Convivial Greenstreets: A Concept for Climate-Responsive Urban Design

Ken Tamminga, João Cortesão and Michiel Bakx
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Ken Tamminga: Department of Landscape Architecture, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
João Cortesão: Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning Group, Wageningen University, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands
Michiel Bakx: Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning Group, Wageningen University, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 9, 1-23

Abstract: This paper presents a conceptual framework for using “convivial greenstreets” (CG) as a resource for climate adaptation. When applied consistently, CG can become an emerging green practice with a positive impact on urban adaptation to climate change: CG may provide localized climate amelioration in ways that support social engagement outdoors. However, as spontaneous phenomena, CG should neither become an academic nor an aesthetic prescriptive tool. How then can CG be used as an active resource for urban adaptation to climate change while avoiding these two potential pitfalls? To explore this question, we present the concept of CG and the ways it can be situated in theoretical urbanism and analogous urban morphologies. We profile the CG inventory corpus and conceptualization that has taken place to date and expand them through a climate-responsive urban design lens. We then discuss how CG and climate-responsive urban design can be brought together while preventing the academization and aestheticizing of the former. This discussion is illustrated with a group of visualizations. We conclude by submitting that climate-responsive urban design and extensive and robust CG practices can co-operate to promote more resilient communities and urban climates. Finally, the conceptual framework herein sets an agenda for future research.

Keywords: conviviality; greenstreets; urban climate; climate-responsive urban design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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