Knowing Vs Doing

In the lead-up to this week's lecture on Emissions, Energy and Measurement, Anne Trumble's article on 'Knowing vs. Doing: Propelling Design with Ecology' seems like an appropriate topic for discussion. In this article, Trumble refers to a book entitled Project Ecologies to argue her point that a very theoretical and complex interpretation of landscape architecture (and not just landscape architecture but all urban design practice) in the literature is creating a barrier for the practical realisation of ecological design. 

Ecology has evolved from being a natural science to a trans-disciplinary model across fields such as social sciences and art. It has further been reduced to a metaphor to describe anything remotely related to the environment and even as a descriptor for dense networks of connectivity. Because of its "descent into simplistic truisms that everything if interlinked and interacting", Trumble argues, "it loses its meaning as a specific idea." The confusion is further amplified by the broad spectrum of fields over which ecology spans from landscape ecology and human ecology to evolutionary ecology and unified theory of ecology. The below image from Project Ecologies taken from Trumble's article illustrates the complex and theoretical nature of literary ideas in landscape ecology. 

I find myself agreeing the Trumble as I find the highly theoretical nature of much of our information is not only restricted to academic literature but in our higher education learning. Across the five years of my Architectural degrees, a huge proportion of our learning was dedicated to design and it wasn't until years into the program that any consideration of the buildability of these designs was given. I undertook subjects designed purely to stimulate creativity and very few which equipped me with the knowledge to design practical solutions in the real-world. 

Similarly, the world has gained incredible insight into the sources and impacts of greenhouse gas emissions and even how to measure it and what levels are appropriate. But what are we doing about it? We are so concerned with telling people what not to do and explaining the ramifications of our actions that we're not improving the wealth of information available to convey what needs to be done. People now understand how their actions are having negative effects but what they don't know is what alternatives are available to them. 

Source: Trumble, A 2016, 'Knowing vs Doing: Propelling Design with Ecology', The Nature of Cities, 14 March 2016, accessed 23 March 2016, <http://www.thenatureofcities.com/2016/03/14/projective-ecologies-review/>.

A Smarter Future for Sydney

Smart devices, smart people, smart ideas. These are the three key components that make up a smart city (Chris Petit 2016).

Figure 1: Own Interpretation of the Smart City model

Three things we see plenty of in Sydney - yet we are a long way from being able to call ourselves a smart city. Why? Because smart cities are all about the relationship between these things by way of COMMUNICATION. Smart city development relies on BIG DATA. This is where we're lagging behind as a city and a nation. It seems to me that government and developers are ready to fully embrace smart technology whether it be the Opal Card or Building Management Systems. But it is in the collection and the sharing and the use of big data that we're lagging behind --> we've forked out the bulk of the smart investment and yet we can't seem to take it that step further and actually use the data which is so easily available to us with these technologies. 

In this course thus far, our interpretation of the Smart City has been a critical one. Challenging the now rather common notion that smart city is the future, we have been persuaded to recognise the many issues that come with adopting the smart city as our model. 

Of course, millions if not billions of dollars invested in new technologies that don't solve issues such as starvation, climate change or safety is not worthwhile. But when we discuss smart ideas to build smart cities, the hope is that they ultimately lead to solving greater issues. Since my local council just forked out $40 million to add an extra lane to a road that currently has no traffic problems, why not instead spend our money (which we must have an excess of if the council is feeding into projects like this) investing in research for smarter modes of transport? Modes of transport which are faster, use less non-renewable fuels, emit less CO2, require less infrastructure, are comfortable, safer, cleaner. 

Since the state government has already committed $1.2 billion (Allie Coyne, 2013) to the Opal Card system, why not invest in the collection of data from these cards to better understand public transport usage and appropriate modes of smart transport. 

