[NEMO] Natural Environment and Maintenance Operations

Why do my flowers keep dying?

Nature is a profound thread that weaves humanity together, uniting us through its enduring presence. We gather for picnics beneath the canopy of trees, swaying gently in hammocks stretched between trunks, capture the fleeting beauty of autumn’s fiery leaves, and pause to stop and smell the roses. These interactions reveal not just our appreciation for nature, but our deep, instinctual bond that demands the integration of vibrant green spaces into the heart of our urban landscapes. To neglect this connection is to unravel a part of ourselves, for nature is not just a pretty flower, but an essential piece of the human experience.

But nature, while beautiful, carries a heavy burden when struggling to survive in the borders of an urban environment - it demands effort and dedication to endure. Urban green infrastructure is not a decoration, but a costly and resource-intensive commitment. It requires funds, workforce, and materials, demanding year-round observation to preserve its quality and beauty. Each tree, each flower, and each meticulously planned landscape fighting for space, nourishment, and survival with concrete, steel, and plant neighbors because, well, it is a living thing. Also, the knowledge to diagnose, fix, and manage living systems requires a special kind of expertise or extensive training which further exacerbates insufficient funding.

Even though nature can be self-sustaining, it cannot thrive in isolation; it depends on the seamless integration of other urban systems to function effectively. Elements such as stormwater management, waste disposal, and even transportation networks must work harmoniously with green spaces to support their vitality. Communication between these systems is usually minimal at best, potentially being counterproductive to the health of all systems. Communities and residents also play a crucial role in nurturing these spaces, fostering a symbiotic relationship where both people and nature benefit. Without active stewardship, such as refraining from littering, vandalizing, or overusing shared areas, the delicate balance of these ecosystems can quickly unravel.

But, with the proper implementation and strategy, nature becomes the bridge that brings people together, emphasizing openness and accessibility over separation. However, the complexity of managing a living system that could be the size of a small neighborhood or larger is a maintenance problem that currently has short-term fixes and not long-term vision.

Context: Little Village, Detroit

From several visits to Little Village, it is easy to see the work that has been accomplished in developing the surrounding area that is not only revitalizing the sleeping community but also creating a new harmonious relationship with ecosystems within the neighborhood. Landscape design is being used as a transition space and breaking physical barriers, connecting projects like the Shepherd to nearby restaurants and businesses in a seamless way. The landscape is “filling in the white space” of the mostly vacant lots, fostering a more cohesive neighborhood atmosphere and promoting walkability and interaction between spaces. Additionally, improvements in water access, such as removing facades and boat storage, are opening up direct connections to the lake. Currently, these projects are small enough to where regular maintenance is not required. But as more and more developments use nature as the great connector for the physical area, this living system will only become larger and more complex. In the long term, maintaining green infrastructure in Little Village poses an enormous challenge despite recent efforts to rejuvenate the area and foster a harmonious relationship between the community and its ecosystems. Little Village does not have any of that in its current strategic plans. Funding for developing the neighborhood is limited and focuses more on the arts than the landscape, resources are scarce, the current urban systems meant to sustain the natural area are either inefficient or nonexistent, and personnel is strained due to the lack of people within the neighborhood. So, how could Little Village maintain its growing green urban system effectively when it lacks the necessary resources?

Place Report I co-wrote →

Wider Implication

The challenge of maintaining green infrastructure in Little Village extends far beyond the local context, reflecting a broader struggle faced by cities worldwide at varying scales. For most areas, funding shortfalls make it nearly impossible to keep up with essential maintenance, restoration, and upgrades, leaving urban green spaces vulnerable to neglect. Cities also constantly grapple with resource allocation, often prioritizing public safety and critical infrastructure over ecosystem health. This trade-off can stifle the growth and resilience of urban green spaces, undermining their long-term viability. As well, the skilled labor required for tasks like planting, pruning, and biodiversity monitoring is often scarce, further hindering effective upkeep. Even cities that are large enough to possess the necessary resources still struggle to maintain large living ecosystems, revealing a systemic issue in integrating sustainable urban ecology into the fabric of city planning. As the need for climate resilience and ecological stewardship grows, these challenges highlight the urgency of rethinking how urban areas prioritize and support green infrastructure on a global scale. It is a complex problem, so how do you design a large organic structure like this that does not encounter these issues? Test it? Iterate on it? Maintain it? And now with growing climate concerns, how we thought plants will behave is changing. So how do you predict new behaviors?

