Brilliant exudes character and confidence. Brilliant works across boundaries in support of a greater vision. Brilliant finds the common ground between private and public to close funding gaps. Brilliant performs technically while achieving broader social and economic benefits. Brilliant overcomes obstacles to get essential projects delivered.

Cities can explore eight steps to capitalize on their strengths, address their weaknesses, and achieve brilliance:

Start at the end

Secure a legacy with strategic planning

What will your city be like in 50 years? Understanding where your city is headed—and how you want to shape its future—should guide how projects and infrastructure are prioritized today. Smart long-term planning anticipates social, economic and environmental changes and builds the strategic direction to secure a positive legacy, for cities and leaders.

Draw a crowd

Energize the center through compact urban design

People come to cities to be near other people. Cities need places where people can come together, places that resonate, inspire and excite; a waterfront promenade or central park, a distinctive district or event center, a signature tower or downtown area. A well-planned project can turn the tide and change a city’s fortune. Cities that work to boost business and celebrate life are positioned to compete and succeed.

Renovations at LAX will help Angelinos and world travelers ‘get there together.’

Get there together

Upgrade transportation to move people and business faster

A city’s economy moves at the pace of its transportation network. Efficient transportation speeds the flow of people, ideas and commerce. Airports and seaports are global gateways. Roads and rail establish regional connections. Bike and walking routes make mobility healthy, inexpensive, and fun. In a great city, access is built into the fabric.

Change the flow

Get more from innovative energy and water infrastructure

We depend upon civil infrastructure to meet our daily needs, but the investments we make for these essential functions can yield wider value when we take new approaches. Stormwater managed naturally can improve the urban landscape, increase property values and protect our waterways. Recycled wastewater can green our parks and neighborhoods. Solid waste treated organically can reduce landfill and produce energy for homes.

The restoration of Echo Park Lake is helping LA ‘change the flow.’

Make green pay

Take environmental action that provides an economic boost Investments in the environment can yield financial and social dividends. As cities take measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change, remediate contamination, and protect and restore natural environments, they are finding a wealth of benefits, from energy savings and cleaner air to rising real estate values and healthier people. It creates a better climate for business and community.

Ignore borders

Collaborate across agencies and boundaries for bigger results

Challenges do not follow the boundaries of departments and municipalities. Neither should solutions. To compete at a global level, cities need to advance in step with their supporting regions. This means collaborating across disciplines and jurisdictions, and cooperating and planning at the regional level, to see the bigger picture, connect better ideas and find smarter solutions.

Act now

Identify and address physical and cyber vulnerability

Buildings and bridges are joining the internet of things. This increases the need for cyber security, along with security against physical attacks, violent weather, earthquakes, and decay over time. Proactive solutions begin with a comprehensive vulnerability assessment. Anticipating the most likely points of attack or failure lets a city know where to invest to prevent or mitigate disaster before it strikes.

A public-private partnership for the Gov. George Deukmejian Courthouse helped Long Beach ‘finish ahead.’

Finish ahead

Get projects funded, built and operating sooner

Public budgets are stretched. Roads, bridges, water systems, hospitals, schools and courthouses need maintenance or new structures, but there are new ways around old obstacles. Partnering the public and private sectors and linking the phases of a project’s life cycle can speed construction, reduce cost, increase performance and manage risk. It’s time to take advantage of the alternatives.

Stephen Engblom (Stephen.engblom@archtam.com) is an urban planner and designer, and global director of ArchTam Cities.

The post Eight steps to a brilliant city appeared first on Blog.

But perhaps more important, greenery helps relieve anxiety disorders (stress) and depression, common afflictions associated with our harried urban lives. As one study puts it, “Support for this possibility comes from epidemiological studies which find that individuals living in the greenest urban areas tend to have better mental health than those in the least green areas.”¹

The social cost of anxiety and depression is significant. One report states that “Workplace stress costs U.S. employers an estimated $200 billion per year in absenteeism, lower productivity, staff turnover, workers’ compensation, medical insurance and other stress-related expenses”.² And a study by the American Psychological Association indicates that ¾ of the nation’s medical bill is associated with chronic illnesses, a malady that is driven by stress.³

From the perspective of pubic health there is every reason to invest in a greener urban landscape—especially when such greenery can also perform vital infrastructural functions related to, say, stormwater management and energy conservation.

