react/review: a responsive journal for art & architecture

As cities globally aim for healthier environments and confront biodiversity threats, integrating nature into urban settings becomes crucial for various ecosystem services and ecological functions. Urban green spaces, with features like trees, water elements, and green roofs, play a vital role in supporting biodiversity and human health. However, designing such spaces involves navigating tradeoffs, such as balancing recreational needs with wildlife habitat preservation. To address this challenge, the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) developed Ecology for Health, a science-based urban design guide. This guide, accessible on SFEI's Making Nature's City Toolkit website, merges biodiversity research with the health benefits of green spaces, aiming to enhance urban community well-being.The guide offers strategies across three scales: urban planning, site design, and detailed design and management. It synthesizes three decades of global research on urban greening, human health, and biodiversity, with a focus on supporting native wildlife. Highlighted strategies from the guide include enhancing greenspace connectivity, optimizing park and waterfront designs, and balancing planning and site design considerations. These insights, coupled with feedback received during an outreach event with practitioners following publication of the guide, offer valuable direction for planners and designers aiming to create biodiverse urban environments that promote both human health and wildlife conservation.