ARC Greenspace Initiative
Many people involved in sustainable building activities at some point turn their creative energies towards greening spaces – either around their homes or as part of commercial or communal projects in their community. To help with these goals, we have been working closely with expert practitioners to develop this initiative.
ARC aims to play a supportive role in the creation of resilient and productive nature-based garden spaces that draw on the principles of wildlife-friendly and forest gardening, applicable at a range of scales.
We understand that creating and managing greenspaces for different uses is often a process of trial and error, so our initiative aims to provide a structure that is continually improved through a cycle of feedback, engaging with those who have planted greenspaces themselves. We recognise that gardeners have been developing greenspaces such as these for years, so we aim to celebrate existing and future projects whilst encouraging the ‘uninitiated’ to have the confidence to start their own projects.
Starting something new is often hard, so the ARC Greenspace Initiative is all about trying it out, hands-on, at an immediately do-able scale. For those who haven’t done it before, we suggest a rigorous but flexible approach and encourage a choice between a range of themes and emphases and looking at balancing new and enhanced biodiversity with food growing – from very small scales like a patio garden to medium and large scales like community gardens and small farms.
UK Biodiversity Goals Note
The UK has set a target of achieving a 10% biodiversity net gain in new development projects. Although the ARC Greenspace Initiative aims to align with this goal, actual gains may vary, and this initiative does not guarantee a 10% gain. Our initiative aims to provide guidance and a framework, promoting learning and sharing to support diverse and meaningful contributions to thinking around resilient greenspaces. Find steps for developers looking to meet UK biodiversity goals here.
This initiative is primarily for:
| Builders, Developers and Planners | Design/Consultancy Professionals | Self-Builders |
Is it for you?
Taking part in this initiative may be appealing to you if you’d benefit from…
- A closer connection with nature
- Personal learning
- A bit of delicious extra food on the side
- Wildlife in your garden
- Having fun
- Making new friends
- Improving mental health
Developing a Theme and Emphases
It can be beneficial to identify a key theme that reflects your priorities when creating a design for your greenspace. In addition to this key theme, it may also be useful to consider a few emphases you’d like to support this main theme. For example, you could create a wildlife-rich orchard with an emphasis on growing apples and pears. Or your theme might be a low-maintenance sensory greenspace with an emphasis on the sound of water, the smell of herbs, the buzzing of bees and the sounds of birdsong. How about a greenspace that accommodates young children’s playing and social events but may concentrate on planting fruit and nut trees for food, shade, woodchip paths, and seating areas?
Based on your central theme and aspects you want to emphasise; we recommend that you develop a planting plan. We hope the guidance below is useful.
Designing a Productive Ecosystem
We need to put in place the basic structures required for the level of complexity necessary to support resilient ecosystems. A structured approach to greenspace design requires some thought. We recommend your design looks to create opportunities for increasing biodiversity, food and material yield, and soil quality.
Biodiversity: Supporting a diverse web of plants and wildlife.
Yield: Growing food and materials for consumption and use.
Soil Quality: Enhancing soil quality for plant and ecosystem health.
To design for biodiversity, yield, and soil quality, a gardener must consider incorporating each in the following layers:
Structural Elements Diagram
We invite you to think in depth about which role you’d like each layer in your greenspace to play. When you’ve decided on this, we’d encourage you to create a diagram, based on the basic template given below, that visually illustrates both the current structural layout of your greenspace and the one you intend to cultivate. Provided are a range of text boxes containing optional elements that you may wish to include in your diagram, each supporting either the biodiversity or the yield of your greenspace.
We hope drawing these diagrams will help you better visualise your gardening goals.
Below is a schematic diagram, showing a range of layers and elements that might be incorporated in your planting plan.
The diagram below illustrates how the detail of your greenspace design might develop. Features and elements have been detailed.
A very basic template of this diagram can be found here.
Soil Quality
High soil quality is essential for enhancing biodiversity and supporting your ecosystem. Strategies such as increasing organic matter, reducing soil compaction, and planting cover crops will improve water retention nutrient availability, and plant health. We ask that you employ at least one strategy to ensure high soil quality in your greenspace.
Resilience
When thinking about our climate-challenged future, we need to consider how to create greenspaces that help reduce climate change impact and are more able to adapt to unavoidable future changes in temperature, humidity, and extreme weather, along with all that implies for natural ecosystems, of which we are a part of and on which we rely. How do we help conserve and regenerate the world’s natural richness and complexity? And how do we make our greenspaces more resilient?
