Game ON: Designing high-performing novel landscapes to tackle climate change
What if designing sustainable greenspace in your own neighborhood was a game—with points won for carbon sequestration, stormwater management, and heat relief? What if you could see your ideas take shape—and know how much they would likely cost—in a friendly competition with people in your community?
Turning those “what ifs” into reality is the vision of Mark Lindquist, assistant professor of landscape architecture, and Derek Van Berkel, assistant professor of data science, geovisualization, and design at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS). That vision will coalesce with the backing of the National Science Foundation (NSF) through an EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) award. Nearly $300,000 in funding will allow the research team to launch the project, “Designing high performing novel landscapes to tackle climate change using gamification & crowdsourcing,” in underserved communities in Detroit and New Orleans.
Those communities, the researchers note, are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change—including extreme events producing stormwater and coastal flooding, and each grappling with broader challenges of urban renewal. Adaptation and mitigation efforts are critical in creating resilient and livable cities, and greenspaces that meet community-specified needs are essential to these efforts. They also provide additional benefits like recreation and neighborhood beautification—which play an important role in the well-being of residents.
“The project aligns so well with the goals at SEAS because it centers equity as a goal,” says Lindquist, adding that a smaller internal grant from the Edward Ginsberg Center will provide training for youth in the community to help those less comfortable with technology.
“We hope that with training, the youth can actually facilitate the interaction with people in their own community,” says Lindquist, “rather than with members of the research team who are less familiar with specific neighborhood needs.”
Land.Info
The fundamental building block of the project is land.info, software built using the Unity3D-platform, which Lindquist developed in collaboration with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, Eastside Community Network, Detroit residents, and colleagues in social science and software development. It was first offered to residents in Detroit’s Mack Ave Chandler Park community as a collaborative tool in designing and transforming vacant spaces in their neighborhood. Many of those community-generated ideas were implemented in 2018–19.
“Derek and I had this idea that rather than benefiting a small group of residents in a particular area, we could have a much bigger impact by making it accessible online, so that anyone could use it via a Web browser or a tablet,” says Lindquist. “And although it’s intended for people to understand the benefits and costs on a local level, there's no reason that somebody in Australia couldn’t hop on and design a version of a park for a community in New Orleans or Detroit.”
Adding the “gaming” function to the online design software aims to inspire more users to engage, explains Van Berkel. “Scientists often have a hard time getting people to do a survey or to be involved in this kind of activity,” he says. “Our main strategy has been to go into the communities and attempt to create goodwill by engaging with residents. But that can’t always work. People have busy lives, and they just don’t have time to participate in community meetings. So, we thought, ‘How can we make this fun? What might people want to engage with—or play with— while they’re designing their communities in a really easy way?’”
Lindquist mentions that there may even be “rewards” to incentivize sustainability “players.” “If homeowners or an entire street band together, they may win an award for something such as the ‘best sustainably performing street in the city,’” says Lindquist.
Van Berkel notes that crowdsourcing—the practice of engaging large groups of people to contribute ideas for a common goal—will encourage broader participation and highlight the important connection between community needs and functioning greenspace. Lindquist explains, “Say, for instance, that we see 200 designs for a park. Are there commonalities among all of them?” Lindquist adds that although community input will not solely determine what is ultimately built, it will inform how a park or open space is designed.
“This isn’t just an abstract academic exercise,” says Lindquist. “We are partnering with the planning department and landscape architecture firms that are working on real projects.”
Opportunities for Homeowners
The second prong of the design software will target an individual homeowner’s needs. “A resident could type in their address, zoom into an approximate image of their house, and have the option to add an oak tree, for instance, and then see what that tree might look like there in 10 years’ time,” says Van Berkel, adding that this capability would also allow neighbors to collaborate on landscaping plans for their block.
The first year of the project will involve implementing these kinds of features and functionalities on the individual and community scales. In October 2021, the team will begin a series of workshops in Detroit and New Orleans to learn what community members care most about.
Van Berkel, who has already been working in New Orleans on projects involving the repurposing of vacant land, relates that various regions necessarily have different priorities. In the south, he says, the reality for low-lying communities involves hurricanes, sea-level rise, and heat, while the north contends with the Great Lakes levels, and other kinds of environmental stressors.
To build out the software’s functionality on an online platform, two post-doctoral researchers have been hired to complete the work—one specializing in geospatial data science and the other in computer science. The software will continue to evolve as users provide feedback on what capabilities are most essential to them.
“One of the interesting things about the EAGER grant is that it’s high risk, high reward,” says Van Berkel, “So, Mark and I asked ourselves, ‘What would this pie-in-the-sky idea look like? What could we do that would really move the needle?’”
Lindquist and Van Berkel acknowledge that there is much work ahead in designing sustainable greenspaces with the tap of a screen. But for communities in Detroit and New Orleans, it will soon be: Game ON.
The project team also includes co-principal investigator and former SEAS research scientist Victoria Campbell-Arvai, now at the University of Southern California.