Art, Science, Action: Green Cities Re-imagined

ESSAYS | POINTS OF VIEW

  • “Heal the land, Heal the people”: A Conversation About Indigenizing Urban Natural Area Stewardship

    “Heal the land, Heal the people”: A Conversation About Indigenizing Urban Natural Area Stewardship

    Serina Fast Horse and Toby Query met as employees at the City of Portland in 2018 while working on an innovative project that centered Indigenous voices and perspectives. This project, Shwah kuk wetlands (which means frog in Chinuk Wawa, a local indigenous trade language) intertwines Indigenous (or relational) and Western (or linear) worldviews. This conversation…

  • Rocinha’s Bio-Cultural-Spatial Uniqueness: Where Community and Forest Converge

    Rocinha’s Bio-Cultural-Spatial Uniqueness: Where Community and Forest Converge

    Places, much like nature, are in a constant state of change. This is especially true for Rocinha, Brazil’s most populous favela, home to approximately 200,000 people. Perched on steep hillsides in Rio de Janeiro’s Southern Zone, Rocinha is a vibrant, multi-layered community where life unfolds within a dense network of streets, alleyways, and staircases, shaped…

  • Creating Biodiverse Australian Cities: Terminology, Aesthetics, and Acceptance

    Creating Biodiverse Australian Cities: Terminology, Aesthetics, and Acceptance

    Biodiversity has always been important to environmental scientists, conservationists, landscape architects, and others but only recently seems to have entered the public domain. It took a long time for Australia to accept the climate emergency. It is pleasing to see that the biodiversity crisis has been accepted more readily. There is legislation at national and…

TNOC’S MISSION

Cities and communities that are better for nature and all people, through transdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration.

We combine art, science, and practice in innovative and publicly available engagements for knowledge-driven, imaginative, and just green city making.

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PROJECTS | ART, SCIENCE & ACTION, TOGETHER

TNOC FESTIVAL 2024

The Distance
Between Dreams
and Reality
is Action
The Nature of Cities Festival, is an event that uniquely blends elements of a conference, art exhibition, and retreat, all centered on urban nature.

SPROUT POETRY JOURNAL

ISSUE 4: CARE
This latest issue includes works that interrogate the modes of engaging with others in (urban and natural) space that can speak to the interrelated dimensions of care.

NBS COMICS: NATURE TO SAVE THE WORLD

26 Visions for Urban Equity, Inclusion and Opportunity
Now a global project with over ONE MILLION readers, we invite comic creators from all over the world to imagine comics about how people and nature might thrive together. Nature-based Solutions (NBS) Comics empowers creators to combine science and storytelling.

STORIES OF TNOC: VOLUME 2

Cheeky monkeys, vertical farms, climate change, and tree tribunals. Our latest collection features 49 short stories from 20 countries that radically re-imagine city life.

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AROUND THE WORLD



THE NATURE OF GRAFFITI

This is the nature of graffiti. It facilitates speech. It speaks to us. It stakes claims and makes statements. It tells stories.
The Nature of Cities hosts a public gallery about the graffiti and street art that motivates us in public places.

REVERBERATIONS EXHIBITION

Close your eyes. What do you hear?
An exhibition exploring the elements through art, science, and sound, with over 30 contributors from various disciplines in a multimedia experience. Produced by the USDA Forest Service and The Nature of Cities.

THE JUST CITY ESSAYS

The Just City Essays
26 Visions for Urban Equity, Inclusion and Opportunity
Produced by The Nature of Cities, together with The J. Max Bond Center, and Next City, we ask what would a just city look like, and what could be strategies to get there? We raised these questions to architects, mayors, artists, doctors, designers, scholars, philanthropists, ecologists, urban planners, and community activists. Their responses came to us from 22 cities across five continents and myriad vantages.