HOW TO REWILD WITH YARD

ReWild with YARD was developed to raise awareness about the importance of biodiversity in cities, to promote the active involvement of children and youth in rewilding projects, and to encourage government authorities and urban practitioners to make decisions in the best interest of both people and nature.

The ReWild Process

The ReWild Process includes 5 stages:

SELECT

Consider your neighbourhood and select the place you want to rewild.
UNDERSTAND

Use data to learn about biodiversity, natural features and communities in your target area, and their connection with climate change and wellbeing.
EXPLORE

Learn how to observe nature from a different perspective and explore your place beyond your senses.
REWILD

Generate ideas and design solutions to rewild your place.
SHARE

Upload and share your wild ideas using the digital map, and explore others’ ideas and designs.

We have prepared two kinds of resources to help you apply the rewild process in your city, which are embedded across its 5 stages:

Guides to organising engagement workshops to learn about biodiversity and urban rewilding, its impacts on the wellbeing of people and planet. This also includes ways of making nature an active stakeholder in decision making and planning.

Workshop materials for generating ideas and solutions for climate and biodiversity challenges, and for rewild neighbourhoods. These are supported by ReWild with YARD, an Augmented Reality (AR) application developed as an engagement tool for this project.

The 5 Stages

SELECT a place to rewild

As you set up the team you are going to work with, make sure you have an ecologist or environmentalist on board. Also, get in touch with the local city authority, as they may have useful information and be able to put you in touch with city planners, architects, and biodiversity experts.

When selecting the site, consider the presence of different habitats for different animals and plants, and the mix of ‘green’ spaces (such as woodlands, grasslands and hedgerows), ‘blue’ spaces (such as rivers, streams and ponds), or just ‘grey’ spaces (like buildings, roads and car parks).

Start thinking about how these different spaces make you feel, and how your intervention could help them work better for people and nature. You might decide to shortlist several places, then choose your rewilding location(s) once you have learned more about the environmental pressures and challenges in those places (see Stage 2).

How to select a place for rewilding?

riverside pathway with a sculpture of holding hands — Walking around Tower Hamlets to find the right route to explore rewilding. Looking for places where nature and people meet: river and the railway bridge, trees and the construction site, grass and the pram.

a man walking away from the camera down a riverside path next to a canal boat — Walking around Tower Hamlets to find the right route to explore rewilding. Looking for places where nature and people meet: river and the railway bridge, trees and the construction site, grass and the pram.

UNDERSTAND your place through data

Before exploring the chosen place through (and beyond) your senses, you can learn a lot from data. This will help you to understand the local ecosystems and habitats, how people live in the area, and about the history and use of the place. Getting to know this will help you define the route for your rewilding exploration walk. You can check what maps and data are available through the local city authority (for example, in the Local Plan), as well as environmental organisations.

Your analysis can be driven by the following questions, among others:

What habitats and ecosystems are present in your area today?
What was there in the past?
What local plants are there?
What animals are there all the time?
Are there some that are there only sometimes?
How is climate change impacting local habitats?
What other challenges these ecosystems face (such as pollution, deforestation)?

By the end of this stage, you should decide on the exact route for your rewilding exploration walk. The route should involve 3-5 locations in which you and your team will explore ideas for rewilding. You can choose these locations based on your knowledge and understanding of the area.

Environmental data guide

map of tower Hamlets showing 5 school locations — Looking at the GIS map of Tower Hamlets to explore biodiversity hotspots and school locations. Map displays GiGL data [Nov 2022], Contains OS data © Crown Copyright (2023), Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

EXPLORE your place beyond your senses

When you have gained a better understanding of your location and decided on the route for your rewilding exploration walk, organise a workshop with your team to see the site through a different perspective, using the lens of different species or persons: flying above like a butterfly, crawling through the pond like a newt, or cuddling in mother’s arms like a baby. You will need several hours for this activity. Follow the steps below.

Workshop 1 outline

Workshop 1 material list

STEP 3.1. MEET YOUR LIFEFORM

Make a list of local species and people that you have identified while you were choosing the area or looking at the data (Stage 1 and 2). Divide your team in smaller groups of 2 or 3, and assign each group one of the chosen species or people (the lifeforms) for them to explore in detail. In Tower Hamlets, we explored: a Bumblebee, Comma Butterfly, Daubenton’s Bat, Dunlin, European Eel, Otter, Boy with Anxiety, Middle-aged Woman with Obesity, and a Baby. Give each group a template to fill with information about the selected lifeforms (“Get to know your lifeform”). This will help them to get familiar with their behaviours and needs. If possible, involve a local ecologist in developing these templates ahead of the workshop.

a drawing of the eel's lifecycle — Exploring the lifecycle of the European Eel, thinking and writing in the first person (as you are that lifeform, imagining the world from their standpoint, looking through their eyes and feeling through their skin).

