Ryan Shubin argues landscape architects should design cities around green and blue infrastructure. Over half the world lives in cities, where landscape interventions can manage stormwater and heat while reshaping how people experience urban space.
I think within landscape architecture, the idea of urban nature is really an invitation because more and more people are living in the urban context now over half the world's population lives in cities and so people want to integrate landscape where they live. So it invites us landscape architects to, to basically take that as our domain for design and design landscapes and now that the awareness that both green and blue infrastructure can be embedded into city systems and because climate change is acting as a catalyst, basically like a kind of a warning siren that climate is going to change the way cities operate. Landscape is looked at as an alternative media to handle water from storm events or heat from kind of increasing temperatures. So for a landscape architect, urban nature is really kind of. It feels like my home turf. And I am excited as cities continue to think about what does this mean for them because it allows us as landscape architects a chance to step in and kind of almost mediate that dialogue of the population with the landscape.
Day 1 - Policy Innovation for Urban Transitions | Future Cities Symposium & Exhibition 2025
