Access to adequate environmental amenities is fundamental for the sustainability, resilience and quality of human life in cities.

> this requires a better understanding of ecological patterns and social cultural processes in the places most people call home.

As more people will live in cities than in rural environments this means that the daily interaction with nature for most people will come from their everyday urban places. As ESS of green infrastructure are still not well recognised in Austrian municipal councils, we initiated a place based approach to the perception of green infrastructure and climate change in Laa an der Thaya.

Ecosystem Services are ecological processes or functions that provide benefits to
human society.
Urban Green Infrastructure is an interconnected matrix of vegetation, soil and
water that conserves ecosystem values, functions and services.
Cultural services are regarded as the ‘environmental settings, locations or
situations that give rise to changes in the physical or mental states of people, and
whose character are fundamentally dependent on living processes’. Over
millennia these environmental settings have been co-produced by the constant
interactions between humans and nature.

Integrated Approach of Cultural ESS of Urban Green Infrastructure

•  important to assess local knowledge and placebased values in conjunction with biophysical parameters

• humans  with  their  cultural  diversity  are  an  integral ecosystem component – services are indispensable to the quality of urban life.

> How to integrate cultural ecosystem services into decision making and planning processes!
> How  to  investigate  different  societal  concepts  of  world views,  meanings  and  attachment  to  place  and  include values associated with place!

represents the ongoing work and thoughts of the office Rottenbacher for landscape architecture and landscape planning that started already in 1991 in Austria,
with the goal to develop sustainable projects with high social and aesthetic values.

The everyday practice of sustainable living argues for engagement, responsibility and stewardship for the places we dwell within the natural process we rely on.

Diversity of life involves biological as well as cultural diversity,
societal concepts of world views, meanings and attachment to place.

Through identification and emotional attachment with place concepts for place making and design can be developed, as lebensraum include values, the personal knowledge of individuals and the shared knowledge of communities.

As Tim Cassidy and Christine Rottenbacher work together with interdisciplinary teams, we seek the best practice solutions related to the several single tasks, as each place and community has its special history, qualities and threats.
The main fields of our work are
>     ecosystem services related to landscape architecture approaches, like design of living places
>     public participation and negotiation about place
>     education, workshops, lecturers

·         Planning and Design of Public places (Parks, Streets and Places, Play and Sports Grounds)

·         Restoration and Creation of Water bodies in Town and Landscape

·         Planning and Design with Participation (MPP Moved Planning Process)

Our Services range from project management to detailing structure plans, submission of projects, concepts, Strategic environmental assessment SEA, Environmental assessment EIA,
Social impact assessment SIA