IMM DesignLab

🌱 Rethinking Pavement: Making Cities Breathe Again 🌍

Our cities are covered in concrete—but at what cost?

🔸 Non-permeable surfaces like asphalt and concrete block rainwater from reaching the ground, worsening flooding and overheating our streets.
🔸 Replacing them with permeable, nature-based surfaces allows water to soak in, supports urban biodiversity, and reduces the urban heat island effect.
🔸 More green = more cooling, more life, more resilience. 🌿

It’s time to swap excess pavement for soil, trees, and planting.
Not just for beauty—but for climate, ecosystems, and people.

Pictures: Laura Pou Landscaping

💧 Let’s make space for nature to return.

The Land Surface Temperature (LST) is the radiative skin temperature of the land surface, as measured in the direction of the remote sensor. It is estimated from Top-of-Atmosphere brightness temperatures from the infrared spectral channels of a constellation of geostationary satellites (Meteosat Second Generation, GOES, MTSAT/Himawari). Its estimation further depends on the albedo, the vegetation cover and the soil moisture.
Here the LST of a sector of the city of Milan.
Source: ESA

🌿 Green corridors and nature-based solutions are shaping the future of our cities 🌿

Imagine streets like this: lined with trees, filled with flowers, welcoming to pedestrians, and alive with biodiversity. 🌸🌳
This is the power of integrating green corridors and nature-based solutions into urban design.

These elements do more than beautify our cities — they:
🌱 Cool urban temperatures,
🐦 Support local ecosystems,
🚶‍♀️ Encourage walking and active mobility,
🧘 Improve public health and well-being,
🌍 And help build resilient, climate-adapted cities.

By rethinking streets as green, walkable public spaces, we connect people, nature, and communities.

Let’s build cities that breathe. 💚

The number of people killed on London’s roads fell by nearly 13% in 2025, according to provisional figures published by Transport for London (TfL), marking the second-lowest annual death toll on record outside pandemic years.

London road deaths fall to near-record low, but serious injuries rise The number of people killed on London’s roads fell by nearly 13% in 2025, according to provisional figures published by Transport for London (TfL), marking the second-lowest annual death toll on record outside pandemic years.

Before and After in Paris Avenue Debidour, 19th arrondissement.

Credit:

The most resilient cities are not those that stand apart from nature, but those that learn to grow as part of it. 🌿🏙️

Bivariate maps strike again on the scale of great Spanish cities:

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲: 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐧 15-𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬

- Problem: Does living in a 15-minute city make housing unaffordable? A new study on 4 Spanish cities reveals the answer is non-linear - and spatially surprising.

- Method: Bivariate maps overlaying walking time to 25 daily amenities with official rent prices at 100×100m grid resolution across Barcelona, Valencia, Palma, and Granada.

- Barcelona (polycentric, top figure): Multiple accessibility clusters away from the center - yet some of the priciest zones (Pedralbes, Diagonal Mar) combine low walkability with high rents, driven by luxury and tourism rather than proximity.

Valencia (monocentric, lower figure): Classic ring structure - highest access + highest rents at the historic core, a mid-ring of good access at lower prices, then peripheral low-access areas spanning the full price range.

𝐃𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬: https://www.instagram.com/p/DXRzrLNjEG_/?igsh=dnl6YThiZjExYmh3&img_index=2

𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥: https://substack.com/

𝐏𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWRp_dciJsM

🎉 Our latest research has just been published in Smart Cities!

📄 Equitable Access to Urban Green Spaces under Heat Stress: An Agent-Based Simulation (ABS) of Age-Differentiated Walkability through a Behavioral Perspective

✍️ Tao D**g & Massimo Tadi

As climate change intensifies urban heat stress, equitable access to green spaces becomes a critical challenge. Our study investigates how age, walkability, and behavioral dynamics influence people’s ability to reach and benefit from urban green areas under extreme heat conditions.

The findings highlight the strategic role of urban design in supporting climate adaptation, public health, and environmental justice.

🌿 Advancing knowledge for more resilient, accessible, and human-centered cities.

Find at: https://www.mdpi.com/2624-6511/9/6/97

Equitable Access to Urban Green Spaces Under Heat Stress: An Agent-Based Simulation (ABS) of Age-Differentiated Walkability Through a Behavioral Perspective Urban green spaces play a critical role in mitigating heat stress and enhancing urban livability, in line with the objectives and expectations of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 10 (Reduced Inequalities) and 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). This study employs Physarealm (Gra...

🐝 What if a bus stop could do more than provide shelter?

In Utrecht, over 300 bus stops have been transformed into living micro-infrastructures, with green roofs planted with native wildflowers. These small interventions capture rainwater, reduce urban heat, filter pollutants, and create habitats for pollinators.

From an IMM perspective, this is a powerful example of how urban elements can perform multiple functions simultaneously—supporting biodiversity, climate adaptation, and environmental quality.

Sometimes, urban resilience grows not through megaprojects, but through hundreds of small, connected interventions. 🌿

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