DESIRELAND IS A NOT FOR PROFIT NATURE-BASED SOCIAL ENTERPRISE ADVOCATING THE IMPORTANCE OF A CONNECTION WITH NATURE TO INDIVIDUAL AND COMMUNITY HEALTH AND WELLBEING IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT.
WE ARE A COMMUNITY DESIGN CENTRE DEDICATED TO SUSTAINABLE URBAN REGENERATION AND COMMUNITY LED CLIMATE ACTION.
ONE OF OUR LONG TERM GOALS IS TO ESTABLISH THE "LIFELINE," A LIVING LABORATORY" FOCUSED ON COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING AND PROTOTYPING NATURE BASED PROBLEM SOLVING IN NORTH CENTRAL DUBLIN.
OUR NATURERX RESEARCH PROGRAMME ACTIVATES THE LIFELINE USING COMMUNITY BASED RESEARCH AND CITIZEN SCIENCE, CONNECTING THE BOTANIC GARDENS WITH THE LIFFEY TO CREATE A RIBBON OF BIODIVERSITY AND A FERTILE GROUND FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION AND NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS.
ALL PROCEEDS GENERATED BY DESIRELAND ARE REINVESTED IN FURTHERING OUR KEY AIMS:
The Lifeline AIMS
1.
Expand public capacity through collaborative community based research projects that document and apply value to local knowledge, culture and heritage.
3.
Develop the LIFELINE, a ‘living laboratory, where TU Dublin and the North Central Dublin community can collaboratively prototype and evaluate projects/products/programmes relevant and of immediate use in the sustainable development of Dublin and other cities.
2.
Make creative use of local under-utilized resources (people, space, materials, systems) and establish a fertile ground to support social innovation, nature-based solutions and the circular economy.
4.
Establish a hub dedicated to recording, studying and communicating the importance of our relationship with nature in the urban environment, its impact on quality of life and the value of a nature based strategy to the development of sustainable urban design.
LIFELINE DOCUMENTARY - circa 2010
A film produced in 2010 by Gregory Dunn to argue the case for protecting the Midland Great Western Railway cutting for development into a greenway. This site was subsequently transferred to Transport for Ireland for the Luas Cross City. In the process a significant amount of biodiversity was lost.
We are now proposing a new route for the LIFELINE that would reactivate the former path of the Royal Canal into Broadstone and replace the natural habitat that once flourished on the Midland Great Western Railway site.
Great Midwestern Railway cutting | North Circular Road 2010
Background
In 2007, the Grangegorman Development Agency (GDA) held a series of public consultations to inform the masterplan for the new TU Dublin (TUD) & Health Service Executive (HSE) campus on the derelict St. Brendan’s Hospital site. The potential of this fascinating wild landscape, abundant with biodiversity, sparked the imagination of Stoneybatter resident Kaethe Burt O’Dea.
Kaethe used the consultations to document needs expressed by the community for pocket parks, sensory gardens, local food production, a car free campus with areas devoted to outdoor exercise and opportunities for life-long learning.
An opportunity to combine both public and private needs in the development of a sustainable exemplar emerged. Unfortunately, the demands of the building program made it impossible to accommodate this grand vision within the confines of the site.
Great Midwestern Railway cutting
It was the critical need to provide public transportation to the campus that led us to rediscover the disused Great Midwestern Railway cutting (GMWR). This wasteland opened up exciting potential to the community. We could develop the public amenity we dreamed of, one that would combine green infrastructure with an intermodal transportation and a living laboratory where TUD could study the benefits of nature in the city, a LIFELINE for NCD.
During fifty years of rewilding, the cutting had spontaneously developed an extraordinary array of environmental services for the city. It had slowly evolved into an ecological corridor hosting species rarely found in urban environments, filtering air, composting waste, diverting run-off and purifying water. The LIFELINE would preserve and build on what nature had developed.
