Finding Personal Restoration During the Ongoing Pandemic – Through Nature
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Welcome to our first fully digital issue of the Living Architecture Monitor – The Pandemic Issue. We hope you enjoy the new format!
As we all continue to adapt to the negative impacts of the pandemic, many of us have instinctively sought refuge in green space. City parks report unprecedented levels of visitors, campsites in regional parks are already booked solid, rental cottages in short supply and even gardening supply sales have boomed. Green walls, as Joyce McLean points out in her piece in this issue, have increasingly migrated indoors.
Warden woods in early Spring – a place for personal restoration during the pandemic. (Photo: Steven Peck)
Near my house, I am fortunate to have access to Warden Woods, a mixed deciduous forest in the river valley of the eastern branch of Toronto’s Don River. It’s an urban forest and river, so it is far from pristine, with plastic garbage strewn along the river banks and invasive plants like garlic mustard and dog strangling vine abundant.
Almost every week last year I walked the trail on the non-paved side of the river. By doing so, I took advantage of the healing powers of being in nature, which reduces stress, lowers one’s blood pressure and reduces mental fatigue. The benefits of spending only 20 minutes in a natural setting have now been well documented by a variety of scientists from different disciplines, and doctors in several countries like South Korea and Japan, now actually prescribe spending time in nature to patients suffering from stress and anxiety.
Spring ephemerals slowly emerge from the soil to take advantage of the sun filtering through the bare branches of the trees. Revisiting a green space gives you a rare opportunity to watch it flourish. (Photo: Steven Peck)
My regular walks through Warden Woods revealed to me the subtle changes in the forest as the sun rose higher and higher in the sky. The spring ephemerals, which push through the leaf litter to capture the light and flower before the trees above come into leaf; the arrival of the migratory birds, which follow closely after the arrival of insects. Watching the salmon return to the river in the fall and leap over obstacles was a delight. Although they spawn, the urban stormwater runoff is too fierce and polluted for their eggs to survive through to the spring.
Regular visits to the woods enabled me to see the unfolding of life there, in a way I had never seen before. After each walk, I emerged feeling refreshed and relaxed. The biophilia hypothesis helps to explain our deep-seated, hard wired need to connect to nature in our cities, whether it’s a natural area, a manicured park, a backyard garden, or a green roof or wall. We need green infrastructure to maintain our health and well-being, and this awareness is stronger now, due to the constraints imposed upon us by the pandemic. This is an opportunity for our industry. As the experts in our On The Roof With interviews explain, we can use green roofs and walls to provide additional amenity spaces for people and to more deeply green our communities; to build back greener.
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Momentum for the greening of our cities with investment and supportive policy is gathering speed. Our policy section illustrates how Brooklyn Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez’s Green Roofs on Schools bill in the US and new developments in the European Union hold the promise of building healthier communities with more nature. For if we are to truly build back better from the pandemic, this must include billions of dollars of investment for living architecture as well as for the restoration and protection of natural areas – large and small.
Our green spaces are no longer a luxury, but something we cannot afford not to have access to in a world gripped by fear and stress from the pandemic, on top of unprecedented challenges from the ongoing impacts of climate change.
Our collective mission to integrate nature into our cities and buildings is often difficult, but take heart, for I believe that big changes are on the way. As you work professionally during this pandemic, I encourage you to also find Fyour own Warden Woods, and to visit often if you haven’t already. Watch, listen, touch and smell as nature miraculously unfolds before you and heals, strengthens and grounds you in the process. Happy Spring!
Sincerely yours,
Steven W. Peck, GRP, Honorary ASLA
Steven W. Peck, GRP, Honorary ASLA is the founder and president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities and has worked to develop the industry in North America and around the world for the past 23 years.