunch break, just cleaning and cutting plants. It's good for everybody.

It's not much a problem for the government, because they paid for road sweepers and gardeners. The issue with that is the education of the gardener. In some societies, they are not considered to be very important, who is just a man with no education, or somebody being paid very little money. But it is an essential job. We need to change the way people think; we need better education for gardeners. An old gardener may be an expert in his field, and we need to respect that. When I was in Shanghai, there was a man growing watermelon on the roofs of his housing estate and other buildings. Every building he was getting the key, so he was a farmer in the city. I think in China there's a positive feeling about gardens. In history, there used to be some critical gardens in which the gardening was very skilled. Maybe in some modern situations, we need to bring that back and use those skills to look after modern UGI so that we can build on that positive background and