Get to know your lifeform

STEP 3.2. IMPACT CARDS

Start the workshop by looking at the template and information you collected about your lifeform. Then, have a look at the Impact cards that you can print from the link below. They include images and descriptions of some of the features in our surroundings that influence different lifeforms and their habitats: for example, hard surfaces, riverbeds, natural riverbanks. These influences can be both positive (green cards) and negative (purple cards).

Now, using the Impact cards, think about how these features influence your lifeform in different stages of their life or their daily routine. Place cards over the lifecycle or routine sketch that you have drawn (or printed) in the previous step (“Get to know your lifeform”). This activity will later help you in observing and understanding what you see and experience on your rewilding exploration walk, as you will already be familiar with some of the features of our natural and built environment and the way they influence different habitats.

an A4 sheet of paper has a bat's daily routine on it (i.e. leave cave at dusk, drink water from a stream). On top of the paper are laid cards with things that positively impact (bat boxes) or negatively impact (e.g. artificial lighting) the bat's routine. — Negative (purple) and positive (green) impacts on Daubenton’s Bat in its daily routine.

Impact cards

STEP 3.3. ZOOM OUT

After exploring details about your lifeform, zoom out to look at your location as a system. Sit together as a big team and discuss your findings from Stage 2. You should use the “Group Discussion template – zooming out” (see below) to help you collate this information.

point of view from the back of a classroom where students are looking at a presentation at the front of the room — Getting ready for the walk: exploring the environmental data and the rewilding route together.

Group discussion template - zooming out

After discussing the route for your rewilding exploration walk with your whole team, ask different groups (representing their specific lifeforms) what they think about this place. Do they already expect to find some places that their lifeforms will like or dislike? Do they think they will meet some of their lifeforms along the way?

STEP 3.4. EXPERIENCE THE ROUTE AS YOUR LIFEFORM

For the duration of the rewilding exploration walk, you should be in the same small group in which you considered your lifeform’s experiences (we can call this group a “Lifeform Colony”). During the entire walk, try to “enter” into the body, movements, feelings and thoughts of your lifeform. Try to become one with your lifeform.

Each member of the Lifeform Colony has a different task to perform: one person could be a photographer, one a note-taker, and one a sketch/frame holder. While outside, do the following:

Take (at least) 5 photos of places that you (as your lifeform) enjoy, and 5 photos of places that stress or challenge you. To do this, you should use the paper frames. Green frames should mark the areas that you enjoy, and orange frames the areas that stress or challenge you. Before taking a photo through you frame, write what you are trying to catch in the photo – what are the positive/negative influences of the places you have observed, on your lifeform. This will be very helpful later when you are going through all the photos that you took. Remember to also take notes about your thoughts.

Two students facing away from the camera, looking at an ipad that they are using to take a picture through an orange paper frame — Using the orange frame to take a photo of a noisy construction site that is a challenging place for a bat. One person is holding a frame with a caption, while the other takes a photo.

The picture that the students were taking - buildings and construction site with caption on the frame reading 'Noise + Pollution' — Using the orange frame to take a photo of a noisy construction site that is a challenging place for a bat. One person is holding a frame with a caption, while the other takes a photo.

For (at least) one place, make a sketch on the acetate sheet of what you would change to address the challenge that you have identified. Take a photo of the sketch overlapped with the target space, and try to answer this question: If this would change, what other changes do you think we might see in the neighbourhood? Write your answers in your Note-taking sheet.

Note-taking template

A student taking notes on a rock with the green and orange frames beside her — Taking notes about a specific place along the rewilding route.

hands hold an acetate over a river with boats. Drawn on the acetate is a boat with smoke coming out of the chimney and some strange looking eels. A note says 'pollution = deformed eels' — Taking a photo of a sketch on an acetate sheet, holding it in front of a specific place on the rewilding exploration walk. This particular drawing was about a bad future scenario: what would happen to the European Eel if nothing changed for the better?

