In recent years, urban design has begun to pay increasing attention to non-human beings, exploring how caring for and interacting with other forms of life can foster regeneration processes in urban areas. The term ‘non-human’ means, in a broad sense, everything that does not belong to the human sphere: living beings such as animals, plants and microorganisms, but also inanimate elements such as advanced technologies, objects and artificial intelligence. 

Against this backdrop, designers, town planners and administrators are promoting the integration of nature-inspired solutions into urban planning regulations and criteria. The aim is to encourage an ecological vision of the city by bringing trees, plants and other non-human life forms back into public spaces. 

What remains partly unresolved, however, is the question of how to design truly inclusive urban environments, capable of accommodating and responding to the needs of non-human entities as well. This implies the need to consider them as active subjects – endowed with ‘agency’, i.e. the capacity to act – and to recognise their role in the co-construction of the urban environment, where their presence helps to transform and define the social and spatial context.