Our Solution

Our proposed strategy and solution consists of four parts:

1. Sensor Network - A digitally quiet network of sensors to provide continuous monitoring of the living environment

2. NEMO Dashboard - Data visualization interface to display the real time data and delegate tasks

3. Signage - A physical interactive intervention to connect the plant data and visitors

4. Leaf It To Me! Mobile Game - Provide a fun and productive way for the community to get involved with maintaining their community landscapes

Believe it or not, plants communicate — not in words like us, but through a fascinating network of chemical signals and electrical impulses. These 'conversations' allow plants to warn each other about threats, share resources, and influence their surroundings, forming nature's own silent language. Advancements in sensor technology now enable us to capture and decode this language by outfitting plants with sensors that collect the signals they emit.

This network of sensors gathers data across multiple categories. Static and climate data are used to calibrate the sensors, while hydration, growth, and stress metrics monitor the plants' health and status. Collected in real-time, this data provides a continuous feed of dynamic metrics that reveal how well a plant is thriving. Through conversations with experts, it’s clear that such sensor technology is on the horizon, as the only barrier is value rather than technical feasibility. To offer a glimpse of its potential, we created a working prototype to illustrate how and what data might be collected.

We also recognize that people often turn to nature as an escape from technology and may not want to encounter overt technological intrusions. This system addresses that concern by being digitally quiet and minimally invasive. While the sensors remain hidden beneath the leaves, the silent language of plants is decoded and sent to centralized data hubs, creating a seamless integration between nature and technology.

Now that we have all this data streaming from plants, NEMO is the front end UI element to visualize, manage, and interpret the living systems and aggregate all of the data points.

NEMO Implications

NEMO transforms landscape management by simplifying logistics, workforce coordination, and budgeting, making 90% of the job — observing and analyzing — easier. While plants will always require human oversight and task curation, ensuring job security, NEMO excels in prioritization and diagnostics but doesn’t replace hands-on maintenance. It creates new job pathways, allowing those in landscape maintenance to gain valuable experience in data management and monitoring, while offering newcomers the skills to break into the field.

Signage serves as a physical intervention to educate and introduce visitors and community members to local flora and fauna. Acting as the connection point between the physical and digital elements of our intervention, it raises awareness of the living elements within the ecosystem, fosters a deeper connection between people and the land, and encourages further interaction with plants through its integration with the NEMO and the moblie game.

Our final intervention bridges education, exploration, and hands-on engagement by transforming tasks identified by NEMO into interactive experiences for the public. Visitors can scan plants to learn more about them and discover tasks associated with each, leading them to one of three toolboxes located throughout the garden. These toolboxes provide access to skills, local and practical rewards, a plant directory, and a leaderboard unique to each garden. By discovering plants, completing tasks, and competing across three gardens, visitors support the Michigan economy and gain live updates from plants. The intervention promotes sustainability by encouraging visitors to give back to the land, fostering emotional investment in landscape health. Each toolbox corresponds to a skill level, offering a pathway for hobbyists to upgrade their abilities, tackle more complex tasks, and potentially transition into full-time careers, turning a passion for the land into a profession.

Future Implications

These solutions represent incremental yet impactful steps within a broader strategy to enhance environmental maintenance and stewardship. Each initiative serves as a foundation, creating immediate benefits while laying the groundwork for new opportunities and uses as time progresses. By addressing current needs, such as optimizing landscape management and fostering community engagement, the system generates value today. However, its true potential lies in the long-term accumulation of data and insights, which will provide increasingly robust tools for adaptive management, innovative design, and deeper ecological understanding in the years to come. This is an investment where it not only addresses pressing challenges, but also positions the community for greater success in navigating future environmental complexities.

The plant sensor network system is already transforming environmental monitoring in Little Village by enabling the collection of precise, real-time data on soil conditions, plant health, and microclimates. This immediate access to environmental data enhances our current understanding of biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics, allowing for more accurate responses to the impacts of climate change. As climate patterns grow increasingly unpredictable, the system provides critical insights into plant behavior and ecosystem resilience, equipping the community with actionable knowledge to address ecological vulnerabilities today.

By combining sensor data with optimized landscape maintenance practices, the system is actively enabling more efficient and informed management of greenspaces. This integration reduces reliance on reactive strategies, helping to overcome budgetary constraints while improving the quality of landscape care. Additionally, the system supports real-time simulations that allow stakeholders to make data-driven decisions for event planning or adaptive interventions in greenspaces. These tools are already being used to maintain and enhance urban ecosystems, ensuring that greenspaces meet the needs of the community while adapting to ongoing environmental changes.

The introduction of this system is fostering a growing sense of collective stewardship among residents of Little Village. Gardens and greenspaces equipped with sensors are becoming focal points of engagement, inspiring eco-conscious behavior and deeper connections with the environment. Property owners, community groups, and individuals are already contributing to the care and management of local greenspaces, creating a collaborative network of shared responsibility. These efforts are cultivating stronger relationships with the land, as well as inspiring new ways to activate greenspaces for public benefit, such as community gardens and educational programs for young people.