UIA Knowledge Lab

"You have to take risks to advance - also as a politician."

It is done! September 2023 – the GreenQuays have been built. In the middle of Breda, a new stretch of the river Mark has been uncovered and a new type...

The GreenQuays project on its last mile - Journal 3

The third Journal of GreenQuays explores how the project continues to deal with seven general implementation challenges of innovative project as well ...

Volunteers play an important role in GreenQuays’ biodiversity monitoring

The main innovative feature of the GreenQuays in Breda is to build them nature-inclusive. For achieving this, the construction will lay the foundation...

Bringing to life Breda’s nature-inclusive quays

This Zoom in 2 looks into the experience, challenges and lessons learned with developing the multifunctional design and the implementation. Can it be ...

Ideas from the GreenQuays project start stretching beyond the initial plans

While most of the innovative tasks of planning the quays and testing different technical solutions have finished, GreenQuays is still running with the...

Finally digging of the GreenQuays starts

After 2,5 years of preparation the construction of the GreenQuays has started end of June 2022. A first stretch of the covered river Mark in Breda‘s c...

City safari and Map of opportunities – testing new co-creation forms in Breda

Breda is on the way to re-open its first pilot section of the broader river Mark projects, in which the city will bring back the old river Mark in the...

Making Breda’s nature-inclusive quays also climate-responsive

GreenQuays will be a first stretch of the reopened River Mark project in the city centre. The project will enable nature to take the space despite t...

GreenQuays Journal 2: Progress on tackling the major implementation challenges

The second Journal of GreenQuays explores how the project continues to deal with the seven major implementation challenges of innovative projects....

Making trees and wall plants thrive at steep quay walls

Building nature-inclusive quays is the task of the GreenQuays project and, at the same time, its challenge. How can nature be offered space in a dense...

Finding the right design for nature-inclusive quays

The mindset on designing and using public urban space has changed in Breda in the 1990’s. Earlier, the city had decided to cover completely the origin...

The brickwork story behind GreenQuays

Nature-Inclusive Quays (NIQ) are the core of innovative solutions of the GreenQuays project in Breda. The vertical quay walls of the reopened river Ma...

GreenQuays Journal 1: the seven major implementation challenges

The first Journal of GreenQuays explores how the project deals with seven major implementation challenges of innovative projects....

An innovative partnership for innovative GreenQuays in Breda

Coming to the GreenQuays project team in Breda for the first time in June 2020, I have been hooked by the creative design of the planned nature-inclus...

Enabling nature to take over – green quay walls in Breda

Breda is a lovely city. The dense middle-age centre has many small streets and places to stroll around. This density does, however, leave only little ...

Reducing the burden of pollution-related diseases in cities

SPIRE Journal 3: Overcoming the challenges

Following the triple bottom line (TBL), the SPIRE project initially tackles the challenges urban ecosystems suffer at the nexus of the economy-society...

SPIRE Start-Ups Mentoring Programme: building a culture of innovation

How do culture and creativity influence innovation in our cities? What is the role of technical and economic knowledge? Building a culture of innovati...

Transforming Geospatial Information (GIS) into urban knowledge in Baia Mare

Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) are infrastructures to capture, store, manage, analyse, chart, and visualize information, data, and indicators of...

SPIRE Journal 2: The project moves forward

This is the second journal of the Smart Post-Industrial Regenerative Ecosystem (SPIRE) project since its creation on 1st September 2019. The impact of...

What do E-WALLETS have to do with environmental protection?

If we consider money as a social technology, we could agree that it should never be "neutral". Now as the world is immersed in this global pandemic an...

Baia Mare community in action

The ecological transformation and recovery of five contaminated areas in Baia Mare, along with the significant environmental behavioural shift from ci...

Resilient cities after COVID-19: the need for green infrastructure

The impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic and the severe climate trends has shown how visionary the SPIRE project is, reclaiming and enhancing Baia ...

Re-naturing cities through phytoremediation: How Nature Based Solutions can make a difference.

One of the essentials of the SPIRE project that appealed all the parties involved from the beginning, as well as the newcomers, is “the magical” abili...