STEP 3.5. BUILDING IDEAS

After the walk, you should gather again as a big team in a space that is weatherproof, comfortable, and can allow for creative making activities. It is time to build ideas for rewilding the places you have just visited – Workshop 1. You can use paper, card, LEGO® bricks or even collected natural material (cut branches, fallen leaves and bark) to build your models.

Look at the photographs that you have just taken along your rewilding route. Do you already have some ideas about what your lifeform would like to be different? How could you design the place better to influence your lifeform’s lifecycle or their routine?

For each idea that you have, use the materials provided to make a simple model of it. Write down the benefits it will bring to your lifeform, and to the neighbourhood. Here are some guiding questions that could help you to think about this: What does your lifeform need? What does it enjoy? How do your lifeform’s needs connect to the spaces, buildings, roads, and nature that you have observed? Take photos of your ideas and make an exhibition.

Model explanation cards

uniformed arms reach into a big pile of LEGO bricks on a table — Building rewilding ideas for places along the route, using LEGO® bricks.

A lego scene built on a green panel with trees, a grey path and some water stands next to a sign that reads 'benefits that my character will have from this intervention: homes for bees to live in & have enough food for them. Benefits that my neighbourhood will have from this intervention: Greenery can help reduce stress for people in the neighbourhood'.' — Writing down the benefits that your design will bring to your lifeform, and to the neighbourhood (think about what it would do for humans and for the lifeforms that other members of your team are designing for).

A lego model of a river running through a brighly coloured structure next to a handwritten sign that says 'benefits that my character will have from this intervention: less pollution in the water so their habitat is clean and safe. Benefits that my neighbourhood will have: clean energy and another way to charge their car' — Showing and explaining rewilding ideas and models.

students stand round a table with many lego models — Showing and explaining rewilding ideas and models.

REWILD your place

A few days or weeks after the first workshop, gather your team again for Workshop 2. Use the time between workshops to think and develop ideas about your lifeform, your neighbourhood, biodiversity, climate change, nature-based solutions, the benefits and support we receive from nature, and the ways in which cities work. The purpose of the Workshop 2 will be to better understand the principles of rewilding so you can design solutions for specific places along your route. As before, you will need a few hours for this activity. As some of the workshop will be outdoors, bring some weatherproof clothes in addition to one tablet or phone per participant, with the Rewild with Yard application installed. Follow the steps below.

Workshop 2 outline

Step 4.1 EXPAND YOUR PERCEPTION OF CITY INHABITANTS

At the start of the workshop, remind the participants about different inhabitants of your neighbourhood. You could do this through sounds and movements. Prepare in advance a playlist of sounds of different lifeforms that you have explored in Stage 3: busy footsteps, toddlers playing, buzzing, pitter-patter, leaves rustling, honking, fluttering, chirping, cooing, splashing.

While playing each of these sounds, ask the workshop participants to move through the workshop space as the lifeform they are hearing. Through this exercise, remind everyone that we will all be Wild Designers for the day, but that we are designing for inhabitants that have very different needs, desires, challenges and joys.

Workshop 2 - materials list

a student and designer dance together in a circle of chairs whilst other students look on — Dancing as diverse neighbourhood lifeforms.

STEP 4.2 YOUR DESIGN TASK

Before heading out for the walk along your rewilding route, sit together as a big team to watch slides setting out the task ahead. These should contain an explanation of the design task, the definition of the role of a Wild Designer, the summary of findings from stages 2 and 3, instructions on how to use Rewild with Yard app, and a reminder of the rewilding route stops. Use the Power Point template from the Resources section to help you collate this information.

The backs of many student heads as they look at a designer pointing at a projected slide — Getting to know the role of a Wild Designer, and how to use ReWild with YARD app.

Group discussion template - ReWild with YARD

STEP 4.3. REWILD WITH YARD ALONG THE ROUTE

Walk along the same route as in Stage 3. This time, everyone is in a role of a Wild Designer, using the Rewild with YARD app on a tablet or a phone. When you arrive at the first stop, discuss what you see, hear, smell, and feel around you. If you have an ecologist on your team, ask them to explain their view of the habitats around. If you have an urban designer with you, ask them to explain their view of the surrounding area and urban systems.

After the discussion, allow around 20 minutes for Wild Designers to complete their task:

Design a ReWilding project for this specific location, using the ReWild with YARD app. When you finalise your design, remember to save a screenshot on your device.

Motivate participants to “walk through” their design, see it from different angles and take different screenshots.

Repeat the same process in each location along the rewilding route.

