Planting is increasingly being recognized as a critical layer of our urban environment – one that contributes to mental and physical health, urban cooling, resilience and biodiversity. For designers, vegetation presents unique challenges in the curation of a complex natural system that changes over time. Despite recognition of the importance of urban vegetation, there has been a delayed development of technology and digital tools for planting design. This creates a challenge as well as an opportunity for those who are prepared to engage with available data and technologies.
Design methods are evolving as projects become increasingly complex and integrated, with multidisciplinary teams working in a shared virtual space. How can we reimagine the processes of planting design in this context? This may meandigital experiments in planting design, from defining layouts with parametric tools to capturing learnings from real-world planting trials using spatial data.
