chemiring
Soundous Bella Baci (Paris Descartes), Edgar Brun (Sciences Po), Jennifer Eason (Harvard), Ian Lutz (Harvard)
Throughout the world, major cities are realizing that they need to bring urban and natural landscapes together. Urban biodiversity offers benefits for humans and wildlife alike, cutting down on pollution while also providing habitats for plants and animals. Urban green spaces, however, can be expensive to build and maintain. While projects like Paris’ Coulée Verte undoubtedly increase urban sustainability, large green spaces are generally too far apart to form tenable habitat networks for urban wildlife.
Installing a compact planter system on Parisian chimneys will offer stepping stones to wildlife between the city’s existing green spaces. Because they are distributed throughout the city’s core, chimneys could create corridors between Paris’ larger urban green spaces.
The Chemiring’s design features water catchment, insect nesting spaces and bird houses. Its small size and simple materials make it economically viable, while still increasing urban biodiversity. Inspired by brush border cells, Chemiring taps into the potential of the city’s underutilized surface areas.