But there is more to the health benefits of greenery than the relief of anxiety and depression. Little discussed in academia or professional associations, and hardly ever proposed in practice, is the spiritual dimension of the landscape. And yet access to natural areas is proven to elicit transcendent reactions that can postively affect our well-being. It has been well documented, for example, that hospital patients who can see greenery from their windows recover more quickly than those who don’t.⁴  There is latent healing potential in the design of any landscape, a matter that is confirmed by the biophylic effects of healing gardens.

As suggested by a weed growing out of a sewer inlet (above), nature’s quest for life and regeneration is as opportunistic as it is boundless. Nature is simply life-affirming—relentlessly so. How can the human spirit not be lifted by such power when our health is on the line? But why wait until a health crisis arises? The places in which we live and work should constitute fitness-inducing, stress-mitigating and life-affirming environments to start with. Like a green view from a nation-sized window, our collective wellbeing depends on it.

Cities, like pristine natural areas, are structured entities. At the scale of the region there are networks of open space that satisfy large-scale needs, such as flood protection, transportation and resource-based recreation. At the community scale there are streets, plazas and parks that provide for active mobility, organized play and social exchange. And at the dwelling scale, such as Friedensrech Hundertwasser’s apartment house in Viena (top), there are dense developments that, like a garden, afford personal and intimate access to foliage, flowers and birdsong (that it is also art will be the subject of a different blog!).

Within such a tiered schema urban greenery must be integrated systematically, not as afterthought but as forethought toward the creation of a healthy environment. To this pursuit the role of Landscape Architecture is not peripheral but central: It is the agency by which cities can become health havens—for the body, for the mind and for the spirit, from the scale of the region to that of discrete buildings and places. Why not regard cities as landscape, communities as park, and buildings as garden? ⁵

Ignacio F. Bunster-Ossa leads ArchTam’s landscape architecture practice in the Americas.

NOTES:

1. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es403688w
2. http://www.fdu.edu/newspubs/magazine/99su/stress.html
3. http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/03/stress.aspx
4. http://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/November-2011/Frontiers-of-Design-Science-Biophilia/
5. For a discussion on these three scales of design see “Reconsidering Ian MHarg: the Future of Urban Ecology, Chapter 9; Ignacio F. Bunster-Ossa, Planners Press, 2014.

The post A greener city is a healthier city appeared first on Blog.

In November, I was at an Royal Town Planning Institute conference in London when someone walked onto the stage and opened with the classic line, ‘I have an idea’. I sat up; he went on: “I want to turn London into a National Park”. He said some other things that day, about children, gardens, awareness and biodiversity, but it didn’t really matter. I was hooked on an intuitive level within two minutes. I committed immediately and have spent the eight months since trying to get my brain to catch up with my heart and to try to enlist others with the right skills to support the campaign.

ArchTam has been doing pro-bono work for the campaign to help quantify the economic value of some identified green spaces, using an ecosystem services approach. This is intended to support the business case for the London National Park. Whilst we’ve been doing this work, the broader campaign, led by Daniel Raven-Ellison (the man with the idea), has been gathering pace.

A steering group has been established made up of individuals from University College London, London Wildlife Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, John Muir Trust, Queen Mary University and ArchTam. The idea has been reported in most of the UK national and London newspapers, and Daniel has appeared on the television and radio. High-profile individuals such as Stephen Fry, Bear Grylls, Bill Oddie, Terry Farrell and Zac Goldsmith (perhaps London’s next mayor?) have all come out in support of the idea. And last week a motion was passed unanimously by the London Assembly to call on the existing Mayor to get behind the campaign.

What might have seemed bonkers to some people at the start, is now really starting to snowball.

Last week, I joined Daniel and Matt (editor at large for the Londonist) in an attempt to visit, in just one day, a piece of open space in each of London’s 33 Boroughs. Together we got to 19 before calling it off due to bad light (See #33OpenSpaces on Twitter). By the time we got home another Twitter user (@alanoutten) had turned our photos from the day into a photo collage covering half of London and already posed the question – so when are you guys going to finish the jigsaw? Add two days, and a new challenge had begun on Twitter to photograph green space in each of London’s 629 Wards (#629Wards). One hundred of 629 were completed in the first weekend and a new map popped up to help track progress (@spacedapenguin).

