Bosbus; mobile nature reserve

Nature has discovered the global village. Over the years, hundreds of exotic plants and animals have made their way into the Netherlands. They take advantage of the existing urban infrastructure to seek out suitable niches in the city. People rarely think of these urban ecosystems in terms of wildlife because they do not live up to the romantic picture we have of nature. But what is the relevance of global nature to theories about the city? The BosBus, an ordinary city bus with a growing forest inside it, was a way of probing this cultural interpretation of nature. The BosBus mobile nature reserve travelled the roads of Rotterdam during the International Architecture Biennale of 2003. Debates and dialogues took place in the bus en route, with architects, city planners, ecologists and biologists hammering out the relations between culture and nature in and around the city of Rotterdam. As the bus visited their chosen locations, standpoints were argued and demonstrated. This book reports the adventures of the bus and those who rode it on its excursions round the city.