DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124571

Summary
Urban green spaces are frequently managed, perceived, and guided by the concept of green infrastructure (GI). GI is concerned with the management of stormwater and vegetation simultaneously at multiple scales. In fact, planning is about the everyday use of the built environment, in which the gray and green components of the urban fabric are intertwined. In the case of stormwater, gray and impervious surfaces result in stormwater that is managed into permeable surfaces that also accommodate vegetation. This project analyzed a series of private gardens in Vuores (Finland) developed by Reasearch by Design. The analysis was conducted to understand how design choices at the individual garden level can improve GI at the block and neighborhood level, to integrate rainfall and vegetation at all levels of design. Thus, we propose a checklist for designers and planners to ensure that stormwater management is integrated with vegetation to improve plant diversity at block scales and the possibility of using blocks of private plots for ecological networks. Planners need to know how to balance water, vegetation, and soil, as well as their processes and flow at each scale.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
The paper studies how private garden scale choices and designs can enhance urban green systems at block and neighborhood scales to better rethink design practices to integrate water and vegetation throughout the scales.
The plot scale designs were improved in stages. This gradual and iterative work progressed initially at the neighborhood scale and subsequently included the entire low-density housing area of Vuores's city, in Finland.
This upscaling was used to examine the significance of plot-specific choices at higher scales.

Point of Strength
The purpose of this study was to describe how better integrate water and vegetation for enhancing the stormwater management scaling up from plot scale garden designs to habitats at the block scale and ecological networks at the neighborhood scale.
This paper represents an interesting example of an adaptable and multi-scale design to achieve an overall goal (improve stormwater management).