Metabolic thinking in planning and designing urban landscapes: practitioners’ perspectives on agency

Urban metabolism approaches are increasingly becoming relevant in providing pathways to sustainable development. The ways through which urban green infrastructures are planned and designed can influence resource flows in cities. Yet, little is known about the agency and contributions of landscape architects and spatial planners as curators of urban greenery, in facilitating circular resource flows, and accelerating the transition to a circular economy. This paper offers an empirical inquiry into the understanding and use of metabolic approaches in spatial planning and design practices. Through a multi-method approach and the use of boundary spanning as an analytical lens, we identify different modes of agency of spatial practitioners in enhancing resource efficiency across the life stages of urban landscape projects. Results show that while the ‘urban metabolism’ concept is not widely used by practitioners, its relevance to planning and designing green infrastructure for sustainable resource flows is well understood. Additionally, we highlight existing barriers including policy constraints in engaging with metabolic approaches and offer recommendations to facilitate a resource-sensitive turn in planning and designing urban landscapes. This study highlights important contributions of design practice to an expanding discourse of urban metabolism, including policy reforms for enabling circular resource flows in cities.