Resilience: The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties – toughness.
Food: Planting a wide variety of plants in greenspaces can yield different foods, such as fruit and nuts.
Health: Greenspaces improve physical and mental health through exercise, relaxation, and access to medicinal plants.
Environment: Greenspaces can create ecological complexity and diversity, support wildlife, and improve soil quality and moisture retention.
Climate: Greenspaces can help sequester carbon, provide wind protection, and offer significant cooling through shade and evapotranspiration.
Economy: Greenspaces boost local economies by providing areas for community activities and offering fresh, local food.
Social: Greenspaces can encourage social interaction, knowledge sharing, and community building.
Are you recommending Forest Gardens?
Yes, and no.
Our definition of a productive and biodiverse greenspace remains intentionally broad because the basic principles of ‘Conservation’ and ‘Wildlife-friendly’ or ‘Forest’ gardening can be applied to many types of space at many different scales.
The greenspace below could be given the theme of a ‘Food Forest’.
Food Forests: A type of forest garden designed with food production in mind.
The greenspace below could be given the theme of a ‘Forest Garden’.
Forest Gardens: Gardens that imitate natural forests with trees, shrubs, and ground layers that combine to create a self-sustaining ecosystem.
Martin Crawford’s Forest Garden
These greenspaces are different in their theme, emphases, and size, but they are both resilient and productive and take cues from the principles of forest gardening and wildlife-friendly gardening.
“It’s all about creating a varied landscape. If you apply a varied
management system, the result will be a varied landscape.”
– Rikke Reisner Hansen
Greenspaces may look ‘conventional’ and modest and may be created on a patio area or instead, somewhere much more dramatic and wild; let go of your preconceptions and have a look at our ‘Gallery of Inspiration’ below.
Gallery of Inspiration
If you’d like to be inspired by how other gardeners have designed their greenspaces, take a look at our Gallery of Inspiration! This database showcases successful greenspace projects, highlighting lessons learned and ongoing experimentation.
Visit our Garden Upload Tool if you’d like to submit your greenspace to the gallery.
Greenspace Checklist
The checklist below lists factors you may want to consider when designing or improving your greenspace. A greenspace is by no means defined by meeting all of these criteria, but the list should give you a general idea of the factors you should be focused on. To download a PDF copy of this checklist, please click here. For a more detailed checklist, please use our garden upload tool.
*Keystone species typically control prey populations, facilitate seed dispersal, or perform other critical ecosystem functions. Indicator species typically indicate environmental health and signal ecosystem changes. Both key and indicator species are listed here.
Useful Design Guides
Plants For A Future have some very useful design guides for a range of different greenspace themes. These guides are available here.
Next Steps
- Look at the Gallery of Inspiration
- Think about your desired Themes and Emphases
- Design your Structural Elements Diagram
- Examine your current greenspace and report using our Garden Upload Tool
- Get planting!
- Having had a go, consider scaling up?
Garden Upload Tool
Please use our Garden Upload Tool to record your journey, and provide us with useful information to be fed back into our guidance. This page will also allow your greenspace to be featured in our Gallery of Inspiration.
Useful Resources
Garden design guides by Plants For A Future
Soil Carbon Sequestration versus Soil Regeneration
Greenspace Initiative Team
Steven Newman
Managing Director, BioDiversity International Ltd
Professor Steven Newman has 40+ years of experience in nature-based projects across 63 countries. He founded BioDiversity International Ltd and is a Visiting Professor at Reading University. Newman has published 150 papers and co-edited Temperate Agroforestry Systems. He contributed to the Soil Association’s Agroforestry Handbook.
Email: steve@biodiversity-int.co.uk
Nick Organ
Consultancy Manager, Tree Maintenance Ltd
Nick Organ is a highly experienced arboricultural consultant with nearly 40 years spent in amenity tree care, specialising in tree safety, condition surveys, and risk assessments for a diverse range of clients, and overseeing development projects where trees need protecting. He has a particular interest in sustainable buildings and their surroundings.
Archie Worthington
ARC Research Assistant
Architecture Design Studies student, University of Liverpool.
Email: archwrth@gmail.com
Andy Simmonds
ARC lead / Partner Simmonds Mills
Email: andy@simmondsmills.com
