Social inclusion

The CLEVER Way: Hamburg, Neugraben-Fischbek

The CLEVER Cities project identified the primary planning goals for Neugraben-Fischbek district located in the South-West of the city of Hamburg was to: (a) creating a connective ‘Green Corridor’ to link a system of NbS interventions; (b) establishing horizontal greenery through the construction of green roofs on existing buildings; and (c) address the topic of environmental education and connect the youth with nature.

Hamburg has aimed at addressing the following challenges, including:

Increase biodiversity and nature in the city: To address this, the city

The objective is to foster butterfly populations and diversity in Turin by creating a network of green areas. Proper management and the presence of suitable plants (food plants and nectar sources for the life cycle) allows butterflies to cross the urban area while involving people with mental or physical disabilities to fight social stigma and foster social inclusion.

The NBS combines scientific and social goals:

scientific monitoring of butterflies
involvement of fragile people with mental or physical disabilities against isolation and social stigma.

The NBS addresses societal and environmental issues that improve living conditions inluding:

Creating an ecosystem path to redevelop areas that lacked character
Implementing NBS in an area with risk of „heat island effects“
Fostering processes of citizen engagement and raising awareness among residents
Increasing biodiversity by planting pollinator- friendly species
Developing a sense of community, spatial belonging and co-ownership to ensure co-maintenance by residents together with the city administration

The experimental features of this NBS are intended as replicable examples in enhancing urban environments and improving living conditions of inhabitants.
Working with schools to spread the knowledge about NBS to users of the buildings and raising awareness about the importance of plants in everyday life.
Promoting the collaboration with school teachers and staff of the homeless shelter to schedule activities that supported learning “science” disciplines, as well as Italian language skills, civic education and social studies.
Consulting a nursery to achieve

The objectives and goals of the educational activities can be summarized as follows:

promote the active role of the local educational system during the proGIreg project by consolidating active co-planning processes of school communities to provide continuity of the learning experience
schools serving as a point of reference on environmental, cultural and socio-economic issues related to the concept of Green Cities.
support the development of co-design processes
define management models of NBS foreseen in the project by evaluating the possible

The NBS aims to improve environmental, spatial and social issues in the Mirafiori district:

improving the urban quality and quality of life in otherwise neglected areas,
stimulating the active participation of citizens in the processes of urban transformation,
creating opportunities for aggregation and cooperation among citizens on issues of environmental sustainability and urban horticulture, technological and social innovation, care and sharing of common goods
fostering social inclusion, by addressing community gardening activities to disadvantaged

Establishing vegetable gardens in all primary schools of Mirafiori, plus two kindergarten and one vocational school, and providing educational activities focusing on sustainable agriculture, biodiversity and the proGIreg NBS aims at improving the science curriculum of the schools, increase their attractiveness and raise awareness of environmental sustainability, NBS and how they can improve life quality in the cities.
The educational training also has goal of increasing the attractiveness of Mirafiori schools while teaching practical environmental behavior.

The modular urban farm is a platform for presenting modern food production technologies to the interested public and the local community. It provides direct access to and close encounter with applications and practical features of green technologies. Key goals include:

Increasing local food production throughout the year independent of climate and whether conditions.
Presenting modern food production technologies to interested citizens.
Experimenting with keeping a constant temperature in the container and its power supply given the green wall and roof acting

Naturfelder Dortmund e.V. was founded in order to convert urban spaces into pollinator friendly habitats. The structure of the association allows long-term existence beyond proGIreg. Main goals of the NBS implementations include:

Activating interested citizens from the Huckarde and Deusen district for pollinating insects and biodiversity topics
Sowing flower meadows or planting insect friendly plants that increase biodiversity on public or private land in cooperation with owners
Participating in events to inform about pollinator friendly measures

An implementation focused on combining blue and green infrastructure, with predominant use of native species and minimizing maintenance effort.

Key aims:

demonstrate the integration of blue solutions into green design;
create a pilot implementation of the infiltration basin as an example of best practice and a source of know-how;
build the trust in NBS;
initiate the restoration of water cycle in the Łódka River catchment.