Enhancing Landscape Convention for Climate Resilience with New European Bauhaus Values and Principles

The European Landscape Convention (ELC), adopted 25 years ago, has significantly influenced landscapes and everyday life across Europe by promoting the protection, management, and planning of landscapes in urban, rural, and peri-urban areas. The ELC emphasises that landscapes are integral to cultural heritage, ecological balance, and individual well-being. It applies to all types of landscapes, whether outstanding or ordinary, and encourages public participation in their management. Nevertheless, urban regeneration and transformation practices often lack a holistic understanding of climate-responsive perspectives and an appreciation for the societal need for a more valuable and healthier urban environment, one that is co-created with and for communities. This paper discusses how these approaches applied in the project could influence landscape preferences and perceived restrictiveness. It draws on the Bauhaus Bites (BB) project, exploring how New European Bauhaus (NEB) values and principles can be integrated into the ELC. This integration complements the protection and planning of urban landscapes and enhances societal readiness for urban regeneration by bringing a cultural, aesthetic, and inclusive dimension. Using a case-study methodology focused on Zagreb, Croatia, it examines how therapeutic and community gardens embed NEB values in neighbourhood-level transformation. These gardens align with green infrastructure strategies, thereby supporting the transformation of urban food systems fortified with nature-based solutions (NbS) and NEB values and principles.