Cities are becoming more built up and less hospitable to wildlife, which is in alarming global decline. Consequently, cities are becoming worse for their human inhabitants, who benefit from contact with nature, and losing out on the vital ecosystem services that urban greenery provides. This is a particular issue in residential streets, as domestic gardens offer significant potential for greenspace and wildlife habitat, but their value is misunderstood and their management is largely unregulated. Visual communication techniques are effective at engaging residents in city planning and could therefore offer a solution by inspiring community action to rewild urban streets. The article argues, with reference to an urban rewilding campaign created to support London becoming a National Park City, that visualisation can be used as part of an agenda to reverse biodiversity loss, and make cities healthier, more sustainable places to live and work. The case study uses architectural drawings of a residential street adapted to enhance its greenspace and biodiversity to encourage residents to transform their homes, gardens and streets. The study found architectural drawings have the potential to inspire and empower people to make changes to their neighbourhood by communicating an aspirational vision, depicting a cohesive proposal at a whole-street scale, and organising practical information and guidance. The case study provides a model for London and other cities to use vision drawings as a catalyst to increase their greenspace and biodiversity, creating a worldwide network of National Park cities.

Urbanisation is increasing; an estimated 68% of the world's population is expected to live in an urban conurbation by 2050. In 2019, London had 9 million inhabitants. Greater London covers an area of 1,569 km, 14% of which is vegetated private garden space, a percentage that is declining, negatively impacting biodiversity. Small adaptations to London's private gardens can turn them into a habitat for wildlife. This study protocol provides detail of research to understand and influence urban rewilding behaviour with a focus on adaptations to private gardens in London. The research follows three phases comprising (1) a scoping review of the existing literature on intent-orientated pro-environmental behaviours with a focus on urban rewilding, coded using the COM-B model of behaviour, (2) sequential mixed methods research including interviews and a quantitative survey to understand the capability, opportunity and motivational factors influencing urban rewilding behaviour, culminating in (3) development of an intervention strategy to promote urban rewilding behaviour using the Behaviour Change Wheel framework. Combining the disciplines of design, environmental and behavioural sciences, this research will provide new insights for influencing the behaviour or urban rewilding.

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