Bringing nature back into the city: Monaco

Bringing nature back into the city: Monaco, a project presented by Grant Associates, explores the reintegration of nature into the densely populated Principality of Monaco. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, it develops a landscape network structured around six ecological corridors that respond to the territory’s topography, urban context, and ecological potential.

Few places present a more complex challenge for urban greening than Monaco. One of the world’s most densely populated urban environments, the Principality occupies a dramatic strip of land between the limestone mountains of the Maritime Alps and the Mediterranean Sea. Development pressure is intense, space is limited and the natural connections between mountain and coast have been fragmented by successive layers of urbanization.

Monaco green infrastructure concept/ Concepto de infraestructura verde de Mónaco
illustration/ Ilustración: Grant Associates

Against this backdrop, the Government of Monaco commissioned a multidisciplinary team, led by landscape architects Grant Associates, to explore a fundamental question: how can nature be brought back into an already highly developed city?

How can nature be brought back into an already highly developed city?

The resulting Bringing Nature Back into the City vision is not a conventional masterplan, nor a collection of individual greening projects. Instead, it establishes a long-term landscape framework that can guide Monaco’s evolution over time, integrating biodiversity, climate resilience, movement, public space and human wellbeing.

For Grant Associates founder Andrew Grant, the starting point was Monaco’s extraordinary geography. Despite its density, landscape remains fundamental to the Principality’s identity, defined by the relationship between mountain and sea. The challenge was to understand how those natural systems could once again shape the experience of the city.

Shaded spaces beneath planting/ Espacios sombreados bajo la vegetación
illustration/ Ilustración: Grant Associates

Working from a detailed analysis of Monaco’s urban form, landscape setting and environmental conditions, the team explored how ecological networks could permeate the existing urban fabric. This led to the creation of six green and blue ecological corridors, reconnecting the limestone mountains behind Monaco with the Mediterranean below.

Each responds to its particular topography, neighborhood and ecological potential, but together they form a connected landscape network. Existing gardens, streets, slopes and public spaces can become part of a wider ecological system, rather than isolated areas of green. Where possible, the corridors integrate habitat and pedestrian movement, creating new connections both for wildlife and for people.

Water and biodiversity/ Agua y biodiversidad
illustration/ Ilustración: Grant Associates

The landscape framework also responds to the pressures of a dense Mediterranean city. Trees and planting provide shade and help reduce urban temperatures; water-sensitive design helps manage rainfall; and increased vegetation creates habitat and strengthens biodiversity, while making walking through the city more comfortable.

Shaded spaces for relaxation with views of the sea/ Espacios sombreados para el descanso con vistas al mar
illustration/ Ilustración: Grant Associates

This thinking extends to a distinctive new landscape element: the ‘Monacolith’. Inspired by Monaco’s geology, these standalone outcrops are conceived as sculpted limestone forms supporting a range of microhabitats. Distributed through the city, they have the potential to become recognizable markers of the wider nature strategy while adding biodiversity and a distinctive sense of place to the public realm.

A multidisciplinary approach was fundamental to developing the vision. Grant Associates worked with specialists in ecology, microclimate, sustainable development, water management, urban tree canopy, ecosystem services, pedestrian movement, soils and lighting. Rather than treating these as separate technical disciplines, the team used landscape design to bring them together, identifying interventions capable of delivering multiple benefits.

Biodiverse Mediterranean rock garden/ Jardín mediterráneo rocoso biodiverso
illustration/ Ilustración: Grant Associates

The vision also builds upon Monaco’s strong horticultural identity. Its gardens and planted landscapes are an important part of the character of the Principality, but the strategy moves beyond ornamental greening, towards a more connected and resilient urban ecology.

Celebrating Monacos horticultural heritage/ Celebrando el patrimonio hortícola de Mónaco
illustration/ Ilustración: Grant Associates

Crucially, this is a framework designed to be implemented progressively rather than as a single project. Its principles are already informing public realm projects, including the redevelopment of the Chemin des Sculptures Garden and proposals for Boulevard de Belgique and the Ostende Gardens.

Chemin des Sculptures plan/ Plano jardín Chemin des Sculptures
illustration/ Ilustración: Grant Associates

Aerial view Chemin des Sculptures/ Vista aérea del jardín Chemin des Sculptures
illustration/ Ilustración: Grant Associates

Boulevard de Belgique landscape/ Paisaje del Boulevard Belgique
illustration/ Ilustración: Grant Associates

For Grant Associates, Monaco demonstrates how landscape architecture can operate simultaneously at strategic and human scales. The city is considered as an interconnected ecological system, but its success will ultimately be experienced at street level: through cooler pedestrian routes, shaded spaces, richer planting, increased biodiversity and closer everyday contact with nature.

In a city where every square meter matters, bringing nature back is not about finding leftover spaces to make green. It is about treating landscape as essential urban infrastructure —a framework through which a dense city can become healthier, more resilient and more biodiverse.

Greener pedestrian connections/ Conexiones peatonales más verdes
illustration/ Ilustración: Grant Associates

Studio profile:

Grant Associates is an international landscape architecture practice creating distinctive, regenerative landscapes that reconnect people with nature while addressing the challenges of urbanization, climate change and biodiversity loss.  www.grant-associates.uk.com