I went out to the UN city in Copenhagen to cover a conference about how to use nature in the cities better. Here is a handful of the drawn stories inspired by the day
How do we create better cities using nature
Text and drawing by Frits Ahlefeldt
It was a hot summer day and behind the presenters in the UN city, was a view of the Copenhagen harbor, where people were bathing and swimming in the newly designed areas across from the huge UN building windows. The water in Copenhagen is now clean enough so we can swim in it, and a lot op people were happily using this new option.
I listened to the presentations, the challenges are growing, we are facing both a climate and biodiversity crises, and also a crises of how to build the new cities, where more and more of us will live in the future.
UN letter shaped building drawing (di02220 )
I sketched up a building made of the UN letters, surrounded by a disaster landscape as the presenters talked about the urgency of moving to the other side of words now. Now is spelled “NU” in Danish, So I drew the building so if one walked to the other side it spelled out that we need to act now…


Not sure if it would make sense I sketched on.
Nature based solution flowerpot drawing (Di02222)
One of the problems with many Nature Based Solutions, or NbS, as they are called in short, is that investors are skeptical. Nature consist of interacting circular systems, and investors are not in for the circle, but for the profit, so how to get profit out of a circular system often leaves them worried.
I drew up a flowerpot wit nature in it, and an investor trying to extract enough profit from it to make him happy, while fearing both invasive species and other threats to his investment:

Experts skeptical of nature based solutions drawing (Di02224)
Another challenge is that many experts are not to happy about NbS, as nature is more dynamic and complicated to grasp than the mechanical solutions we are used to, so wanted to sketch up how:
- businesspeople wonder how to get rich from Nature based Solutions
- City planners worry how to fit them into the sterile grid they’ve been educated in creating.
- Traffic engineers fear NbS will take space from their beloved cars
- Culture experts fear it will be a break with 5000 years of building Civilization in contrast to Nature
- And then there are the many city dwellers who think the experts know best…

But we need to move on, it is so important that we understand that experts are often experts in what has been done up to now, but not experts in alternatives to it, so instead we to to experiment a lot more than we do.
I took out a new piece of paper
Going from words to action drawing (Di02223)
It is said that a problem can’t be solved on the same level that caused it. We need to move up, and forward, testing, doing crazy new green solutions, try out planting trees in new ways, and stop thinking we need to figure out everything out in theory, in advance.
So I sketched a lot of two dimensional theory paper people and someone starting to plant trees and creating Nature based solutions, moving up as new understandings starts to grow.

Looking at the drawing I realized that papers are trees too, just in another form, a form we have to reverse, less paper more living trees.
Starting out from a point drawing (Di02219)
So how to start? Sketched up a building shaped nature spot, and made it flow out and overtake the places of cars.
Because, even though we haven’t got all the answers in place, most important is that we move beyond words and start to experiment with all the Nature based solutions we can imagine… now (nu) 🙂

Back outdoors
Soon the conference was over and I looked out of the windows to where people outside were swimming in the harbor, maybe many of the answers to how to design better cities are already here, we just need to look in new places.
The water is the perfect commons, nobody owns it, it flows around the planet, and you can’t take owner”ship” of the sea, in the same ways as we do in the city.
I packed my reportage gear down, maybe we can find more inspiration from the sea, and the way all oceans are one. Headed back to my studio with my notes, sketches and inspiration from both inside and outside the UN city, for the drawings here.

See my whole storyline grid here
Source: Slg0085 Sketching Nature based solutions for cities – Frits Ahlefeldt: Nomad & Walking philosopher

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