Biodiversity Station is a device for a Nature-base Solution for healthy cities and active citizens.
Covid Lockdown has been a chance to look at public green spaces in a new way: on one hand we felt the strong need to be connected with nature, on the other hand we saw that if we're not constantly present, cities are being taken over by nature very quickly, shining a light on wilderness.
Our proposal tries to answer the following questions: Is nature claiming back the city? How can we build a novel, urban ecosystems for the future?
We all know that today biodiversity is undergoing a strong decline, and the causes are all linked to human activities. Nevertheless, urban ecosystem can be particularly rich in spontaneous species, in many cases even richer than the surrounding natural areas. Urban biodiversity are also linked to the extraordinary value and sense of connection that nature inspires us, as evidenced by the reports of IPBES (2020 ), and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (UN, 2001).
Our Biodiversity Stations (BS) is a green infrastructure wants to reflects, at the local level, the international mobilization for a New Deal for Nature, in order to promote vibrant and green, sustainable and resilient cities and to raise awareness about biodiversity loss.
The BS is a very simple structure, composed of a vertical metal bar, on which various wooden elements are fixed and connected, including a bench, a container for plants, two bugs-hotel, a bat-house, and a bird feeders.The plants selection includes resilient species that grow spontaneously and attract butterflies. BS includes also scientific panels and QR code linked to several languages descriptive web pages, useful to understand natural processes.Adaptable to any context, our BS is a modular device whose dimensions can vary according to the needs and characteristics of the places chosen to host it, from a little terrace to the middle of a lawn, in a park, in a square, along a wall or in a courtyard. In this case the module of the single device is cm110x110, h cm200. We have placed three BS modules in Tel Aviv, on the lawn in Ort Israel Street at the corner with HaMelacha Street.
The construction of the BS is quite simple and requires little equipment. Normally, Linaria organizes free workshops for design and construction that involve citizens interested in participatory processess about public space. Anyhow, in Tel Aviv two experts from Linaria’s team are able to finalize the structure in two weeks.
The cost of the entire structure is calculated around 4500,00 euros.