Map by ArchTam’s Anna David

The priority for the campaign now is to raise money to support production and publicity for the London National Park business case and charter – due for release in July. This will set out the benefits that can be delivered by an umbrella organisation for London’s green space. It will also outline what the managing entity will look like, its responsibilities, collaborations, costs and value add.

I’m confident there are a hundred twists and turns left for this idea yet. There will be people who will help lift it up and others who will be keen to bash it down. But to me, it’s already been a huge success. Now when I walk down the street in London, I’m not craving the countryside – I’m seeing it, hearing it and photographing it. Forty-seven percent of London is green space, yet I had become disconnected from it.

Why is it a bonkers idea to create a vehicle that can encourage Londoners to engage with the green spaces that surround them? Now the summer is coming, the birds are singing, the strawberries in the allotment are about to bear fruit, and it’s hard not to feel positive about this great city.

Feel free to add your photos, to support the crowd funder or to spark the idea in your city.

Ben Smith (ben.smith@archtam.com) is director of sustainable development in ArchTam’s London office.

Notes:

1. The following ArchTam staff have given their own time (half an hour or more) to support this campaign: Petrina Rowcroft, Michael Henderson, Lili Peachy, Jennifer Black, Ian Brenkley, Doug McNabb, Mark Fessey, Ryan Burrows, Anna David, Alex White and Christian Bevington. The work has been supported by a number of other senior leaders in our business. Thanks go to Andrew Jones, John Lewis, Tom Venables and Steve Smith.
2. ArchTam opted to support this campaign principally because it aligns so neatly with one of the main recommendations from our own manifesto for the future of London. #London2065.

The post Could a global capital become a national park? appeared first on Blog.

Mayor Johnson spoke about his vision during a recent visit to ArchTam’s Sacramento office. The firm is invovled with many of the projects currently reshaping the city. Johnson said he wants residents, visitors, business, and government to view the city as a ‘can do’ town. He wants to make Sacramento a more business-friendly city through business infrastructure investment, as well as streamlining business and government processes. He spoke about the need for Sacramento to move towards a position in which public safety, culture, multi-modal transit, and technology are the pillars of a new vitality for the city. Lastly the mayor expressed his desire to enhance the Sacramento riverfront to include mixed residential, recreational, retail, and commercial uses.

The development of the Entertainment and Sports Complex (ESC), which broke ground last week, is the cornerstone for reshaping the urban core. The city convinced the NBA to deny an imminent deal to move the Sacramento Kings to Seattle and embrace plans for a new venue that would convert a dilapidated shopping mall into a city icon and year-round zone of activity. ArchTam is designing the arena with a focus not only on setting the next benchmark within the NBA (as it did for the Indiana Pacers’ Bankers Life Fieldhouse and the Brooklyn Nets’ Barclays Center), but also on creating a building, public spaces, and 1.5 million square feet of mixed-use development that inject life into their surroundings. The building will invite the city to view the game from the outside and offer views of the city from the inside. It will open what an SI.com article calls “the world’s largest patio doors” to welcome visitors, create an indoor-outdoor environment, and allow unique summer Delta breezes to cool it, reducing energy demands. For the fans it will offer the next level of technological interactivity. The public spaces have been designed as a productive landscape, with pistachio and walnut trees producing nuts, green walls producing herbs, rain gardens managing stormwater, and other trees providing shade.

Two blocks from the ESC, the Sacramento Commons project would add over 1,300 new housing units, a hotel, and new retail on four city blocks. The Sacramento Housing & Redevelopment Agency also has plans to redevelop an old public housing project in the River District into a new mixed-income neighborhood. ArchTam has been integrally involved in both of these projects.

Now the nearby Sacramento Railyards is joining the downtown transformation under the leadership of LDK Ventures. On their behalf, ArchTam is creating a new masterplan for most of this 240-acre redevelopment area, one of the largest urban regeneration projects in the U.S. today. Sports and employment center facilities are proposed to anchor the project, including a possible Major League Soccer stadium that could draw a resident team. With the adjacent Amtrak station and planned California High-Speed Rail (HSR) terminus, the Railyards could become an iconic example of transportation-oriented development nationally and globally.

