WILDLY BEAUTIFUL (working title)

Urban green spaces are essential for biodiversity, climate adaptation and citizens’ wellbeing, yet their maintenance often prioritises neatness and short-term cost reduction. Intensive mowing, pruning, irrigation and removal of natural materials can reduce biodiversity, increase resource use and limit climate resilience. At the same time, residents may perceive less intensively managed landscapes as neglected or unsafe, creating an important barrier to ecological maintenance.

WILDLY BEAUTIFUL will establish Living Labs in participating cities to design, implement and compare alternative maintenance regimes:

• conventional maintenance;

• reduced-input, biodiversity-sensitive maintenance;

• ecological maintenance combined with deliberate landscape design and visible “cues of care”;

• ecological maintenance combined with design, public interpretation and community participation.

The Living Labs will assess biodiversity, soil and vegetation health, water and energy use, maintenance costs, accessibility, safety, perceived beauty, public acceptance and sense of belonging. The project will investigate how ecologically richer urban landscapes can also be perceived as attractive, inclusive and intentionally cared for.

A University–City Living Lab led by the University of Piraeus will engage students from the MBA in Sustainability in stakeholder research, monitoring and the co-design of circular business models. These may include outcome-based maintenance contracts, savings-to-care reinvestment mechanisms, shared green-care services and local reuse of suitable maintenance residues.

The project will operationalise the three New European Bauhaus values:

• Sustainable: biodiversity, climate resilience, reduced resource use and circular maintenance flows;

• Beautiful: sensory quality, seasonal character, landscape identity and visible care;

• Together: accessibility, inclusion, co-creation and community stewardship.

Expected outputs include:

• a biodiversity-sensitive and climate-resilient maintenance protocol;

• a Biodiversity–Beauty–Belonging assessment framework;

• tested circular stewardship and financing models;

• guidance for outcome-based municipal procurement;

• a Living Lab methodology for universities and cities;

• an educational module for sustainability programmes;

• recommendations for replication across different European urban contexts.

We are seeking municipalities and urban authorities, universities and research organisations, landscape architecture and ecology partners, maintenance providers, SMEs, social enterprises, and cultural or creative-sector organisations interested in urban nature, circular business models, citizen participation and New European Bauhaus implementation.