Closely related to green-blue infrastructure, Nature-Based Solutions is a package of technical measures, framed as a benign overlay—designed to soften the urban surface, absorb runoff, host pollinators, regulate microclimates, and promote wellbeing.
Yet behind the chlorophyll lies a persistent techno-solutionism—a belief in technical fixes that fails to address the deeper violences inscribed in the production of space. Nature-Based Solutions arrive with a checklist and offer the fragile hope that such a checklist could suffice in addressing the complexities of local and planetary ecologies. This standardized catalogue of interventions tends to flatten context, politics, and memory. Stormwater basins do not speak to erasure. Green roofs do not negotiate social inequity. Butterfly gardens do not recover contested histories of land and labor.
The name itself signals a profound conceptual error. What exactly is “nature” - and what is not? And more urgently: for whom is this a solution, and what, precisely, is being solved?
Although water basins and planting schemes may contribute to wellbeing in specific contexts, they are readily instrumentalized in processes of eco-gentrification and do not ensure a more just distribution of the sensible.
Ultimately, Nature-Based Solutions revive a regime-based design logic, cloaked in the rhetoric of ecological harmony, and often operating as a moral lubricant for questionable political decisions about land and development. By rendering nature a pliable partner in urban management, these strategies risk displacing the agonistic, unresolved realities of spatial justice with the fiction of green-over-grey resolution.
BOGL are the recipients of the 2025 LILA Office Award. They operate from offices in Copenhagen and Oslo with a steady focus on the shared grounds of urban life. Rather than seeking signature forms, the practice has built its reputation on attentiveness — to site conditions, to communities, to the long horizons of climate change, […]
The Landscape Architecture Europe Foundation (LAE) has published the 7th edition of its book series, titled Full of Life. With each issue released triennially, the editorial board delves into high-quality landscape architecture projects, tracing the evolution of this young profession and highlighting the significance of addressing climate and social issues while crafting beautiful spaces. The […]
The World Green Infrastructure Network (WGIN) and The Ukrainian Association of Green Infrastructure (UAGI) welcome interested experts and stakeholders to their webinar series for discussion, exchange of ideas and knowledge and developing initiatives for optimizing the integration of green infrastructure and nature based solutions in post conflict reconstruction. Two powerful talks by Dr. Kathleen Wolf […]
Join IFLA APR Talk & Share virtually on 15 May, 6PM (GMT+8) as KILA (Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture) hosts a dynamic conversation on pushing boundaries in the landscape architecture industry. This session will highlight how artificial intelligence is transforming landscape planning and design, and introduce innovative green systems that bring nature closer to urban […]
Felixx is organizing a handful of events, accompanying the New European Bauhaus Festival. Read more about their AGENDA apply for events and more. Want to know about the power of Nature-Based Solutions? Felixx invites you to a webinar performed by Eduardo Marin Salinas. “More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and that number […]
Felixx’ ‘Catalogue of Nature-Based Solutions for Urban Resilience’ was officially launched at last UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (DOWNLOAD). Felixx Landscape Architects & Planners developed this catalogue together with The World Bank, with the participation of several other parties. The event will be online and in English, REGISTER HERE When: 17 February, 2022, 4:00 […]
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