I am very happy to collaborate with the municipality of Breda and its partners on developing nature-inclusive quays (NIQ) in the GreenQuays project. It is exciting to see how an old and covered river will be daylighted and bring a lot of nature into the dense medieval city centre. The scarce space imposes, however, a big challenge. The river will flow through vertical quay walls. One could think of greening them like green facades, but Breda has different intentions. Inspired by nature that invades relict industrial and urban areas, this process should be mimicked here, offering even endangered native species a place in the city. How could that work? How to construct the walls and will the plants grow as supposed? Check the first steps on the journey and which solutions the team has already found out so far in these short and illustrative articles below. The final design stands, and later this year, the digging will start bringing the quays to life.
