We are in a period of increasing awareness related to climate adaptations and the benefits of renewable energy. At the same time, when we undertake urban regeneration efforts, we recognise the centrality of narratives that create identity and meaning for people, such as art. The work of LAGI takes place at this fascinating intersection of renewable energy and public art.

The original ‘land art’ movement in the 1960s and 70s—which in many ways is the foundation of today’s Land Art Generator Initiative—produced extraordinary structures, art forms and sculptures using the natural landscape. The pioneers of the movement, artists like Richard Long, Walter deMaria, Michael Heizer and Dennis Oppenheim, expanded creative boundaries through their innovative and monumental siting of natural materials. Some of the concerns of the land art movement at the time centred around rejection of commercialization of art-making and enthusiasm with an emergent ecological movement, ideals that carry over into the current world of LAGI.

LAGI founders, Elizabeth Monoian and Robert Perry, were classmates at Carnegie Mellon University and are now married partners with overlapping interests, working closely together since the inception of LAGI in Dubai in 2010. They’ve received significant recognition, including grants from the (US) National Endowment for the Arts and the JM Kaplan Innovation Prize.

Elizabeth and Robert established LAGI to provide a platform for artists, architects and landscape architects to work together with engineers and scientists. They continue to focus on energy strategies that overlap with public art and architecture. Specifically, they advocate a new kind of sustainable energy infrastructure—works of art that provide energy at utility scale. They are best known for the initiation and management of the LAGI biennial design competitions (organised for selected sites in the United Arab Emirates, New York, Copenhagen, Santa Monica and Melbourne).

The Pipe, Shortlisted Submission, LAGI 2016 Santa Monica: Abdolaziz Khalili, Puya Kalili, Laleh Javaheri, Iman Khalili, Kathy Kiany (Khalili Engineers). Energy Technologies: photovoltaic panels. Water Harvesting Technologies: electromagnetic desalination.

Solar Hourglass, 1st Place Winner LAGI 2014 Copenhagen: Santiago Muros Cortés. Energy Technologies: concentrated solar power.

In their opening for the ULI event, Elizabeth and Robert identified power plants like Battersea as expressive urban icons, not just remote utilities. These energy producers were part of a visual narrative for the city. In an age of increased environmental awareness, they stressed that story-telling is the foundation of resilience. Using terms like ‘energy landscape’ and ‘sustainable expressionism’, they suggest the potentially rich cross-over between energy and art.

One of the highlights of the event were presentations of some of the outstanding submissions made for the LAGI biennial competitions, including proposals for an electromagnetic desalination plant with an annual production of 10,000 MWh/4.5 billion litres of drinking water and a solar hourglass that produces 7,500 MW/year with a thermal beam-down tower. Also mentioned was ArchTam’s own submission: ‘Transpire’, an array of undulating cloud-making spires, powered by an extensive field of solar concentrators.

 Much of the event discussion centered on how LAGI could best transform some of the large-scale competition proposals into realised projects. The founders noted that they maintain active relationships with some of the best qualified technical teams from more than 800 competition submissions—an extraordinary amount of intellectual property. Next steps would be to pair established teams with cities, developers and utility companies with ambitions to build ‘energy landscapes’.

Towards the close of the ULI session, ArchTam’s Maged Hanna called LAGI ‘the Fendi of renewable infrastructure’. We can debate whether LAGI is sustainability fashion, industrial design, or art in its own right. But in the end, we can agree that the work of integrated art/energy teams and the overall LAGI initiative embodies astonishing innovation that makes us re-imagine the centrality of energy in our urban life.

More information: http://landartgenerator.org/

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Longevity and fertility
Dr. George Leeson, one of our keynote speakers and director of the Institute of Population Ageing at Oxford, reviewed the demographic transitions that affect populations worldwide, in particular declining fertility and increasing longevity. We are currently adding 2.5 years to our lifespans every decade; the 21^st century might be the last period of relative youth. On the other hand, we are constantly redefining the concept of what it means to be ‘old’ and reconsidering what is a pensionable age. We are entering an age of pluripotentiality; older populations are increasingly productive and capable compared to their cohorts in previous generations.

Urban realm
Glenn Howells, founder of Glenn Howells Architects, led a thoughtful panel focused on implications for the urban realm and how various industries react and adapt to meet changing demands. The most promising solutions are cross-disciplinary and cross-generational. We are increasingly considering the potential risks of robotics and artificial intelligence. Related developments may be driven by Millennials, but it will be older populations that nudge greater adoption of AI-enabled technology, including driverless cars and intelligent appliances and prosthetics.

