By Michael Casey
Urban areas worldwide face escalating environmental challenges, including air and water pollution, heat islands, and loss of biodiversity. In response, urban greening has emerged as a critical strategy to mitigate these issues, enhancing the sustainability and liveability of cities.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
Efforts in contemporary urban greening projects pave the way for a more sustainable future.
Embarking on a journey towards a harmonious coexistence with nature, we witness the transformative embrace of urban green projects worldwide. From the heart of a bustling metropolis to the soulful corners of quaint towns, communities are breathing life into concrete landscapes.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
I’m captivated by the vibrant energy of cities, and harbour a deep love and respect for nature. However, when will we truly experience a merging of these two worlds, placing our profound need for plants at the forefront?… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
Greening built environments demands a blending of expertise from various disciplines such as architecture, urban planning, engineering, and environmental and horticultural sciences. Interdisciplinary collaboration, facilitated by partnerships, ensures a holistic understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with sustainable development.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
The significance of training and development of staff cannot be understated for its importance in any industry, and for the success of businesses worldwide. The opportunities that training and development programs can bring to staff extend beyond just improving their skills, to also enhancing employee productivity and company culture.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
Is the adoption of dense and diverse urban planting on the rise, or is it simply misunderstood?
Urban density and growth is on the rise, and currently the increased numbers are on an upward trajectory and is happening faster than we have ever experienced in human history, with an additional two billion people expected in urban areas by 2050.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
Green infrastructure projects can be incredibly beneficial for the environment and communities, but they can also come with challenges when trying to plan and be granted approval to build these into our built environments. Our councils are on board, communities love the introduction of nature spaces and our planners and designers understand more about the added benefits of introducing green infrastructure into their designs.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
The rise in interest in interior plantscaping, along with vertical gardens and other forms of interior plant layouts, is being matched with the results of the associated benefits. These include providing clean pollution-free filtered air and cooler environments, along with connecting people to nature.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
Green Infrastructure installations are fast becoming an inclusion in our cities as we work towards finding solutions to mitigate the negative effects of climate change.
These installations, located around our cities, appear on rooftops, sides of buildings, within tight spaces, and in locations that makes the installation and maintenance of green spaces much more difficult than what we commonly install at ground level.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
Substrates provide anchorage for plants and hold water which is key to their survival and growth through their effective absorption and storing of nutrients. Substrates, much like other living organisms, require a careful selection process to ensure they’re fit for purpose for green infrastructure projects.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
Global cities continue to develop at a rapid rate, and with an increase in size comes more people, more built structures, and in a lot of cases fewer green spaces for biodiversity to thrive. To counter the reduction of biodiversity, city planning needs to incorporate larger dedicated green areas rather than commonly creating small green spaces.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
Our cities are full of built structures with buildings of all shapes and sizes dominating our skylines, and they all have one thing in common – in most cases, they have an underutilised roof space.
Over the course of decades, roof spaces of all shapes and forms have been used to store HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) installations, and until recently, photovoltaic panels (PV).… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
Urban greening is becoming an important tool in helping to address climate change by adding greenery into our built environment. The one design inclusion that green infrastructure experts are starting to use more and more is the installation of trees into, and onto, buildings.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
With more than 70% of the global population projected to be living in cities by 2050, coupled with the need to meet sustainability targets in 2030 and 2050, government and city planners will have to rethink how the future of cities will need to look and work.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
With urbanisation spreading from the cities into our peri urban environments, we are sure of one thing, our built environments are going to lead to more problems that will affect the ways in which people comfortably live their lives.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
In urban environments, we often praise the efforts of designers and planners when the landscape and the built environment merge seamlessly to become one. We enjoy the aesthetics of what greenspaces achieve with grey infrastructure, and even more so when we see evidence of the biodiversity that these green spaces attract.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
The pilot park in Jakarta that’s fallen victim to its own success quickly implements a revised park management plan.
It was an email I received from an industry news outlet that captured my initial attention related to an innovative project that was in the pipeline for the people of South Jakarta.… Continue reading
Read MoreBy Michael Casey
In most cases, when the term green infrastructure is used in a planning and design context, by default most of us think about green roofs, walls and facades but what about the many other applications that can be used to ensure built environments are designed with the inclusion of plant life. … Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
Recently I was invited by the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH) onto their technical panel to assist with their World Green Cities Awards. These awards are intended to highlight and advocate, innovative and inspiring nature-orientated approaches to city design and operation.… Continue reading
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By Michael Casey
Today, more than ever, society is placing a greater importance on greenspaces and the integration of them in both private and public environments. To better understand the importance we place on these spaces, we need not look any further than the outpouring of emotion when public parklands and playgrounds were closed during lockdowns, or when we celebrated our own personal greenspaces in and around our homes while we worked and were educated from home.… Continue reading
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