Reconnecting with Nature - Landscape architects at the forefront of the sustainable and creative urban transformation”

Cities have become the focus of sustainability issues as they are major consumers and distributors of goods and services. They have an ecological impact much beyond their geographic locations. Calls for humankind to reconnect with nature to forward sustainability and resilience cannot be ignored anymore. Therefore, we have to re-connect with nature in our social and ecological systems, to the urban landscapes, to fight against environmental crises in our cities. There is an urgent need to transform our cities towards a more intact and resilient urban nature for a better future of our citizens. Interventions that respond to certain everyday needs of people in their public spaces can have multiple catalysing benefits for urban communities. Besides the tangible improvement of the environment, socio-ecological design, innovation practices in public spaces strengthen community cohesion, awareness of the common good, and finally the motivation towards further engagement in spatial transformation processes. Landscape Architects together with associated disciplines can make the difference. We understand nature and public space as a real-world laboratory where we interact with citizens and in transdisciplinary contexts. Therefore we aim to start a new narrative on “Reconnecting with Nature” in a multi-stakeholder and interdisciplinary context. The kick-off will be executed during the Nee European Bauhaus Festival in Brussels and we aim to globalize and continue the discussion during the WUF in a format of a networking event event.