The Sacramento Railyards depot is the seventh busiest train station in the country and will only get busier with planned transportation developments. A 13-mile rail extension, the “Green Line,” will link downtown with South and North Natomas and the Sacramento International Airport, reducing congestion and emissions along I-5. ArchTam is working with the Sacramento Regional Transit District to deliver it. The proposed HSR system would connect Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Jose via two lines that converge in Fresno, and then travel south through Bakersfield to Los Angeles and San Diego. With California’s Central Valley in greatest need of economic development, the Merced to Fresno section will be the first segment delivered in a project that could spur a high-speed rail revolution across the United States. ArchTam has had primary responsibility for the planning and environmental analysis of the HSR Central Valley corridor since its initial phases in the late 1990s. The Merced to Fresno section is the only segment to date that has received its environmental clearances and permits.

Sacramento International Airport has already completed a new 19-gate, $288-million concourse and $408-million, 400,000-square-foot terminal building. ArchTam led one of the two construction management teams that delivered the project four months ahead of schedule and $60 million under budget.

Sacramento sits within the 53,000-acre Natomas Basin floodplain, which contains 83,000 residents and $8.2 billion in damageable property, protected by 40 miles of levees. Since 2006, ArchTam has been working with the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the Natomas Levee Improvement Program, which will protect the metropolitan area for the next 200 years. This work has included multiple, phased and overlapping environmental impact statements, reports, regulatory permitting, as well as ecological restoration, cultural resources conservation, public outreach and construction monitoring. Current work includes ongoing environmental monitoring in the Natomas Basin and engineering design and EIR preparation for additional flood risk reduction as part of the North Sacramento Streams, Sacramento River East Levee, Lower American River, and Related Flood Improvements Project.

Mayor Johnson’s city certainly looks like a can-do town, and it will be exciting to see how far Sacramento has come just a few years from now.

Jake Herson (jacob.herson@archtam.com) is managing editor for ArchTam’s Connected Cities blog.

The post Sacramento’s transformation is underway appeared first on Blog.

There is clear evidence that developers, planners, engineers and designers have contributed to the global health and obesity crisis since the inception of the mass-produced affordable automobile. Seemingly inexplicable decisions were made during the 1950s in cities such as Sydney, to tear up extensive light rail systems to enhance the design of roads for speed and efficiency of automobile movement.

A recent Urban Land Institute Publication, “10 Principles for Building Healthy Places,” states that “one of the strongest health/land use correlations is between obesity and the automobile: one California study showed each additional hour spent in a car per day is associated with a 6 percent increase in body weight, whereas every kilometer (0.6 miles) walked each day is associated with a 5 percent decrease according to a study in British Columbia.”

A massive urban retrofitting process is currently underway worldwide to correct 60 years of neglect toward providing means for pedestrian and bicycle movement. Excellent examples of where this is occurring include ArchTam’s work at the World Trade Center in New York, public realm planning in Doha, Qatar, the River of Life urban regeneration in Kuala Lumpur, a connected pedestrian network at Ayala Triangle in Manila, and the Los Angeles “Bridge to Breakwater” public realm. These projects alone will provide more than 200 km of new paths and trails.

Port of Los Angeles. Copyright ArchTam photo by David Lloyd.

Common themes in all of these large-scale place-making projects include the generous provision of street furniture and trees, safe pedestrian crossings, and easily accessible transit, parks, playgrounds, bike paths and jogging trails.  While many other factors also impact global health, well-connected, safe pedestrian and bicycle movement systems are a starting point that planners and landscape architects can directly influence. It is time to make sure that human-powered movement is approached with the same care and priority that has been traditionally afforded to vehicular movement systems.

Jacinta McCann (jacinta.mccann@archtam.com) leads ArchTam’s global Design, Planning + Economics practice.

The post Putting people first: “Building Healthy Places” appeared first on Blog.

Ever gone to a party where you know no one and found yourself standing close to a wall, leaning against a doorway or hanging out around the kitchen counter? This is what environmental psychologists call ‘the edge effect’ and is a behaviour that is deeply rooted in our psyche for good reason. Way back in our evolution, when saber-toothed tigers still prowled the earth, standing out in the open for too long could have meant falling prey to a whole series of ferocious beasts. Staying close to the edge of a forest or a pile of rocks gave refuge during time of attack and a sense of security when exploring new territories.  This instinctive behaviour has stayed with us. Today an understanding of the edge effect can be harnessed for other uses, even bringing street life to our city centres and aiding the success of commercial developments.