New approaches
A nursery school and a retirement home are collaborating on innovative programming that combines childhood education with later living residents. The youngest children and the oldest residents learn from each other in fascinating ways. Judith Ish-Horowicz, the principal of Apples and Honey Nightingale Nursery, Alastair Addison, director of activities at Nightingale Hammerson, and Fay Garcia, a 91-year old pensioner at Nightingale Hammerson, spoke of the quality of the community and the ‘butterfly moments’ when serendipitous occurrences made the place extraordinary. These programs are also opportunities for trialling, researching and measuring emerging programs.

Housing with care
Richard Meier, a partner at Argent and chair of the ULI Residential Council, led a productive panel that explored the emerging typologies of so-called retirement housing. “Housing with care” encompasses residential types that offer a range of assisted care, hospitality offerings, value and tenure. There is perhaps no other real estate typology where the occupant needs change so dynamically. Perhaps like any single-demographic asset class, there continue to be poor associations and stigma attached to solutions that are uniquely intended for older people. Perhaps one of the most interesting developments is the increased interest in inter-generational living. These examples define new and surprising aspirations – the chance for different age groups to learn from each other and benefit economically. Aligning interests is the way forward. There are new delivery models for housing with care, including co-living and build-to-rent.

Workplace
James Franks from Gensler discussed implications of older generations in the workplace. For the first time in history, four generations are active in the workplace. The experienced aging worker is an increasingly attractive demographic, and James noted that even now, 11 percent of the workforce will be productive well into their 80s. The rise of the sharing economy, enabled by technology, will create environments that will help these workers get what everyone else also seeks in the workplace: purpose, flexibility, community and convenience. There are emerging co-working developments that are specifically catering to an older range of workers, and these will ultimately create a broader, better workplace for everyone.

Co-housing
Loneliness is a health risk factor for all ages, equivalent in impact to living with diabetes. Nick Henley, a founder of CoHabitas, has developed an online service that helps people aged 35 and over find like-minded people for house sharing. The aging population increasingly seeks to downsize to increase access to amenities and improve standards of living. Co-housing and co-living represent new aspirations as well as a wider understanding of potential financial, health and social benefits related to sharing assets. House sharing is also presenting itself as a solution that addresses wider social issues, including increasing the stock of housing for the wider population.

Demographics
Our other keynote speaker, Amlan Roy, senior managing director at State Street Global Advisors, reviewed the economic impacts of an aging demographic. He emphasised that the twin characteristics of declining fertility and increasing longevity affect emerging economies and Asian countries in particular at the moment. High growth and high costs associated with aging populations will have profound implications for national debts, investment priorities and urban patterns. Amlan outlined asset classes that would benefit from an aging population. To adapt to the changing context of aging, he also advocated abolishing mandatory retirement ages, closing gender gaps, rethinking immigration policies and outsourcing non-core jobs.

Mobility
Hugh Roberts, chair of the ULI Infrastructure Council, led a panel that explored land use implications related to mobility aids of particular interest for older citizens such as Uber, smart card ticketing and driverless cars. Many of these advances promise to reduce road and parking requirements – major land takes in cities. The panel noted that many of the mobility promises cause ‘wow-fatigue’. There is a gap between ‘should’ and ‘could’; full benefits of level-five vehicular autonomy are still many years off, for example. Some of the promises of driverless cars, like eliminating the number of vehicles on roads, may not be fully embraced by vehicle manufacturers and fleet operators – these groups sell consumption and are motivated by inducing rather than reducing demand for mobility.

Capital markets
Rob Martin, research director at Legal & General IM Real Assets, led a panel of investors, lenders and policy makers that reviewed different revenue models, risks and realities of housing with care. They observed the rise of the rental sector but noted that in the UK it lags behind other countries, especially the US. They discussed the pros and cons of various charging models, for example sinking fees vs. ‘event fee’ (equity release when exiting the development). But even with the rise of high-value products, co-living, and emerging rental models, there will still be challenges when serving a market (average age 78 years) that is still hard-wired for single home ownership.

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My presentation focused on the disruptive effects on the evolution of cities and tried to address three basic questions:

• How are cities changing in this extraordinary age?
• Will cities find new ways to make themselves relevant?
• Can we apply new strategies not only to cities but also to ourselves?

Urban agglomeration, climate change, and machine-learning technology are the three major emerging disrupters. More than any others, these three are concentrating and redistributing innovation and capital in ways that create the most important challenges and opportunities for the way we live.

