How can we encourage more local greening? Where does Biophilic Design fit in the climate change picture? What can we learn from Paris and its free and equitable access to fountains and water? These and other questions are discussed in this great interview with Ross O’Ceallaigh, founder of the Green Urbanist podcast.

With much of the world experiencing unprecedented heat waves this summer, we need to accelerate how we bring Climate Adaptation into our behaviours and city infrastructures. Ross is an urban designer and planner and calls for architects and fellow designers to refocus our aims to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Local greening could be a key solution, but, he says, we need to reduce the bureaucratic barriers that stop communities from planting trees and greening their spaces, the whole process needs to be streamlined to make it really easy.

Did you know that 48% of London’s surface area is green and blue? That’s nearly half of the city covered by parks, gardens, canals, ponds and more. This surprising fact emerged as a result of a mapping exercise. Three years ago the Mayor of London formally designated London as a National Park City, which came about after a grassroots campaign took hold. Adelaide in Australia has followed, and there are more cities looking for similar designation. This is exciting on many levels. Changing the mindset that the city is indeed green, should hopefully also add weight to decisions to plant more trees, and reduce the desire to clear the tree canopies in the city which we desperately need.

There are many really interesting projects taking place in London. So if you’re in the city, why not check some of them out, from Fruity Walks to the London Fungus Network (or check out the links below).

We discuss how it wasn’t that long ago that we were living as hunter-gatherers, living in tune with nature and its natural cycles, and that we need to maintain that connection. Biophilic Design in the city also helps reduce temperatures in cities, from increasing tree canopies (we need at least 40% tree canopy cover to create a balanced temperature he says) to including more water.

Let’s reimagine what nature in cities actually means. Together we can design greener, healthier, wilder.