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Nature surrounds us, from parks and backyards to streets and alleyways. Next time you go out for a walk, tread gently and remember that we are both inhabitants and stewards of nature in our neighbourhoods.

If we bring together the right people, communities can flourish and wildlife can survive alongside them.

We thought a human city is kind of like that watering hole. It's where different groups come together and have to find ways to live and survive and cohabit and cooperate, but they may not always see eye-to-eye.

I think humans have to learn a new way of dwelling on this earth. A way of living with their companions: animals, plants and fish.

My premise is that there's something hardwired into our DNA, that we as a species came and evolved from caves and clans and tribes, and therefore, we as a species care more about the things that are local to us than we care about the things that are 'over there' from us.

I think ultimately, bringing more nature back into the city is a way to deal with urban sprawl and things like that. If the cities feel a little more natural, people like to live there more rather than moving out and dividing up another piece of land that shouldn't be touched.

Nature, too, shall live its own life. We must beware not to disrupt it with the color of our houses and interior fittings. yet we should not attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together into a higher unity.

Cities might become biological entities, walls hung with curtains of algae that glow at night and sequester carbon, and floors made from tweaked cellular material that strengthens like bones as we walk on it.

I believe in the city as a natural human environment, but we must humanize it. It's art that will re-define public space in the 21st Century. We can make our cities diverse, inspirational places by putting art, dance and performance in all its forms into the matrix of street life.

A boundary is really something artificial we made up. The ecosystem and landscape continue.