Milan’s Piazza Gae Aulenti is a good case in point. Opening at the end of 2012 to rave reviews from Italian national newspapers, which called it “the piazza of the future,” this on-structure plaza bridges two pieces of urban fabric that were separated by train tracks and are now encircled by a mixed-use commercial development. One of the key challenges was how to create a welcoming human scale for a large space surrounded by high-rise buildings while respecting the Italian tradition for open piazzas with few vertical elements. This was compounded by a need to naturally ventilate the parking levels below, which resulted in the need for huge openings in the plaza surface.

Just enough verticality to establish the human-scaled edge while still respecting a tradition for flat open space. Photo by Cannon Ivers.

The solution has been to flood the plaza with a thin skin of water, surrounded by continuous seating. Pathways following key desire lines cut across the water’s surface, carefully positioned far enough from the ventilation holes so the parking cannot be seen. The buildings’ reflections enliven the space by day and night, and areas of the water skin can be drained to accommodate large events. Even when little activity is taking place people seem quite comfortable hanging out by themselves, helping to create a welcoming atmosphere which the surrounding businesses then benefit from – a phenomenon seen in other successful developments such as Westfield London.

The edge effect in action. Photo by Cannon Ivers.

This has been achieved by paying close attention to the edge effect. The seating that wraps around the central water feature also runs parallel to a series of cafes and retail stores, which enclose the ground level of this semi-circular space, leaving room for pedestrian flow and outdoor dining. The edge that the seating creates has been intentionally designed to form a variety of opportunities for people to sit and linger, activating the piazza with life and encouraging people to spend more time in the area to shop or frequent the outdoor dining.

Offering people a chance to relax, free from their vestigial fear of saber-tooth tigers. Photo by Cannon Ivers.

On the one hand the seating can be seen as an elegant piece of sculpture, its sensual curves mirroring those of the catwalk models who display the latest creations from Milan’s famous fashion houses. At the same time it is also a pragmatically generated element, the form being an extrusion of the series of seating elements, from a seat with a back to a double bench facing the water – all carefully orchestrated to harness the powers of the edge effect.

Enjoying the water skin’s cooling effect. Photo by Cannon Ivers.

A place to be productive in public. Photo by ArchTam.

James Haig Streeter (james.haigstreeter@archtam.com) is a principal in ArchTam’s global Landscape Architecture practice and led the design of the Piazza Gae Aulenti.

The post Harnessing the edge effect appeared first on Blog.

Our multi-disciplinary team partnered with the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore to provide a sustainable development framework and plan for Marina Bay and the adjacent Greater Southern Waterfront.

Features of the  long-term conceptual study include the addition of unique waterfront districts, incorporating a network of walkable public space, a new reservoir for rainwater harvesting, a continuous 30-kilometer waterfront pathway for walking and cycling, and an ecological corridor for people and wildlife.

We used our propriety Sustainable Systems Integration Model (SSIM) model to assemble and assess various development scenarios, so as to find the most optimal scheme for the project in terms of sustainability and cost.

Watch this video to learn more about this project to contribute to Singapore’s growth  as a major financial hub for Asia.

Scott Dunn (scott.dunn@archtam.com) leads ArchTam’s operations in Malaysia.

The post Singapore’s centrepiece for urban transformation appeared first on Blog.

The world’s cities are already home to the majority of the global population, with this forecast to grow by a further 3 billion people by 2050. The infrastructure needed to support this growth is often underfunded or falls short of what it could deliver to urban communities.

Cities have long planned and developed strategies to provide infrastructure investment, but as successive governments have discovered, there is never enough room in public budgets for all necessary projects.

Del Mar Station, Pasadena.

Many treasury departments have introduced processes to better manage public spending and project budgets as they are being conceived, developed and readied for construction. While more effective use of taxpayers’ money is commendable, the focus on budgets has often made it harder for governments to justify infrastructure investment which will enhance local livability, particularly where a project has little or no immediate or obvious economic return.

In Melbourne, with a population of over 4 million, a heritage of building resilient infrastructure over the decades has delivered world-class livability. Important thoroughfares, drainage works and railway projects of the past have delivered iconic boulevards, significant parks and city landmarks which have not only fulfilled their functional brief but also contributed to Melbourne’s amenity and reputation. However, times have changed and the scrutiny to which projects are subjected has tended to hobble the investigation, let alone the execution, of new roads, rails or drains that could also improve amenity over time.

When the focus of a project is narrow and does not consider broader long-term amenity considerations, the outcomes can be suboptimal and, in the long run, expensive.

Octavia Boulevard, San Francisco.

There are many global examples of infrastructure being built only to be completely torn down at great expense when broader negative health, economic and social impacts have done their damage.  This could be avoided with more inclusive and integrated thinking.

The solution is for project proponents to reconfigure the way in which they conceive and design projects. Specifically, designers need to consider community amenity and aesthetics as core parts of a project’s design and functionality. This is likely to require a precinct approach to project planning, rather than considering infrastructure in isolation. In Melbourne the recent spate of railway level crossing removals carried out by the Victorian Government have considered amenity as a central part of their design, resulting in rail lines being sunk with development opportunity created above, rather than previous approaches such as road overpasses, which have undermined community connectedness.

There is great promise in these times of austerity for those of us who dream of greener and more enjoyable cities in which to live and work. Rather than looking at livability as an expensive ‘add-on’ it should be seen as potentially adding value to infrastructure project and avoiding costs in the future.

Zac Cvitkovic is a principal urban designer in ArchTam’s Melbourne office.

The post Livable infrastructure appeared first on Blog.

It has been about a year now since a new public space called Firm Foundation opened in Banjarmasin – a delta city on the Indonesian island of Kalimantan. Like all of the housing nearby, Firm Foundation is built on stilts over river water. It was a welcome addition to the neighborhood, which, like many other dense riverfront areas of the city, lacks any public space.

Just this past month, our team had a chance to check in on the new space as well as the residents who collaborated on its design. The 100-square-meter space provides a gateway to the area from the water and is intended to bring neighborhood activities to the river. The design takes cues from Indonesian architecture – which uses subtle shifts in floor levels to differentiate space – as well as the small platforms and landings residents construct themselves to access river water. Given the lack of public realm in the area, Firm Foundation is full of children at nearly all hours when school is not in session.

Firm Foundation place-making concept.

Firm Foundation site plan.

We were excited to see that the new public space has also catalyzed investment in the area. Shortly after Firm Foundation opened, the family next door decided to convert half of their house into what is now a thriving food stall. The income from the new enterprise supports the family of five. The idea for the project began with ArchTam’s Urban SOS student design competition. The winning entry in 2011 came from a group of students volunteering with Yayasan Kota Kita (“Our City Foundation”), an Indonesia-based urban development organization. After the team won the competition, ArchTam offered to help sponsor Yayasan Kota Kita to implement their concept.

Firm Foundation waterfront public space. Photo by Bima Pramata.

Now honored with the SEED Excellence in Public Interest Design Award and a Social Impact Design Special Recognition from AIA San Francisco, the project has also resulted in a Social Design Field Guide, which tells the story of how residents participated in the creation of the new space.

The project has become a model for local government in Banjarmasin, showing that even modest investments in the public realm, constructed with the methods and materials residents utilize to build their own neighborhoods, can help to address pervasive and entrenched issues related to livelihoods and water.

On this return visit, the team’s agenda had a new focus. During our past work with the community, we learned that waste management is a top issue for residents. In this area with no road access for trucks, waste typically goes into the river or is burned. While throwing waste in the river is the easiest and most convenient response to the situation, it is destructive for both residents and the environment. It will be a major undertaking to change this behavior and introduce new services, and so the team sought to lay the groundwork by shifting perceptions about waste and the community.

In a series of activities with residents, the team put forward a basic message, which should sound familiar to any designer with an interest in sustainability: “Waste is an asset.” The principle aim was to connect residents to a local “recycling bank.” Through this program, residents earn income in an account in exchange for collecting materials such as plastic bags and cups, cardboard, and bottles. The team organized a training for a group of women from the neighborhood, who then signed up for the bank and made their first deposits.

Recycling bank educational activity. Photo by Daniel Feldman.