Walking the Lifeline | Exploring the wild territory of the Great Midwestern Railway Cutting
In 2009, Kaethe presented the LIFELINE to TUD Sustainable Development students which launched a programme of multidisciplinary research under the Students Learning with Communities Programme (SLWC) led by Dr Catherine Bates. A two year study of the natural assets was conducted along the GMWR cutting with Ecologist Mary Tubridy to argue for the preservation of this stretch of rare urban biodiversity. Fifty Architecture Students produced plans to incorporate the community’s vision into the territory. The LIFELINE was presented at several international conferences. ‘Introducing the LIFELINE’ (Dublin 2010), a public seminar held in collaboration with TUD, the GDA, the Environmental Protection Agency, Dublin City Council and Transport for Ireland (TFI), attracted over 100 participants.
In 2013, the GMWR cutting was transferred to TFI for the Luas Cross City to provide essential public transportation. Having conducted an in-depth analysis of this unique inner-city landscape, we were acutely aware of what had been lost to the NCD community.
REBUILDING THE PROJECT & COMMUNITY
Despite this set back, our commitment to establish a partnership with nature in the city remained strong. In the same year the LIFELINE won a Guinness Projects Award, providing business training and funding to set up a limited company. We also began beekeeping and became intrigued by their organizational strategies and consensus decision making. We wondered if these processes could be used to guide public participation in urban design and planning.
In 2015, we hosted an International Action Science Workshop at TUD to develop a new direction for the project. The two-day workshop partnered beekeepers with artists, academics, professionals, social workers, and NCD residents to examine the question: ‘Are Bees leading us toward responsible urban design and health in our cities?"
Three important outcomes emerged from this workshop:
A new site for the LIFELINE - The former Royal Canal route from Broombridge into Broadstone though Blessington Basin.
Bí URBAN - A nature-based social enterprise and hub dedicated to community led development of the LIFELINE in Stoneybatter, NCD. The studio accommodates a shop, workshop & exhibition space, resource library, and product development lab. Since its opening in 2016 Bí URBAN has become a fertile ground for social innovation, green enterprise and nature-based solutions.
NatureRx - With the support of GDA “...lives we lead” Per Cent for Art fund, we developed a programme which engages the public in the LIFELINE. NatureRx workshops invite the NCD community to use creative processes to explore, map and document their personal connection with nature in the city.
2020 Vision
One positive outcome of Covid has been the reawakening of our relationship with the natural world and its importance to community health and well-being. The pandemic has asked us to revisit the utopian model of nature as cure which originally shaped the St Brendan’s Hospital site. The initial two kilometre movement restrictions were comparable to the foraging radius of a honeybee from its colony. Similar to the bees, urban residents developed expert knowledge of their local green spaces and the sanctuary they offer.
We are all citizen scientists in a global action research project. Health is the subject, the community our lab and human behaviour the instrument. Our relationship with nature is intrinsic to the solution. Understanding and nurturing biodiversity is as essential to the physical and mental health of inner-city residents as it is to the future of our pollinators.
Work-life balance and its impact on climate is a key element in the study. How we learn, socialise, travel, shop, care for each other, everything we do is under scrutiny including the function and meaning of employment itself. Connecting nature, people and place is being prioritised by local authorities who are making rapid infrastructural changes to facilitate walking and cycling, demonstrating that change is possible, and at a faster pace than we previously believed. The outdoors has become our classroom.
The LIFELINE is a think tank where individuals and groups explore these issues and trial solutions through local action. Bí Urban is its hub, run by a collective of volunteers and collaborators. Skills are shared and all contributors have value, whatever their background or discipline. Everyone has an essential role to play in how we want to live in cities going forward.
TUD is Ireland’s centre of excellence for community based learning. The Grangegorman Development is linking education with healthcare on a single site, creating the perfect environment for restructuring urban design and planning strategies. Now that we have established our studio, community and network, we ask you to partner with us as we map and activate the LIFELINE, a living laboratory where we can prototype, evaluate and construct a sustainable future.
THESESTORIES ON Bí URBAN & THE LIFELINE
A film piece created by Katie-Jo Teevan of Thesestories productions. Katie followed the work we’ve been doing for a series of months in 2019, including a trip to Dunmore Country School where we hold part of our Bee Stewardship Course, excursions to the Lifeline route, events & workshops.
