Nature, Creativity and Cities: Image makers and storytellers, the ongoing violence against nature and biodiversity and a small children’s theatre in Plymouth

“Within himself everyman is an architect. His first step towards architecture is his walk through nature. He cuts his path, like a writing on the surface of the earth. The crushing of grass and brushwood that gives way before his strength is an interference with nature, a simple definition of man’s culture” Sverre Fehn, The Thought of Construction.

Recently my home town of Plymouth has been in the news, along with Sheffield and Wandsworth,  for the destruction of most of its city centre trees (and their associated biodiversity) all in the name of a new urban plan.

 Image: Straw Plymouth (Save the Trees Armada Way)

These photos are emotive and go a long way towards describing the way we as a culture (western culture for the most part) have been treating our urban spaces as “a blank canvas” on drawing pads and computer screens.

We tend to see most natural resources including trees as data and symbols on a computer screen and as replaceable resources. We can forget that a single tree can take more than 50 years to mature, have 260,000 leaves , 12 kilometres of branches and support over 350 species of insects and 30 species of birds as well as 360 other plants.

Somehow, we forget our connection as human beings to these natural elements. Demolished trees and landscaping speak both about a kind of violence and as well about a culture that has lost touch with the community and spiritual value of nature in our homes and the public places we inhabit.

As a Designer I’m painfully aware of the way that built environment professionals can manipulate digital images to produce a kind of digital eye candy that goes a long way to supporting a story (or narrative) that in turn results in planning permission and/or construction, but where it’s not clear i or how the existing trees, the birds and insects and butterflies have been accounted. In addition, somehow community feelings, feelings that are difficult to express graphically, that existed pre-demolition of “I care”, “I believe” and “I love” this space, have not been transferred to the drawing. This can have a disastrous consequence for the community and for the environment.

Don’t get me wrong, making images, designing and creativity can be good things. If anything, we need more of all of this if we are to find sustainable and right ways to live on and with this planet. Experiencing the earth, the sky and the horizon, experiencing nature are clearly beneficial and bring meaning to life.

We as a culture, as a creative population of makers and doers and builders, need to find ways to not only include nature in our designs but to enhance nature. We need to find ways to lessen the reality that architecture is an inherently violent act.

We are living in a disappearing world where the population of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles has now seen an average drop of 69% globally since 1970 and the major cause of wildlife decline is habitat degradation and habitat exploitation carried out by human beings. 

Nature is dying. At this point, it’s all too clear that for most people involved in the built environment, turning your back on the above requires a lack of hubris and lack of responsibility that would beggar belief.

Image: Courtesy of Graeme MacKay

It’s now clearer than ever that architecture and urban design and cities, need to take account and to integrate nature and our relationship to it as a core design value and what a better way to achieve this than with a view towards biophilic design.

Back here in Plymouth again, my architecture practice Cura Design has been working over a period, with a local community-based Children’s Theatre, Stiltskin Children’s Theatre (https://stiltskin.org.uk/).

Stiltskin Children’s Theatre is an example of what can be achieved with biophilic design in terms of combining good design and children and nature to increase their well-being and as well to protect and enhance the nature which surrounds the building in an urban park.  

A derelict WWll gas decontamination building and Heritage Asset was repurposed into Plymouth’s first dedicated children’s theatre and managed amphitheatre space in Plymouths oldest listed public park. The design of the Childrens Theatre and amphitheatre endeavours to acknowledge and encourage the relationship between the children’s theatre and the heritage and natural setting. Cura Design looked to both biophilic design principles and passive haus technologies (in collaboration with Peter Warm Consultants) to integrate nature into the day-to-day life of the theatre.

External green walls provide additional habitat for birds, insects and butterflies while providing an affordable design.

The building has three performance stages: one at rooftop level, one at amphitheatre level and one internally.

Currently in a second phase of development, the project is planning to expand to include a green roof, rain water harvesting and solar panels to further connect it with the listed park and to help to enhance biodiversity in the area.

Good architecture and building cannot exist in a vacuum. Good architecture together with good design requires nature together with people, flora, and fauna in order to create meaning and poetry and spirit. If carried out and constructed properly good architecture and building can create feelings of "I care", "I believe", and "I love". We need less violence against nature in the act of building. We need nature to be valued. Nature is more than a resource on a computer screen, whether you are religious or spiritual or not, nature and our relationship to it, is sacred.

Biophilia creates deep and powerful connections.

Biophilia benefits economic growth.

Biophilia creates healthier cities.

Biophilia positively impacts education.

Biophilic cities are happier and more productive.

We need more people to fight the good fight in making as Charles Eisenstein writes – The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible.