How can Munich´s green belt be appreciated, designed as open space, protected as biodiverse habitat as well as qualified for landscape-related recreation? At AESOP Conference “Regional Design”, I reflected on how walking workshops and co-creatively designing pathscapes can be a tool to approach this question. Taking the project “Paths form landscape” as an example, I proposed the following six strategic approaches to transformative planning in green belts:
:: Engaging stakeholders from different municipalities and with different professional backgrounds in “walking workshops” that are drivers for intensive discussions and creative thinking.
:: Focussing on linear open spaces, the resilient network of paths as a strong framework.
:: Providing room for experiments to fill the voids of this framework by individual appropriation of different groups.
:: Identifying pathscapes as starting points to build and strengthen public awareness for potentials and challenges of green spaces in times of climate change.
:: Pushing site-specific regional designs.
:: Generating transformative knowledge through designing.
Walking Workshops in the Green Belt. Photo: M. Lampert