Public space and landscape temporalities: paths for urban and nocturnal biodiversity

Abstract

This paper discusses the potential of landscape design for public green spaces with a focus on promoting urban and nocturnal biodiversity. Beyond their social relevance, public green spaces can play multiple roles in the city. In the face of extreme weather events, habitat fragmentation, and biodiversity loss, green spaces stand out as a biophysical basis for the continuity of various ecological processes. The issue of this research is that urban studies have begun to interrelate urban planning, ecology, and urban lighting, emphasizing nocturnal biodiversity and its relationship with city lights — demonstrating that the environmental and nocturnal dimensions of the landscape have not been discussed enough in urban planning and design. Drawing on a case study of Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon — a public space in Rio de Janeiro located between the Atlantic Forest and the sea — this paper triangulates different research methods, such as paths, photography, interviews, and documentary and bibliographic research. This study reveals an urban biodiversity that persists in the case study. Moreover, landscape design strategies that contribute to the coexistence of all beings are discussed, such as looking at landscape processes and the temporal and spatial character of ecological connectivity.