Professor in Residence, Department of Architecture, GSD, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA
Call for submissions, TPJ vol. 10, no. 2
The Nature of Cities
What are the strategies that can transform urban settlements towards “urban ecologies”? But also, how do we effect urban ecologies that can also celebrate cities’ “nature”?
About three decades ago, Kenneth Frampton urged designers “to rally behind an ecological stance in the broadest possible sense.” 1 UN data indicates that built-up areas, which include cities, only cover roughly 2% of the world's land surface, yet they are responsible for 70% of the global carbon footprint and the consumption of 75% of global resources.2 Concerned by the “urban heat island” (UHI) effect – cities are typically 5º to 6º C [ca 9º F] warmer than their surrounding natural environment – some advocate that a cooling strategy for cities is urgently needed. Recognizing that in Western countries, for example, a large portion of urban land is used for streets, it would be impactful enough to replace between 20% or just 10% of streets with trees. In other words, we could envision, as Stefano Boeri put it, “cities where plants and nature have no less of a presence than humans, and where both create a habitat in which mineral surfaces are reduced to the minimum amount needed for life.” 3
Thus, nature claims a renewed presence within urban systems. Yet, for centuries, cities have been, by definition, the artificial (and in so many cases, beautiful) manifestation of cultures across the world. For the most part, cities have been the product of human ingenuity with a wide range of variety not only for their diverse cultural atmosphere developed over time by their communities, but precisely for their physical, artificial, identity: for overall planning framework, infrastructure, architecture, landscape, scale and relationship to site. Thus, thoughtful solutions, beyond just infusing urban systems with green infrastructure, must be found with a sense of urgency. As Kate Orff has pointed out:
By understanding the contexts we work in, and fostering new connections between social and environmental systems, we can reverse what is too often a downward spiral of degradation and community alienation. We can create a positive, holistic cycle, and this cycle can be regenerative. It can also bind communities more strongly to landscapes. Mirroring the shift toward thinking of urban ecology as an emerging hybrid category, so too can we envision and start to build new practices around community landscape. … we can create new urban ecosystems that transcend the inherited tropes of “healing” industrial lands or “bringing nature into the city,” which are too simplistic to apply to our globalized reality. This is the work of the twenty-first century.4
Therefore, how can we continue to foster the positive values of cities while ecologically upgrading them? What are the strategies that can transform urban settlements towards “urban ecologies”? But also, how do we effect urban ecologies that can also celebrate cities’ “nature”? How can we ensure that the re-naturalization of cities will not contribute to the homogenization induced by global architecture?
The TPJ is seeking contributions around these questions, as well as discussions of best practices within academia and the professions, to explore and disseminate relevant research, innovative pedagogy and experimental practice that can help us move forward this necessary conversation in the fields of urbanism, architecture and landscape design.
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1. Cfr. Kate Orff, Toward an Urban Ecology (New York: The Monacelli Press, 2016), 15.
2. Cfr. UNEP, https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/resource-efficiency/what-we-do/cities-and-climate-change#:~:text=Estimates%20suggest%20that%20urban%20areas,contributors%20(IPCC%2C%202022), and the World Economic Forum, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2022/04/global-urbanization-material-consumption/#:~:text=Cities%20only%20cover%202%25%20of,material%20impact%20of%20global%20urbanization.
3. Stefano Boeri, “Questions, an Introduction,” in Green Obsession: Trees Towards Cities, Humans Towards Forests, eds. Maria Chiara Pastore and Simone Marchetti (New York: Actar, 2021), 7.
4. Orff, Toward an Urban Ecology, 14.
Submission Options
Priority for peer-review evaluation and publication will be given to complete manuscripts, but proposals in the form of long abstracts [300/500 words] are also encouraged as a first step in the editorial review process. Authors of accepted proposals will then be invited to develop complete manuscripts, which will then go through the peer-review process.
Submitting proposals as a first step is only an option, and full manuscripts are encouraged also as first submissions.
Timeline
Proposals due by June 16, 2025
Preliminary feedback sent by June 30, 2025
All complete manuscripts due by September 8, 2025
Accepted and edited manuscripts expected to be published on-line by January 19, 2026
Printed version of the issue expected to be available by February 23, 2026
To Submit
Please log in and register on the TPJ manuscript management system “Editorial Manager”: https://www.editorialmanager.com/tpj/default.aspx(link is external)(link is external)
Once registered, from the “Author Main Menu” go to “New Submissions,” then select “Submit New Manuscript,” then, from the scroll down menu, select the article type “Article/Essay/Research” for a full manuscript submission or “Abstract (only)” for a proposal submission. Then, either way, follow the prompts.
Questions can be directed to: tpj@theplanjournal.com
