Green-blue Infrastructure for Climate Adaptation

Winning Initiatives of the Design Competition “Hue Initiatives – Green Space, Green City” were selected

On September 30th, the Final Round and Award Ceremony of the Design Competition “Hue Initiatives – Green Space, Green City” took place at the Hue University of Sciences (HUSC) in Central Vietnam. In the Design Competition, the GreenCityLabHue invited young people from Hue and neighbouring cities to hand in their creative ideas showing how green-blue infrastructure such as trees, fountains and green walls can be used to enhance four currently vacant sites in Hue.

The benefits of green-blue infrastructure

Hue is already strongly affected by the effects of climate change like heat waves, storms and flooding. Green-blue infrastructures like parks and green roofs improve cities’ resilience against such events. Therefore, the GreenCityLabHue project has been looking for the best greening ideas for four sites in Hue – and many young people sent us their proposals. The best ideas have now been awarded and will be implemented in the next year. Through the competition students and decision-makers learn how to specifically integrate green-blue infrastructure into Hue’s infrastructure using practical examples and a “do-it-yourself” approach. In this way, they are empowered to implement their learnings in future urban planning projects.

Climate adaptation through participation

Simply incorporating more green-blue infrastructure into urban development in Hue is though not enough. It must be designed in such a way that it supports the land use objectives and also fully exploits its potential for climate adaptation. For example, trees and shrubs on unsealed surfaces help much more against heat waves than flowers in pots on asphalt. In order to achieve these optimizations and to create acceptance for green-blue infrastructure, it is important to jointly develop concepts through participatory events with both experts and local stakeholders. Therefore, the designs were intensively discussed at the final round of the design competition on the 30th of September. The teams received feedback and suggestions for improvement from representatives of the Hue City Government, Green Tree Company, Thua Thien Hue Association of Architecture, Thua Thien Hue Association of Urban Planning and the representatives from the previously co-selected sites.

The event was carried out by the Independent Institute of Environmental Issues (UfU, Berlin), the Faculty of Architecture of Hue University of Sciences, the MienTrung Institute for Scientific Research (MISR) and the Thua Thien Hue Institute for Development Studies (HuếIDS) as activity within the GreenCityLabHue project “Strengthening climate resilience of urban regions in Central Vietnam through nature-based solutions for heat adaptation and air quality improvement”. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

The GreenCityLabHue Exhibition/Display

The Design Competition was accompanied by a visit of the GreenCityLabHue Exhibition/Display at the Faculty of Architecture at HUSC, where students and professionals alike could learn about the benefits of green-blue infrastructure in urban regions and ways to build a better, greener and more resilient city.

Winning Initiatives of the Design Competition “Hue Initiatives – Green Space, Green City”