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Future novel ecologies: exploring multispecies futures in urban places through a co-design workshop

Mairéad O’Donnell

Published 2025 in Urban Ecosystems

ABSTRACT

Transforming complex adaptive social-ecological systems, such as urban areas, requires collaboration with stakeholders to address multifaceted challenges. Co-design is a participatory decision-making process during which diverse knowledge and perspectives inform transformative solutions. As urban wilding gains momentum as a strategy for reimagining green space, co-design provides a way to collaboratively explore the values, conflicts, and possibilities that arise when planning for multispecies cohabitation. Urban wilding is an increasingly prominent approach to urban green space design, which emphasises the cohabitation of human and non-human species to foster biodiversity and ecological resilience. To integrate non-human perspectives into urban ecology practice, researchers from the participatory science project NovelEco developed the Future Novel Ecologies co-design workshop, which utilised multispecies methods to incorporate non-human perspectives into the design process. This paper outlines the workshop methodology for planning and conducting a workshop effectively, reflects on the workshop’s effectiveness in fostering collaborative visioning, and suggests adaptations for implementation in alternative settings. Further, the integration of the workshop’s methods into learning environments is discussed to reflect on how they can equip educators, students, and other stakeholders with tools that help reimagine urban ecologies. Insights are also provided about the value of municipalities, planning agencies, and local community groups adopting this workshop to enhance participatory planning and collaborative urban governance. This ecology-with-cities approach advances new inclusive, adaptive urban transformation frameworks by bridging participatory design and ecological, multispecies thinking. Urban areas are complex places where people, nature, and institutions interact in many ways. Rethinking how we design green spaces in urban areas requires input from different voices and perspectives. One emerging approach, known as urban wilding, focuses on creating spaces where humans and other species can coexist, thereby supporting biodiversity and enhancing resilience. To explore this approach, researchers from the NovelEco project developed a co-design workshop that brings people together to share knowledge, discuss values, and envision new possibilities. This workshop also explores ways to incorporate the needs of non-human species into the planning process. This paper explains how the workshop is organised and implemented, and how it may be adapted for use in schools, communities, or by city planners. The reflections show that this workshop can help people think differently about urban green spaces, making planning more inclusive and collaborative. By combining ecological ideas with participatory design, this approach provides educators, municipalities, and communities with practical tools to reimagine urban spaces in more sustainable and inclusive ways.

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