My Green City: Back to Nature with Attitude and Style

My Green City: Back to Nature with Attitude and Style.

My Green City: Back to Nature with Attitude and Style celebrates the artists, activists and architects behind projects that bring nature back into the city. From guerrilla gardening and urban farming initiatives to furniture and street art made from plants, the projects featured aren’t only green, but incredibly creative.

In London, a growing map and network of all the city’s fruit trees has been catalogued, titled Fruit City. Blackberries, mulberries, apples, figs and strawberries all grow from the city’s trees, yet go unpicked, while masses of fruit is imported from around the world. Fruit City’s aim is to remind Londoners “that despite living in a big city, nature is right on their doorstep.” Fruit City house designer Vahakn Matossian has even created a series of fruit scoopers, carriers and squishers to help the urban forager with their picking and juicing.

The book also unveils the underground world of seed bombing. Made from a mixture of clay soil, compost, seeds and water, the seed bombs are “the munitions of guerrilla gardeners in the fight against the neglect of public spaces.” This is a fantastic book, a pictorial feast of what emerges when green thumbs choose to reclaim their urban environment.

Edited by R. Klanten, S. Ehmann, K. Bolhöfer (Gestalten: 2011) paperback, 240 pages. rrp $92.