Recycling bank deposits book. Photo by Daniel Feldman.

In a separate activity, we worked alongside the area’s children to build two new football goals from salvaged wood, bamboo, and tin as well as plastic bags. While the group found all of the materials lying on the ground and in the water, a local blacksmith lent his shop and tools for the task. Again, the objective was to start to change how residents perceive the waste around them, which has become the status quo of their surroundings.

Children working on football goals constructed of recycled materials. Photos by Daniel Feldman.

Our partners in the local government have an interest in developing a comprehensive strategy for improving this riverfront neighborhood. The challenge of doing so concerns how to introduce services and infrastructure to make living over the water both healthy and dignified. With the support of ArchTam and Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center, our team has been working to show how residents might themselves lead this important effort to transform urban systems.

Michael Haggerty is an urban planner and currently a student in the Master in Architecture program at Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

The post Firm Foundation appeared first on Blog.

With a surprisingly comedic style, the Dane told us that he graduated from architecture school in 1960, “the worst time for architecture.” This was the era in which the modernists “cancelled city life.” Corbusier declared that buildings must be standalone objects surrounded by green lawns. One can sympathize with the focus on green open space, but this eliminated the density that true urbanism requires, resulting in aesthetically clean but bleak, post-apocalyptic landscapes. Robert Moses meanwhile turned New York into an interstate highway for suburban commuters. The film chronicles how this paradigm is being lifted with the pedestrianization of downtown Manhattan under the Bloomberg administration.

The story is largely that of how the car shaped the city, which is to say ruined it for people. While the global environment and western city life suffered tragically from this misstep, the problem now is that megacities of the developing world aspire to the same lifestyle. The wrongness of western car-driving people telling the 1,000 Bangladeshis who move to Dhaka every day that they cannot have a car should not be lost on anyone. But for the planners of such cities, it is less about being told what not to do and more about making a decision for the sake of their own quality of life. They have seen the success of the west, and now they have also seen its folly.

Recognizing that we “measure what we care about,” Gehl spent much of his career compiling data on the urban element that had not been measured—people, what they do and what they want. He started in Italy, where he felt people had a natural love of shared public space. Whether this could be achieved in the culturally cooler European north, he wasn’t sure. But he helped transform Copenhagen into what claims and is widely believed to be the most livable city in the world. The key to this was kicking out cars. More residents bike to work than drive today. And other cities are following suit, seeking the advice of Gehl’s “urban habitat consultants.” Some, like Moscow, benefit from the efficiency of autocracy. Others, like Christchurch, seized on the bittersweet opportunity that follows devastating natural disaster.

The panel discussion moved to the question of London, which Gehl criticized for what he believes the city’s slowness in adopting his recommendations, given a decade ago. This opinion was balanced by a London city transport planner, who highlighted incremental successes. A likeminded private developer gave a good answer to the question of why developers should buy into these types of schemes. They not only make sense for quality of life, but they make economic sense. As I see it, where there are no people, there is no money. And there are no people where there are cars.

We all had a good laugh at Norman Foster’s expense. His vision for an elevated cycle way atop London’s rail network certainly impressed me when I first saw it. But amid Gehl’s comedic flow, it flopped. He pointed out that the objective with cycling is not to get from point A to point B as efficiently as possible. It is to participate in the life of the city, “look at the girls, go into the shops,” things one cannot do from atop a rail line. Gehl and other panelists also pointed out that space for bicycles must be taken from cars—not pedestrians.

I often think there is a problem with the profession of architecture itself, because it deals with singularities rather than systems. Gehl has transcended this, and he is not the only one, but he might be the most famous living one. Working from a background in urban design or landscape architecture is no guarantee of getting it right, but I tend to think it helps. The developer on the panel said it is harder to create a public realm than a building. What I understood from that comment is that unlike a building, a public realm has more diverse users and dynamic uses. Beyond the complexities of working with a client and city authorities, it requires working with the people. How well we can do that seems to hold the key to the future. For as the film noted, the people, across generations and geographies, tend to want the same things, which emerge clearly when anyone asks them. They want livable, sustainable cities.

Jake Herson (jacob.herson@archtam.com) is managing editor of the Connected Cities blog.

The post An evening with Jan Gehl appeared first on Blog.