Enhancing biodiversity & social inclusion by transforming Europe's Living environments (INNATURE)

Our project aims to re-imagine and accelerate new living futures and ‘next practices’ across Europe by co-creating five diverse NBS demonstration cases across Europe (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Romania, UK) that are inclusive, beautiful and sustainable, the three key pillars of the New European Bauhaus (NEB). The project will demonstrate the co-benefits of NBS through inclusive design solutions and innovative processes, methods, care and management of NBS. This collective project aims to change mindsets, affect policy and to accelerate and scale-up NBS solutions in different contexts locally and across Europe. 

It will do so by bringing biodiversity and people diversity together at all levels and thereby reimagining new futures. The project and demo cases are co-created and co-led by a collective of interdisciplinary researchers, ecologists, artists and designers, community and volunteering organisations, SMEs and cities.

More specifically, the INNATURE project will:

(1) co-produce and demonstrate NBS that are NEB (New European Bauhaus) ‘by design’ through Eco-Social Living Labs.
(2) protect, celebrate and enhance existing local biodiversity through Art Conversations and collaboration and biodiversity actions with local ecologists.
(3) ensure long-term resilience of the NBS through a Holistic Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (including citizen science), facilitated by an Integrated Digital Platform.
(4) use NBS to re-imagine new living futures in Europe and create a Local Community Economy-Ecology Value Framework; and
(5) map these processes and results in a new framework and practical guidelines for ‘NEB-by-design’ NBS, culminating in the INNATURE Pattern Book.

The five demonstration cases are at the heart of the entire project design: all the seven key innovations are developed and demonstrated in real-life settings. The demonstration sites, located in different European regions, were carefully selected for their geographical complementarity and diversity in terms of urban typology, socio-cultural and biodiversity aspects, inclusivity focus, and current and future predicted climatic context. The consortium has ensured access to local sites through (existing) collaboration with landowners and key local actors. 

These NBS are NEB-by-design, summarised as sustainable (preserving and enhancing biodiversity and people’s health and well-being, connection to nature, climate adaptation and mitigation, circular economy principles, long-term performance and manageability of solutions), beautiful (i.e. creating a sense of place and local meaning, identity and community) and inclusive (i.e. just, affordable and accessible to all; genuine participatory processes across disciplines and with different stakeholders and the community, including vulnerable groups).

The five demo cases aim to showcase how a diversity of NBS, which are integrated with NEB, are essential for their lasting success and the creation of resilient neighbourhoods. While the actual NBS are different and unique in each case, all demonstrations will follow a set of common principles: 

(1) Each demo-case will be adapted to local community and ecological needs, fully co-created with local actors supported by arts-based interventions and monitored and evaluated over longitudinal time-scales. Each demo-case will map the local ecological footprint, NBS costs, and social, ecological and financial benefits. 

(2) Each demo-case will work with the principle of enhancing local biodiversity and tie-in with local frameworks and other EU initiatives such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, focusing on local priority species. This will be done by working with local ecologists with the local community to support local people’s sense of belonging and commitment to local nature stewardship to nurture a deeper connection between residents and their natural environment, that promotes both human and non-human health and wellbeing. 

(3) Long-term resilience is a guiding principle in the design of all demo cases, ensured through evidence-based design, including local ecological knowledge and working with local communities and stakeholders from the inception to use of the NBS, to create a sense of ownership and realism about care, maintenance and management of the NBS over time, which is supported by all the other INNARURE innovations. 

(4) When constructing the NBS, circular economy principles and low impact eco-design are at the heart of decision-making when using material, product, plant and soil choices etc. Together with the community, innovative ideas will be stimulated and can create new initiatives in recycling, repair, and sustainable design; this will be mapped in the INNATURE Pattern Book. 

(5) Ecological, building and social and cultural heritage aspects are at the heart of INNATURE, e.g. re-use of existing seeds; enhancing existing street and path patterns and buildings; re-using, repurposing and reinventing sound traditional forestry practices and locally available forest products and materials to create new activities and products; celebrating natural water as a cultural asset.

With art at the forefront of the demo-case – in the high-rise housing area, AKB København Lundtoftegade centrally located in Copenhagen, Denmark –experimental common spaces are created with people from different socio-economic backgrounds, ages, culture and gender identities. The demo-case Rain Commons celebrates water in co-creation, design, implementation, and management of nature-based stormwater solutions that require different approaches compared to conventional pipe-based systems. The arts-based engagement builds on established local community organisation with curators, artists, ecologists, as well as care and maintenance actors. Hence this demo-case pushes further and demonstrates community-based art actions in the context of welfare state common housing and its democratic organisation. In the INNATURE project the local art platform Til Vægs, the national art organisation Almene Kunstklubber/AKK, the City of Copenhagen and the Section for Landscape Architecture and Planning (design) at the University of Copenhagen along with invited artists will implement both spatial eco-social interventions celebrating water in shared spaces, and new care practices probing economy-ecology value impacts on circular economy and sustainability frameworks  e.g. participatory artistic performances with stakeholders from residents to politicians. The partners have established long-term practices of working site-specifically with knowledge sharing, collective imagining, nature-based solutions and commoning.