When urban nature is invoked, it often appears as a green add-on: a remedy for urban deficits, a technical solution in the context of climate adaptation, or an aesthetic upgrade. Such a view narrows the perspective. It reduces nature to a function and obscures the fact that cities are already ecological formations in which soil, water, plants, infrastructures, and political decisions are inseparably intertwined. Urban nature is not a retrospective corrective to the city, but an expression of its material, social, and historical conditions.

This issue of ARCH+ on urban nature therefore proposes a shift in perspective: away from conceiving urban nature as decorative embellishment or compensatory measure, toward understanding it as a political and democratic project. Central to this inquiry are questions of soil, ecological justice, and the role of the design disciplines - particularly landscape architecture - in the Anthropocene. Urban nature emerges here as both a collective resource and a site of conflict, where the socio-ecological future of the city is negotiated.

When urban nature is invoked, it often appears as a green add-on: a remedy for urban deficits, a technical solution in the context of climate adaptation, or an aesthetic upgrade. Such a view narrows the perspective. It reduces nature to a function and obscures the fact that cities are already ecological formations in which soil, water, plants, infrastructures, and political decisions are inseparably intertwined. Urban nature is not a retrospective corrective to the city, but an expression of its material, social, and historical conditions.

This issue of ARCH+ on urban nature therefore proposes a shift in perspective: away from conceiving urban nature as decorative embellishment or compensatory measure, toward understanding it as a political and democratic project. Central to this inquiry are questions of soil, ecological justice, and the role of the design disciplines - particularly landscape architecture - in the Anthropocene. Urban nature emerges here as both a collective resource and a site of conflict, where the socio-ecological future of the city is negotiated.