Are Green Spaces Important in Urban Design?

Image 1: Urban green spaces provide a way for people to connect to nature within a developed city

Photo taken by Jean-Christophe BENOIST [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]

In the context of modern cities, humans are facing many challenges, including air pollution, heat island effect, and decline in residents’ quality of life. Therefore, the planning and design of urban green spaces is particularly important. green spaces not only purify urban air, but also provide urban residents with necessary leisure and recovery environments.

Evolution of Urban Green Spaces

In the 19th century, with the industrial revolution and rapid growth of urban population, some European cities began to plan parks and green spaces to improve the urban environment and enhance the quality of life of residents. Since then, urban green spaces have begun to evolve into various forms, not only limited to traditional parks and gardens, but also including street greening, rooftop gardens, city squares and other forms to adapt to the needs of urban development.

Image 2: Roof Garden

https://www.optigruen.com/

Types of Urban Green Spaces

There are various types of urban green spaces, which can be roughly divided into two categories: public green spaces and private green spaces.

Public green spaces include urban parks, community gardens, green squares, etc. They are an important part of urban public spaces and provide residents with places for leisure and entertainment.

Private green spaces include private gardens, roof greening, etc. Although these green spaces are small in scale, they play an important role in improving urban microclimate and increasing biodiversity.

Roles of Urban Green Spaces

Urban green spaces play a vital role in urban design. First of all, green spaces can effectively improve the city’s microclimate, reduce the heat island effect, and lower the city’s temperature. Secondly, urban green spaces are good for increasing biodiversity and providing habitats for various creatures. In addition, green spaces can improve the mental health of city dwellers, with research showing that exposure to the natural environment can significantly reduce stress and improve quality of life. Finally, urban green spaces is the key to sustainable urban development. It helps build an environment-friendly city and promotes the harmonious development of economy, society and environment.

Image 3: Urban Heat Island

NASA

Precedents

New York Central Park

Image 4: New York Central Park

Tricia Kang

As one of the world’s most famous urban parks, New York’s Central Park demonstrates how green spaces can provide a peaceful refuge in the midst of a busy city.

Improvingurban environment;
Becomingan important leisure destination;
Providinga quiet place;
Reflectingthe profound impact of green spaces on urban design.

Singapore Garden City

Image 5: East Coast Park

https://beta.nparks.gov.sg/

Through the government’s strong planning, Singapore has integrated green spaces into every corner of urban development, thereby transforming it into a “garden city”.

Improvingthe city’s aesthetics and living environment;
Promotingecotourism;

Demonstrating the importance of green spaces in improving the city’s comprehensive competitiveness.

Conclusion

To sum up, urban green spaces have indispensable importance to urban design. They not only play an important role in improving the urban environment and improving residents’ quality of life, but are also the key to achieving sustainable urban development. Therefore, urban planners and designers should pay attention to the planning and design of urban green spaces and create more green spaces for cities and residents through innovative and scientific methods.

References

Ulrich, R. S. (1984). View through a window may influence recovery from surgery. Science, 224(4647), 420-421.

Beatley, T. (2011). Biophilic Cities: Integrating Nature into Urban Design and Planning. Island Press.

The City of New York Central Park History. [Online] Available at: https://www.centralparknyc.org/about/history

National Parks Board Garden City Vision. [Online] Available at: https://www.nparks.gov.sg/gardens-parks-and-nature/garden-city-fund

Urban Heat Islands. [Online] Available at: https://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/basic-page/urban-heat-islands

In this blog, the author explains what is an urban green space, the classification of urban green spaces, and their functions. However, I think the author’s description of the specific functions of urban green space is not clear, I will add some contents.
First of all, urban green space can improve urban climate. Urban green space on the temperature has a significant regulatory effect, its impact is mainly manifested in the object surface temperature, air temperature and solar radiation temperature, regulating the characteristics of the performance: summer green space object surface temperature is lower than the bare land, paved roads, buildings, etc., and the air temperature effect is the same. The opposite is true in winter (Haase, 1970). At the same time, green plants, especially tree forests, have a high transpiration capacity, which makes the relative and absolute humidity of the air in the green space area greater than that in the green area. Moreover, urban ribbon green space, including urban roads and riverfront green space, is the green ventilation corridor of the city.
Secondly, with the rapid development of modern industry, the density of urban population is increasing, and urban environmental pollution is becoming increasingly serious (Ding, 2011). Therefore, the protection and improvement of the environment is becoming more and more urgent, on the one hand, we should fundamentally eliminate the sources of pollution, on the other hand, we should take positive and effective measures to prevent and control it through various channels. Among them, the garden green space on the protection of the environment, to prevent pollution has an obvious role, mainly in the following aspects: absorption of carbon dioxide, release of oxygen, absorption of harmful gases, absorption and stagnation of dust, bactericidal effect and reduce noise.

Ding, S. (2011) The function of urban garden green space. Available at: https://www.fx361.com/page/2011/0815/13725699.shtml (Accessed: 15 May 2024).
Haase, A. (1970) Green spaces and their social functions: Specific challenges in urban spaces of arrival, SpringerLink. Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-01980-7_22 (Accessed: 15 May 2024).