Designing the City as Part of Nature with Rasmus Astrup

What if we've been designing cities all wrong? 

For Rasmus Astrup, the answer starts with treating nature as infrastructure. As Design Principal and Senior Partner at Danish nature-based design studio SLA, he explores how natural systems can shape the way we design and develop cities. 

In Episode 37 of Talking Place, Rasmus ‘talks place’ with host Tanisha Raffiuddin about nature-based design, biodiversity, climate resilience and designing for all life. They also explore the business case for nature, the challenge of measuring value beyond land and financial metrics, and what it takes to turn ambitious ideas into places that actually get built. 

Designing with natural systems 

Astrup describes nature-based design as “accepting the systems that are natural”, at both a large and small scale. 

That means looking at how water moves, how biodiversity connects, how topography shapes a place and how natural systems change over time. 

He contrasts this with the engineered grids that define many North American cities. Manhattan is an extreme example, but the logic is familiar. Land is divided into plots, roads provide access, and the city is organised around a system that makes land easy to divide and develop. 

Nature works differently. 

“There are no straight lines in nature.” 

It follows topography and flow. It changes with the seasons. It gets wet, it dries, and it moves through the landscape in ways that do not fit neatly into a grid. 

That does not mean development has to be pushed aside. In Copenhagen, SLA worked on a project where the landscape was redesigned to harvest rainwater and increase biodiversity. The project also changed how the community approached maintenance, including the care of birdhouses. Astrup describes this as nature-based design in the city. It does not compromise different needs. It balances them.  

Nature as infrastructure 

This thinking leads to another idea that runs through the conversation: nature as infrastructure. 

Astrup sees nature infrastructure as a way of bringing different systems together rather than treating them separately. 

“Nature infrastructure is that nature we are trying to merge biodiversity, stormwater, social infrastructure, active mobility into one thing and connect them.”  

A biodiversity corridor, for example, can do more than provide habitat. It can connect parts of a city, support movement and become part of the public realm. Rainwater can become part of the landscape rather than something that simply needs to be removed. 

Astrup gives the example of a canal. His ideal morning run would take him alongside clean water, with fish, birds and clean air. That kind of environment is better for people, but it can also contribute to the value of the surrounding real estate. The ecological and economic benefits do not have to be treated as separate things. 

Learning from nature and from those who came before 

The conversation also turns to what urban designers can learn from Indigenous approaches to land. 

Astrup talks about the idea that you cannot simply own the land because you are part of it. For him, this is closely connected to nature-based design: understanding that people are part of natural systems rather than separate from them.  

“You are part of the land. You are part of the flows.” 

Working in Canada has also introduced Astrup to the idea of considering seven generations when making decisions. That means learning from the generations before you while thinking about the generations that will come after you when making decisions today. 

“You need to make sure that you learn from the seven generations before you.”  

It is a very different way of thinking about time in development. Instead of focusing only on what a project delivers now, it asks what today's decisions will leave behind. 

What happens when value cannot be measured? 

This raises a difficult question for development: how do you put a value on something that does not have an obvious price? 

Financial models can measure land value and money. They are less equipped to measure biodiversity, rainwater capture or the experience of spending time in a good public space. 

Astrup questions why things like bird song, rainwater capture, biodiversity, joy and the presence of children should not be considered when measuring the value of a project. 

Then comes one of the most impactful lines in the conversation from Tanisha: 

“Joy isn't a line item.” 

The business case still matters. Astrup is clear about that. He understands it and respects it. The challenge is finding a way to recognise the other forms of value that nature-based design can create, rather than measuring everything through money alone.  

Making ambitious ideas buildable 

The conversation eventually comes back to development and delivery. 

Masterplans often start with ambitious ideas. There are promises about what a project will contribute to the wider city, as well as connections and opportunities that extend beyond the site itself. The challenge is keeping those ambitions intact as the project moves through the development process. 

Astrup's message to developers is straightforward: 

“Be better at remembering what the starting point was when you're at the end line.”  

He is not arguing against the business case. Instead, he makes the case for being realistic about what can actually be delivered. 

“Create visions that get built and are feasible from the beginning and not overpromise.” 

He also argues for thinking beyond individual plots. If neighbouring sites can connect, share infrastructure and work together, the benefits can extend beyond the boundaries of a single development. 

That is an important part of nature-based design. The landscape does not stop at a site boundary, so the solutions should not necessarily stop there either. 

Designing for all life 

At the centre of the conversation is a broader view of what a city is for. 

Nature-based design is not simply about adding more planting or creating attractive green spaces. It asks designers to understand the systems that already exist and find ways for development to work with them. 

That means thinking about biodiversity alongside people, water alongside mobility, and long-term resilience alongside the immediate business case. 

For Astrup, the goal is ultimately to design places that work for more than humans. That brings us back to the question at the heart of the episode: 

“What if we've been designing cities all wrong?”

Perhaps the answer is not to stop developing cities, but to rethink the starting point. Instead of designing around nature, we could start by understanding it, working with it and making it part of the infrastructure that allows cities to thrive. 

Listen to Episode 37 of Talking Place with Rasmus Astrup to hear the full conversation on nature-based design, nature as infrastructure and how we can build cities that work for all life. 

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Tanisha Raffiuddin is Creative Director at Concept Culture and host of Talking Place. Conversations on placemaking, branding, sustainability and culture across the built environment.