Sunday Feature

Research underlining the mental health benefits of a green environment would hardly have surprised the Victorian builders of Britain's great cities. But with a world population increasingly moving into urban centres, there's a pressing question about how that natural experience can be made available to high density city populations. Des Fitzgerald takes a walk through town and country to see if there's a way in which the benefits of one might be allowed to resolve the damaging impact of the other. He talks to experts who advocate human contact with the natural world and a representative of Heatherwick Studio who believe parks and buildings need not be treated as separate entities.