Whilst the British summer has been slow to start, the sight of bees buzzing around flowers in the park never fails to put a smile on our faces and remind us of our recent invitation from Hive Cleaning for a beekeeping experience hosted by Bee Urban at Kennington Park.

Bee Urban is a social enterprise that aims to work with communities to improve the environment for the benefit of us all. They focus on responsible urban beekeeping, horticulture and community growing and after donning our full body bee suits, we were given a tour of their apiary, shown how the hive works and informed about the processes involved in producing and extracting honey, as well as its various byproducts. It was an exciting morning exploring the complex lives of honeybees and the relationship humans have had with these insects for thousands of years.

It is impossible not to be amazed by the behaviours of bees, the culture of the hive and how this all takes place in the heart of our capital city. Cities, including London, are vibrant environments for pollinators, and honeybees play a critical role in accounting for the pollination of over 85 different crops. Through their daily search for pollen, these incredible animals pollinate the flowers in back gardens, parks and green spaces and in turn provide delicious tasting honey – a uniquely local and sustainable food.

Our beekeeper experience inspired us to consider how, as humans, we depend on nature to live. We are currently overusing the Earth’s natural resources by more than 70% and if we compare Earth’s history to a calendar year, modern human life has existed for 37 minutes, and we have used one-third of Earth’s natural resources in the last 0.2 seconds. The balance between nature and humans seems to be tipping.

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the construction industry is one of the top three sectors that threatens global biodiversity and is responsible for 30% of biodiversity loss globally. It is our view that we shouldn’t wait for the planning regulations to catch up with best practice, rather the built environment needs to be significantly more biodiversity-conscious to prevent the collapse of ecosystems around our cities. We need to embrace biodiversity in our designs for the countless ecological, societal, and aesthetic benefits it brings.

Our dream is that by fostering collaboration between architects, urban planners, and environmental experts, we can create sustainable and resilient cities that work in harmony with the natural world. We all have a role to play in this.

There are great examples where this mindset and dedication to preservation and enhancement of biodiversity and ecosystems have driven exciting and sometimes unexpected responses. Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, therefore some might think this is the last place people would look for projects so intensely aligned with nature. However, in 2015 the Hong Kong Wetlands Park opened and with the help of experts and volunteers resulted in the number of plant and animal species recorded in this relatively modest area rising to over 2,050.

Efforts like this help to adjust the balance in the relationship we have with the natural environment, from nonchalance to comprehension, respect and value.

Architects have the power to integrate and increase the biodiversity throughout all schemes. This can lead to numerous environmental and societal benefits with green roofs, vertical gardens, and wildlife-considerate buildings that enhance urban ecosystems. These features help conserve local flora and fauna, improve air quality, reduce urban heat island effects, and promote healthier and happier communities. Designing with biodiversity can create aesthetically pleasing, vibrant urban spaces that improve the overall quality of life for residents and visitors.

Stricter planning regulations can help combat the growing issue of habitat loss. Since 2021, architects have been following the Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) policy under the Environment Act 2021 and it was only in February 2024 that this applied to all new developments. However, there has been debate on whether these policies go far enough, with the Environmental Act only laying out the following:

“The biodiversity gain objective is met in relation to development for which planning permission is granted if the biodiversity value attributable to the development exceeds the pre-development biodiversity value of the onsite habitat by at least the relevant percentage.”

“The relevant percentage is 10%”

If the existing, pre-developed site had a total biodiversity value of 0%, then the developer would only need to increase this to 10% to satisfy this policy. Yes, there is an improvement to the site’s green performance, however, the current policy does not encourage best practice to optimise the opportunity.

Increasing biodiversity is only one aspect. By connecting high-quality green infrastructure to the wider nature network will deliver significant benefits to ecology and biodiversity by stitching a site into its existing natural context which realises the opportunity to form and connect to nature recovery networks beyond the site itself. It can be argued that current policy can go further in setting out clearer standards for the creation of high-quality green infrastructure including green corridors and interconnected habitats; ultimately instructing multi-disciplinary design teams to create a more integrated landscape framework. Enforcing these regulations can help preserve critical wildlife migration routes and stop the isolation of small species populations, working towards nature recovery.

JTP’s award-winning London Wetland Centre in Barnes draws parallels to the Hong Kong Wetland Park, not only through being an urban wetland centre, but also through the principle of built form ‘collaborating’ with nature. The project showcases a pioneering approach to urban rewilding and utilises residential development revenue to fund ecologically rich surroundings. The housing scheme funding the wetlands’ construction showcases a precedent as to how nature and humankind can not only live harmoniously together, but also support each other too.

When opening the centre in 2000, Sir David Attenborough acclaimed the scheme as a “model for how humankind and the natural world may live side by side”. He highlighted the importance of naturalistic land embedded in urban environments and commented that the Wetland Centre acted as “London’s extra lung”. The educational aspects of the London Wetland Centre have been equally important. Nearly a quarter of a million visitors annually have enjoyed the ecological oasis, home to 2,399 species, whilst learning the importance of providing habitats for wildlife in urban settings.

So, what does the future hold for co-evolving with nature?

Earlier this year, Architecture Today and UK Architects Declare launched the world’s first Regenerative Architecture Index (RAI) where instead of ranking practices by profitability and size, they will be benchmarked on three main factors: long-term thinking, creating spaces for people (diversity, inclusivity, etc) and finally “co-evolving with nature in terms of measures to support a mutually enriching coexistence with the natural world”. This provides the incentive for practices to consider how they are responding to the natural environment and understanding the true value of the projects they deliver to be able to benchmark their effectiveness.

So next time you are spreading honey on your morning toast, before heading into the office or studio, you should be asking yourself what can I do today to make space for biodiversity in the place and project that I design and how can we regenerate our complex and rewarding relationship with nature?