Are cities getting too big a share of economic spoils, with traditional labour in the hinterlands lagging behind? Do the changes make us feel helpless? (Are we needed?) Do we lash out politically (and geographically) when we try to deny our helplessness?

How we work and how we live may be fundamentally changing, but cities remain the most amazing and positive creation of our species. We are entering an extraordinary age of hyper-connected cities. By connecting ever more directly with each other, cities allow us to best embrace change by giving us the networks to make ourselves more useful and relevant to others.

View my presentation here.

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From traditional North American/European perspectives, both Australia and New Zealand are the ‘end of the line’. Auckland is 12 hours ahead of London – literally on the other side of the planet.  But in the past decade, ANZ’s most globally active cities have been going from strength to strength. Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland in particular are booming. Of course their baseline trade and exchange is the foundation for this. But these cities are also becoming globally relevant destinations of choice for the next generation of wealth creators. And people attract people: new generations go because other young people are already there.

In the background of all this are the explosive urbanization rates in Asia. One million people move to cities every week, ignited primarily by China and India. This rate of urbanization is set to continue for the next 15 years, and some of this urbanization ‘leaks’ into ANZ. The continuing mixing of cultures and innovation concentrates talent and investment, creating new opportunities. But there are also new challenges related to congestion and economic inequality. Some of the cities that are consistently voted most ‘liveable’ and ‘most affordable’ are also experiencing related disadvantages – their affordability is a proxy for their aging populations and their increasing struggle to attract and retain younger generations.

There is a lot of energy in ArchTam’s Australia and New Zealand studios, where the Brilliant Cities team has undertaken many new initiatives, including the launch of a new report titled Transport on Demand: Accelerating Australian Cities, which features primary research produced by ArchTam in cooperation with GoGet, Australia’s biggest car share network. Follow the discussion on twitter using #brillcities and #urbanmobility.

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As chair of the Urban Land Institute’s Infrastructure Council, I recently hosted a presentation at London City Hall, in which Jeremy Skinner, Greater London Authority (GLA) head of economic growth & enterprise, Andrew McMunnigal, GLA senior policy and projects officer for infrastructure, and Paul Hodgson, GLA Geographic Information Systems (GIS) & infrastructure manager, presented an extraordinary GIS map of London. The Infrastructure Group at the GLA has developed this new map, which is currently in beta-testing. No other city has a map of this kind!

Like many GIS applications, this database integrates an extraordinary amount of infrastructure information in an interactive format and currently incorporates over 40 major urban opportunity areas (some several times larger than the 2012 Olympic Site) and over 12,000 ongoing and planned projects.

What makes this particular digital map so powerful is that for the first time, virtually all of the city’s infrastructure providers (transport, power, water, sewerage, broadband, etc.) as well as major developers in the city are updating the digital database every week. And unlike conventional GIS databases, which layer assets and links to related information, this particular platform integrates project data, spatial organization, and powerful analytics via an interactive dashboard. Users can identify conflicts (e.g. project overlaps with other utilities, interference with view corridors), parallel efforts by other infrastructure providers, and projects occurring in similar timescales. The dashboard allows users to measure consequences of development (e.g. impacts to traffic movements of individual and overlapping projects), identify land ownership and tax base, and even to anticipate employment sectors and vocational training requirements related to particular major initiatives.

Although full access to granular information is restricted (because of commercially sensitive information) to members of the London Infrastructure Delivery Board (the regulated utilities that have contributed the vast majority of the database), higher-level information is now publicly accessible. You can view a brief presentation about the map and trial the beta-test here.

The Infrastructure Group at the GLA recognizes advances of machine learning and is managing the introduction of mega-data into the public sector. This particular new tool creates a powerful platform that encourages innovation, suggests cross-sector opportunities across the urban realm, and encourages collaboration between London’s boroughs. ArchTam is developing its own Smart Cities/London ‘M-App’, and it’s not hard to imagine how powerful a tool we can develop when we start to eventually merge the databases.

This GIS map is a great model for what city authorities can do for their own territories, anywhere in the world.

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I recently moderated a session on Technology and Real-Estate at the Urban Land Institute conference in Paris. The overall context recognised the rise of the Sharing Economy and emerging innovations and disrupters that are influencing the development of urban land and real estate.

