The future of green urban areas – Laura Gatti’s inspirational thoughts about the green cities

Speaking at the Grow 21 festival, agronomist and landscape consultant Laura Gatti will share her inspirational thoughts about the past, present and future of our green cities.

Day 1 of the Grow21 virtual festival focuses on securing green areas and biodiversity in urban environments.

What are the best ways to design and create the green cities of the future? These environments need to embrace biodiversity and sustainability. How can we design new urban spaces – and work with existing ones – to achieve this?

Laura Gatti’s keynote address will examine the ‘big picture’ of greening our cities, the importance of this as an integral part of urban landscape design, and specific examples from her extensive experience of urban greening.

Laura’s background in horticulture, landscaping, engineering and urban life science means she brings a wide perspective to this issue. For many years, she has worked with urban greening technology, such as integrating trees and maximising the benefits of green roofs, with an emphasis on enhancing biodiversity.

Drawing on her experiences as an advisor to cities and developers, Laura brings fresh insights to issues such as innovations in mixed-use environmental design, urban regeneration, urban soil conservation, vertical greening, urban farming, and environmentally sustainable green building principles.

She established Studio Laura Gatti landscape consultants in Milan in 1992, working on arboricultural implication studies, restoring public and private historic parks, and integrating greening with buildings (roofs, walls, hanging gardens).

Laura’s projects have taken her across Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and China. She was the founder and first president of the Italian Society of Arboriculture, and in 2018 was recognised as ‘One of the 50 most impactful green leaders – Global Listing’. Since 2005 she has been Adjunct Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of Milan.

To see this keynote, check out our full agenda and register for the sessions at www.kekkila-bvb.com/growfestival