A group of people standing by a canal watching a man holding grass — Ecologist talks about the types of grass in the location.

Two students stand on a path through a grassy area facing each other whilst looking at tablets — Designing and exploring designs through ReWild with YARD – an augmented reality app.

a student adding flowers to an area of bare soil and weeds on the YARD app — Designing and exploring designs through ReWild with YARD – an augmented reality app.

a student holding a tablet above their head looks through it up at a tall building

YARD – Fact checklist

YARD - Catalogue of design elements

ReWild with YARD app is designed so it teaches users about rewilding principles and design elements that can be used for projects. Facilitators of the walk (teachers, practitioners, authorities) may want to know more about the elements used in the app. Please download this additional material that may support you in preparing for the discussion.

STEP 4.4 ECOSYSTEM PANEL

Have a break upon your return to the school/ workshop space. During the break, collect all the saved project images from the participants’ devices. Choose up to 3 design ideas per location, and arrange them on a Power Point slide, side by side.

The purpose of the Ecosystem Panel is to allow children, teachers and any other workshop facilitator to explore the rewilding ideas for their neighbourhood from a perspective of different local lifeforms. Small scale designs for specific locations are discussed with other lifeforms and humans. Through these discussions, design solutions may become more complex, as participants realise that something that is very good for one lifeform may not be good for another. This becomes the start of an important process of negotiation and prioritisation. By combining solutions that respond to the needs of different species, small-scale interventions often become corridors – linking disconnected habitats in the neighbourhood.

three ideas at the railway bridge, one with a tree-lined avenue, one with a set of green walls and flowers, one with some trees and a pond — Preparing the design ideas for the Interspecies Panel.

Ask participants to choose whether they want to be part of the Ecosystem Panel or the audience. The main role of the Panel members is to discuss the rewilding design proposals from the point of view of a specific lifeform. This is why each member of the panel should have some knowledge and understanding of the lifecycle, routine, needs and challenges of the lifeform they represent.

people wearing hats sit on chairs in a semi-circle in a darkened school hall facing a slide projected on the wall — Interspecies Panel discussing the rewild design proposals for each location.

Provide each panel member with a hat or costume that you have previously prepared. The more lifeforms you have on the panel, the better. On the Tower Hamlets Panel, we included Mr Bat, Stag beetle, Mr Butterfly, Miss Resident, Mr Duck, Mr Badger, Miss Newt, Mr Bird, Miss Hedgehog, Ms Tree and Miss Bee. Other members of the panel can include the Biodiversity Expert (if you have an ecologist in your team), Urban Design Expert, and other experts. The rest of the group can take the role of the audience. If possible, compose the Ecosystem Panel so that its members are of different ages and have complementary knowledge and expertise.

One person should facilitate the discussion, making sure to include as many voices as possible. The Facilitator opens with the slide for each location, showing up to three proposed designs. First, the Wild Designer of the first idea explains it to the audience and the Panel. The Facilitator then begins the discussion about that proposal. Here is the excerpt from the two different design solutions presented during the Interspecies Panel in Tower Hamlets:

a screenshot from YARD with AR Trees placed close together along both sides of a path

Wild Designer: I designed a row of trees… grazing canopy with little bug nests (hotel) in the middle.
Ms Tree: I think this is very nice. Because I'm close by my friends, you know, we also communicate through groups... it's nice not to be isolated. However, I am wondering if it is maybe too many of us? I like to have a bit of my space to spread my arms and to feel the wind in between.

Mr Bat: I think that the insect hotel is really good for my food, like I get hungry sometimes… well, I get hungry all the time. The shade the trees provide is really good for me because I am kind of sensitive to light and I don't really like it here. But… there are so many trees, so many birds are gonna go in there, they are going to poop all over the insect hotel – this is not going to be fun.
Stag beetle: Adding on to Bat's point, there'll be too many birds and all of them will probably be fighting for me and my colony. Yes, I also care about my friends. So basically, if they all come to hunt us down, first of all there will be mess everywhere, and second of all – all of us will be dead.
Miss Resident: I live right behind that bridge over there. I think in the summer it's nice for me because then I could walk by and it will not be too hot, but maybe if it's late at night, it would be quite scary because it's a bit dark.