The panelists:

• Alice Charles, Urban Development leader at World Economic Forum. Speaking with a view to public policy, Alice discussed characteristics of the “4^th Industrial Revolution”, and gave 10 examples of opportunities related to infrastructure capacities and digitally integrated services (‘Internet of Things’, ‘Smart Cities’ etc.).
• Coen van Oostrom, founder of OVG Real Estate. Speaking from the point of view of an asset manager, Coen discussed emerging tools for sustainability and high-performance buildings. He used the case study of ‘The Edge’ office building in Amsterdam and explored how users benefited from Big Data sources within buildings.
• Thomas Sevcik, founder of Arthesia. Focussing on issues related to urbanity/lifestyle, Thomas reviewed how the smartphone was impacting the physical realm, and how traditional characteristics of urban clusters were being redefined with new measurements of proximity, which are leading to new efficiencies and environmental benefits.

As a group, we affirmed the possibilities of hyper-connectivity. But we also recognised the increasing difficulty of keeping pace with technological change, which creates challenges for governance and implementation. We noted how societies in different stages of evolution may be affected by emerging technology  (e.g. Japan, with a wealthy and aging population, has lots to gain from robotization. Whereas India, with a large, relatively younger low-wage workforce, will be threatened.) We recognised the desirability in some cases of the ‘Unsmart City’, which mixes populations that are increasingly polarized.

Watch a video of the panel here.

Chris Choa is an urban design principal in ArchTam’s London office.

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As chair of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) UK Infrastructure Council, I organized a daylong conference at London City Hall in October on driverless cars and their implications for cities and real estate. Afterward, ULI Connect interviewed about some of the highlights. Following is an excerpt and a link to the full interview.

The biggest promise is that there will be more space for people. Currently in Europe, up to 30 percent of urban land is devoted to roadways and parking. In the U.S., the number goes up to 50 percent. Potentially, 90 percent of that available road space could be turned over to development and public realm.

These areas are in prime, central-city locations. Parking infrastructure like garages and lots could be repurposed as commercial, mixed-use, or residential projects. Expressways and access ramps could become new brownfield developments. And there could be great improvements in open spaces because there will simply be more room for pedestrian- and cycling-oriented infrastructure—covered crosswalks, elimination of curbs, more bike stands, more landscape and playgrounds instead of car parking.

Autonomous vehicles will greatly reduce the number of cars overall—perhaps by a factor of ten. They also will reduce overall travel times for users, as sensors and software allow cars to merge and cross seamlessly, using up to eight times less travel area in the process.

There are major implications for emergency services: response times for fire and ambulance vehicles will be more rapid because they won’t be competing with as many cars on the road. Also, autonomous movement means freeing up capacity on tunnels, bridges, and other public infrastructure that is under stress. That means these major assets might not have to be expanded—or built in the first place.

Perhaps most importantly, though, are implications for public safety. Ninety-three percent of vehicular deaths are caused by human error, with 1.2 million vehicular deaths worldwide every year. The public health and safety benefits of driverless cars can’t be overstated. Insurance premiums will also go down, with liability shifted from the driver to the vehicle manufacturer.

Read the rest of the interview here, and download this InfoBurst from ULI.

Chris Choa is a vice president and urban design leader in ArchTam’s London office.

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In Germany, we had 10 international ULI advisors, drawn from a wide range of professionals in real-estate development, government, academia, and consulting. Over the course of six days, we visited some of the emerging and challenged areas in both Frankfurt and Offenbach. We interviewed over 80 officials and representatives of local businesses and community organizations. And of course we had a lot of late nights comparing notes, deliberating, and preparing our conclusions.

We ultimately presented our findings to the city mayors, stakeholders, and media at a scheduled conference in the Offenbach City Hall.

We noted that Frankfurt’s strength as a global city was not assured, and that it was increasingly challenged in a number of performance rankings, not only due to international competition but also underperformance in workforce diversity. We drew parallels to similar conditions in other metropolitan areas (e.g. Philadelphia and Camden, NJ, Central London and its eastern boroughs, Shanghai and the industrial areas along Suzhou Creek.) We argued that despite their past economic and cultural differences, the identities of both Frankfurt and Offenbach were complementary. In particular, we noted that Offenbach represented a promising opportunity to attract new workforce talent by developing hubs for creative industries and business incubators, and leveraging an extraordinary amount of existing ethnic diversity (over 147 nationalities) and entrepreneurship.

