Wild the City:The production of complex urban spaces that embrace wildness

Abstract

Children’s exposure to what is commonly called ‘nature’ is essential for their physical and emotional development. As people move to more urbanised environments they tend to have less access to nature. Opportunities to interact with nature are often limited to their own backyard or urban parks. To date, the role of urban parks has predominately been to provide an area for amenity and aesthetic purposes. Urban parks are rarely seen as an opportunity to provide spaces of ‘wild’ nature, a term closely linked with the concept of biodiversity. Re- wilding means creating complex, multipurpose spaces that embrace wildness. Given that most existing parks fail to provide a complex experience of nature, this conceptual project explores transforming urban parks. Changing from the tamed nature of exotic specimen trees and lawns to complex multipurpose spaces that celebrate local New Zealand identity.

I use a web log (blog) as innovative pedagogy, to communicate the ideology and aesthetic of re-wilding the city. A Soundscape film has also been produced to raise the awareness of sensory experiences other than visual that are integral to quality urban spaces. I communicate the reasons why we ought to use re-wilding as a mechanism by raising awareness of the psychological, social and health benefits of wild spaces identified in social science research.

There are significant community benefits from this project. Through an enriched experience of nature in their everyday life, New Zealanders will be more connected with their own heritage and surrounding landscape. Quality green spaces in our urban areas will enhance people’s quality of life. By experiencing local native plants and animals, people are able to relate to, and are more likely to develop an environmental ethic, a kaitiakitanga.

This new ideology will achieve distinctive New Zealand urban parks that locate us geographically, and become as iconic and identifiable as more classical symbols like our architecture.