Mr Bird: I love it. I would have to be a species that is okay with other birds living so close. Otherwise, there's going to be a ruckus… a big fight. But I could imagine if the holes were a little bit bigger, if I was a sparrow, then a sparrow colony could live there. I love the fact that the "restaurant” is just downstairs from the building. Perfect for me. You called it home delivery, didn't you, Ms Urban Designer? Yeah, it's great. A bit more space between, maybe... But thank you. Thanks for building so many homes.
Stag beetle: It is absolutely atrocious! First of all, if you survive without getting eaten for one day, all you can hear at night is the World War III... all the birds going crazy. By the time one beetle escapes, we all can escape. But the thing is, why would you have a restaurant downstairs? It's like you have one meal for every 24 people. So basically, and we're also very tiny, so maybe include more hotels. And also - I'll rate that one star.

A student with braided hair is looking away from the camera at a tablet they hold in front of them

A YARD design in front of a building entrance with a bug hotel at the bottom, with 2 bat boxes and 13 bird boxes on tall poles

Biodiversity expert: There's a lot to unpack. I mean, you mentioned World War III could break out, which not only is it going to be all the insects going to get eaten, but there's only going to be so few insects available, and all the birds are going to start biting. They're going to start ripping their wings off. It's going to be a massacre, an absolute bloodbath.
Mr Bird: What about the negatives? [everyone laughing]
Biodiversity expert: But… Maybe some more insect hotels and then there'll be more food for birds. And then there's more to go around.
Facilitator: What about Miss Resident, would you like to walk around these poles to get to your home?
Miss Resident: I think… well it's right in front of my door… to my house. Yeah, I think it might be, if there's a World War III I might be scared to come in and go out of my apartment there. But yeah, I think if it's peaceful it would be nice to listen to the birds from my room.
Audience member: Would it be nice for your clothing?
Miss Resident: I don't think so. [laughing]
Mr Bat: So firstly, there's only two bat houses and that's not fair. So why... why is there a bunch of bird houses and only two bat houses? I think this is unfair and…
Mr Bird: I don't think it is. [laughing]
Stag beetle: I don't know why any birds are [???]. Because firstly, they're probably, as I said before, they're probably going to poop on my house.
Mr Bird: What's wrong with that?
Mr Bat: I don't know, maybe THE SMELL?
Mr Bird: Fair enough.
Urban expert: From a maintainer's point of view, it's a disaster. The residents will have to pay extra charges for someone to go and clean up every day. Because for the reason that Mr. Bat just said, that is going to be otherwise very smelly. In addition to the noise that they can make, fighting for cute little insects.
Badger: What if you put snakes inside so that the birds will be frightened? Would that be better? Because they eat very rarely, and they don't chew a lot.
Stag beetle: I have one question. Why do you put it outside of the entrance? I mean, the last thing you want to see when you're coming out of your house is birds pooing on your clothes after you had a nice shower. I mean, it's not like we shower, but still. The residents, they don't want 500 birds pooing on them every 0.2 milliseconds!
Facilitator: So, a whole-beetle-colony is advocating for residents! Mr Duck?
Mr Duck: Where is the water? Where is the water?
Resident 2: For me as a resident. It does look really cool, right? I know it's a common mistake, but you were talking about aesthetic. I think it looks really cool, so that would be a positive. But then I might be sad when I try to live with it…
Facilitator: Biodiversity expert, would bats live so close to birds?
Biodiversity expert: Not normally, no.
Mr Bat: Exactly! [laughing]

After the panel discussion, the audience gets a chance to say which design solution they prefer and why. The audience members also need to propose how would they combine the best parts of each of the three ideas, so the final solution responds to as many needs of the Panel members as possible.

students and experts all wearing hats with characters on them sit on chairs in a semicircle — After the panel discussion, the audience gets a chance to say which design solution they prefer and why. The audience members also need to propose how would they combine the best parts of each of the three ideas, so the final solution responds to as many needs of the Panel members as possible.

SHARE your wild ideas

Rewild with YARD will enable you to create many design ideas and proposals. It is very important that you share them with the wider community, in order to influence and advocate for rewilding in your neighbourhood. In a long run, this will positively influence the biodiversity in our cities.

You can do this in several ways:

Rewild with YARD will enable you to create many design ideas and proposals. It is very important that you share them with the wider community, in order to influence and advocate for rewilding in your neighbourhood. In a long run, this will positively influence the biodiversity in our cities.
Organise an exhibition of rewilding ideas in your local authority (e.g. City Hall), school, environmental NGO, community centre, or in your local park. Gather together comments from different audiences, and think how these can be reflected in your rewilding projects, and how these projects can be implemented.