We integrated our proposals into a broad, long-term spatial vision for ‘Mainhohe’ (‘Water Height’) a consolidated, high-density, mixed-use area at the interlocking junction of Frankfurt and Offenbach along the Main River. We also proposed a series of four major catalytic projects. The principal catalytic strategy was the re-purposing of an existing metropolitan rail alignment into S-Bahn service between the Frankfurt International Airport and Offenbach, which not only stitched the two urban areas together more effectively, but also connected the aggregated metropolitan population more effectively to the broader German hinterland via high-speed rail. We also outlined a series of 10 ‘quick wins’, ranging from the production of touristic maps that integrated information of both cities, to the upgrading of public realm in key areas.

The mayors of Frankfurt and Offenbach praised the recommendations, and we received many positive comments from other civic organizations. The ULI will publish the report in Fall 2015.

Chris Choa (chris.choa@archtam.com) is an urban design principal in ArchTam’s London office.

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As a group, we tried to address a number of issues, e.g.:

• What can different places learn from successful clusters both in the UK and abroad?
• What role has national policy played in shaping that success?
• How can cities and LEPs work with universities in their regions to encourage high-growth business and industry specialists?
• How can policy, both local and national, ensure clusters across the country are supported to grow?

The whole concept of business clustering has become prominent in recent years, as cities seek comparative advantages. Essentially, clusters are supposed to do what it sounds like they do: attract a range of mutually beneficial industries. These specialized hubs in turn attract more talent and innovation, which in turn catalyzes the local urban economy and create long-term resilience. In the UK, 30 economically significant clusters contain 8% of the country’s businesses, but generate 20 percent of the economic output (GVA).

There are some globally noteworthy clusters in the UK.  London integrates some of the largest ones (specializing in creative and digital industries, property, tourism, business and financial services).  The “Golden Triangle” between London, Oxford, and Cambridge contains world-beating research centers. “Motorsports Valley” in the midlands builds on a legacy dating back to the industrial revolution from the 19^th century, and legacy metal and automotive production; it now concentrates premier research and engineering firms.

But we’ve also come to realize that clusters can rarely be created by design (all the efforts in the Middle East and China notwithstanding). Most of their origins are largely accidental. As Lord David Sainsbury (another participant on the panel) noted, clusters often evolve to fill market niches that are difficult for governments to anticipate. Ironically, governments’ increasing interest in the formation (and ultimately regulation) of clusters may well diminish what makes the clusters work in the first place.  It seems that in the last decade, every second-tier city has tried to create a nano-technologies cluster, and virtually all have disappeared.

I suspect that trying to pick apart what makes clusters successful may be like trying to gather together smoke. The most successful clusters will continue to form in cities which are themselves hubs – places that have strong identities to begin with, places that are large, dense, mixed use, and well supported by hard infrastructure. Urban size and agglomeration matters more in the globalizing and urbanizing 21^st century, and clusters are just another way of looking at cities.

Chris Choa (christopher.choa@archtam.com) is a Masterplanning + Urban Design principal in ArchTam’s London office.

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The Human Scale is as much a cry from the heart as it is a documentary about urban design; when we plan cities, how can we focus on the individual?  The presence of Jan Gehl is felt everywhere throughout the film. He identifies ways in which modern cities repel human interaction, and he makes his appeals through the experience of specific cities (e.g. New York, Christchurch, Dhaka, Siena – all places where Gehl and his practice have worked). Other protagonists – planners from Gehl’s practice, city officials, random people off the street – take up the argument that the planning of cities must relate to human needs for inclusion and intimacy.

Gehl emphasizes the systematic study of human behavior and a principled application of pedestrian-oriented strategies to the public realm. These neo-traditional approaches are still at odds with contemporary planning. In the past, Gehl fought against car-based design, city planning championed by traffic engineers. Now he is also effectively opposed to the dramatic ideological narratives of architectural designers working at very large scales.

Interestingly, The Human Scale remains relatively quiet about the profound transformations due to the increasing globalization of cities. The film also focuses heavily on the physical sensations of the city but is silent about the advent of new virtual worlds enabled by social networking; this is unexplored territory that could provide other opportunities for the creation of more resilient, human-focused environments.

Cities now produce vast amounts of data, and the capability of collecting, processing, and acting on data activated by the people who live, work, and travel through cities. Will this ubiquitous data suggest ways for cities to become more livable, efficient, sustainable, and democratic? Or are these approaches doomed to killing the serendipity that makes cities creative places, or as Richard Sennet said, potentially making cities ‘stupefying’ instead.

In the end, however, there seems to be a clear and emerging understanding of the reciprocal relationship of cities and people. For me, Jane Jacobs said it best: “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because and only when, they are created by everybody.”

Chris Choa is a principal in ArchTam’s Masterplanning + Urban Design practice.

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