MVRDV’s fake mound reminds us that nature isn’t skin-deep

At this time of the year, butterflies in the countryside are extremely distracting and provide a new landscape-reading perspective, making me think about ecosystems in a new way.

A local hedgerow had been severely cut back to bare soil and trunks in late February and by June had rejuvenated itself with lush wildflowers and stinging nettles. No doubt that cutting-back of shade promoted new life.

Going about their business on the nettle leaves was a large colony of Peacock butterfly caterpillars. My phone came to my rescue both as camera and encyclopedia, and I found that the common, ordinary, often painful nettle is a key incubator for most butterflies.

Peacock butterfly caterpillars on stinging nettles, photographed by the author

Is MVRDV’s mound asking: ‘How can we bring fresh air into our cities?’ Maybe. Everyone knows that nature is not simply a green form and that biodiverse cities don’t manifest themselves in such crude visual terms and shorthands.

But the Oxford Street ‘mound’ has been a useful folly, because the controversy around it and its somewhat disappointing ecological credentials will provoke architects and urban designers to reflect on the role of nature in the design of our cities.

Nature, it reminds us, is not skin-deep and architecture isn’t confined to ‘built’ form. Superficial formal approaches such as this one can be useful to bring about debate about how we should really retrofit and adapt our cities to better embrace nature.

Once upon a time a heap at the end of the road was a not uncommon neighbourhood landmark in our cities. These mounds were known as ‘laystalls’, typically a ‘common’ where livestock waste would be piled. Moves to remove them from the urban scene began after the Great Fire of London but unsightly, smelly and dangerous mounds existed in the city for much longer.

Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend has many scenes in and around London’s ‘dust heaps’. And I have regretted the loss of the once-iconic Whitechapel Mount (pictured below), removed in 1803 but in its day a larger feature in the city than the Whitechapel Hospital next door. These urban mounds were substantial, weighty – and often unpleasant – reminders of our ecosystems.

Source:Wikipedia

Whitechapel Mount, Illustrated London News, 28 April 1862

The disappointments around the Oxford Street ‘mound’ might finally nudge us towards a more substantial and responsible approach to designing for equitable access to nature – something that actually creates an ecosystem and a habitat, rather than ‘looking like’ nature.

Let’s start by appointing a specialist soft landscape architect with some knowledge of ecology early in the process of the design of development, making the most of the SUDs requirements, looking at simple measures such as de-paving, making space for community food-growing. The UK’s food and drink carbon consumption is needlessly high; the settings for our building need to be thought of as seasonal productive ecosystmens.

Let’s increase the soft, thick muddiness of our cities; think of nature as something heavy and complex, rather than a superficial grafting-on.

In London’s East End, mounds have a history of providing rich landscapes, focal points and sociable spaces in development, from the Boundary Estate’s Arnold Circus to the Smithsons’ Robin Hood Gardens. Many of these, such as the much-loved Arnold Circus, can also be understood to have a circular-economy value, too, by retaining excavation material in-situ.

Next time London commissions an urban mound, let it be something that requires wellies or hiking boots, something that we and other species can really get stuck into. For now, I hope stinging nettles find their way to the Oxford Street ‘mound‘ and bring with them a new, fortuitous ecosystem.

Often painful nettles are key incubators for most butterflies

Cristina Monteiro is an architect specialising in heritage and conservation, a researcher and a founding co-director of DK-CM