SPIRE Journal 1: get to know the latest project achievements

This is the first journal of the Smart Post-Industrial Regenerative Ecosystem (SPIRE) since its start on 01/09/2019. SPIRE, led by the Municipality of...

Creating new social and economic value: Restoring the urban ecosystem

This article is the first to review Baia Mare and the SPIRE project (Smart Post-Industrial Regenerative Ecosystem), financed under the 4th call of the...

Urban soil decontamination for citizens’ health

Pollution is one of the most significant environmental challenges worldwide; according to the European Environmental Agency, the management of pollute...

Green is health

The green interventions at “Nuovo Ospedale Santo Stefano'' of Prato will create a new urban park within the city bridging the gap between health and b...

Urban Jungle: Prato truly means it

Legambiente is a non-profit association, made up of citizens who care about the protection of the environment in all its forms, the quality of life an...

Prato Forest City: a tree for every citizen

Prato Forest City is the new strategic approach to urban planning, developed by the Municipality of Prato....

Prato rewards sustainable behaviours

greenApes is a digital platform that engages and rewards actions and sustainable lifestyles: users accumulate reward points through their sustainable ...

PUJ - Journal 2: Prato Urban Jungle implementations

Impacts of urban forestry: innovative, socio-ecological and economic added values - ZOOM-IN

PUJ - Journal 1: Project activities development

UIA Expert Daniela Patti focuses her first journal on presenting the main objectives of the Prato Urban Jungle project, the pilot sites, the consortiu...

Prato Turns Green - From the master plan approval to the creation of urban jungles

Prato Urban Jungle – PUJ – project will renew its city districts with greater social, productive and environmental dimensions turning itself into an u...

Synergies for a sustainable and resilient territory

UPPER's first urban production park is underway

Journal 2 UPPER project

The UPPER project for the urban natural park of the Acque Medie canal

The Canale delle Acque Medie (The Canal of the Middle Waters) symbolizes an element of structural interest for the urban center of Latina, representin...

Another summer of play, health and wellness with UPPER SEEDS!

After the success of the 2021 edition, the 2022 UPPER SEEDs were kicked off on 13 June. The activities in which citizens, schools and all those who h...

UPPER JOBS: innovative skills for employment and social inclusion

The selection of participants in the second edition of UPPER JOBS has been completed. The participants selected by the Labirinto Social Cooperative ha...

An innovative platform for environmental monitoring

Thanks to the creation of two innovative platforms developed by the partners and integrated into a common observatory, the UPPER project is able to co...

Journal 1 UPPER project

The Journal is aimed to describe the activities of the UPPER project and the results achieved during the first period of implementation. It also descr...

First activities and results of the UPPER project at Latina

UPPER project aims at transforming misused and abandoned urban green areas into Productive Parks (PP) devoted to research, technological development a...

Green Minds Journal 1: Insights on first significant urban rewilding actions in Plymouth

This Journal 1 of the Green Minds project is providing insights on the first significant advancements in favour of rewilding and nature-based solution...

Covid as an opportunity for Green Minds & nature-based solutions

How the implementation of the Green Minds project successfully continued over the tough period of the pandemic by seizing the embedded opportunities ...

GreenQuays Zoom-in 1: Making Breda’s nature-inclusive quays health-inclusive

The GreenQuays project in Breda aims to develop and establish nature-inclusive quays. Although it was not in focus when developing the project, this Z...

SPIRE Zoom In: Plantathlon and Phytoremediation in Baia Mare

The Plantathlons activities carried out in baia Mare during spring 2021 created a collaborative ecosystem supporting citizens-led actions and enhancin...

A Junglathon to imagine your urban forest

The City of Prato is experimenting urban forestation strategies through the Prato Urban Jungle (PUJ) project . The project foresees three pilot areas ...

UPPER Stories - ZOOM IN 1

The territory changes with physical work, but also through the story, the memory, the imagination of change. The UPPER stories are a collection of n...

Nature Based Leadership and the Green Minds systems approach - Zoom-in

Keeping the balance between doing too much and not doing enough is challenging, implicitly necessitating an overall integrated perspective and strateg...

Green Minds – rewilding people and places

How the Green Minds team aims to put nature at the heart of our decision making; encouraging individual connection with nature and a city-wide shift t...