Figure 2: Masdar City's driverless, electric-powered Personal Rapid Transit vehicles

Is this the answer? Maybe not. But how can it be any worse than the system we have in Sydney today of vast road networks and fossil-fuel-powered personal motor vehicles? Australian governments spend $18.5 billion maintaining and upgrading existing roads and building new ones every year (National Commission of Audit 2013). The Barangaroo precinct in Sydney is a $6 billion investment in itself (Barangaroo Delivery Authority 2013). And for the UAE, Masdar City was a $22 billion investment (Peter Savodnik 2011) - including public and private transport networks. Yes, it's an expensive investment. Will it pay off? So far, we do not know. There have been setbacks and the completion date for the project has unfortunately been drawn out. But the city promises housing for 40,000 and work for 50,000 more. It is a city designed to be a centre for research and innovation. Compared to that $18.5 billion we're wasting in roads, isn't an integrated smart model worth a second thought? We know it's too late to go back, we - Sydney-siders - are used to a certain comfort in life we're not so easily going to give up. Of course, there is a bigger place for bicycles in our lives than we're currently committing but developing infrastructure for bicycles is hardly enough especally for a city that is ow so sprawled out. And our public transport systems are neither reliable, fully accessible or particularly safe late at night. So, how do we connect our city? Investment in smart infrastructure must have some place in our city's future. But whether the answer is smart technology or not, the solution right now relies on smart thinking - that is integration. The collection of data on a big scale, it's use in connecting smart people and smart ideas with smart technology. Or maybe it will be using smart technology to find smart ideas or inform smart people. However we find the relationship, it must be through integration. 

This is why Sydney is still dumb. Our systems need to work together. And in working together, we become smarter - and cleaner, and safer and healthier. Ultimately, how can a smarter city be a bad thing? If it is, then it is not truly smart. 

Image credit (figure 2): Masdar Institute 2016, Campus & Community: Transport, Masdar, accessed 20 March 2016, <https://www.masdar.ac.ae/campus-community/the-campus/transport>.

References:

• Petit, C. 2016, Smart Cities, lecture at the University of New South Wales, 17 March 2016. 
• Coyne, A. 2013, 'NSW pours $15m more into Opal project', IT News, 9 December 2013, <http://www.itnews.com.au/news/nsw-pours-15m-more-into-opal-project-366941>.
• National Commission of Audit 2013, What do governments do in Australia today?, Australian Government, accessed 20 March 2016, <http://www,ncoa.gov.au/report/appendix-vol-1/3-what-do-govs-do-in-aust-today.html>.
• NSW Gov Barangaroo Delivery Authority 2013, Overview, Barangaroo, accessed 20 March 2016, <http://www.barangaroo.com/discover-barangaroo/overview.aspx>.
• Savodnik, P. 2011, 'Masdar City, Castle in the Sand', Bloomberg, 9 Dec 2011, <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-12-08/masdar-city-castle-in-the-sand>.

Poor Planning, Bad Design

In follow up to last week's lecture on residential growth and sprawl in Sydney, an article by Brandon Donnelly titled 'The Death of Planning Expertise' reflecting similar concerns on the other side of the globe was an interesting find. Funnily enough, this North American-based article attributes the demise of good town planning to the rise of  'community participation' and an associated lost respect for experts in the built environment field. Donnelly asserts that as people have been empowered by an increasing network of information sharing, they begin to devalue the expert knowledge of architects. It's a 'power to the people' type attitude that views the architectural opinion as pretentious. 

The author illustrates his viewpoint with the below image, however no information on the location or what we're actually seeing here is provided. This could be slums from what we can tell from this image.

Source: Donnelly, B 2014, 'The Death of Planning Expertise', Sustainable Cities Collective, 19 June 2014, accessed 16 March 2016, <http://www.sustainablecitiescollective.com/donnellyb/259921/death-planning-expertise?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=>.

Although there are certainly valid opinions being expressed in this article which is supported by my last entry, I can't entirely agree with the idea. Poor urban planning is entirely an outcome of a government's (or multiple governments') failure to deliver appropriate policy. If the argument is in fact of the architectural scale, which may be likely as Donnelly generally points to architects as our experts rather than town planners in this article, there is evidence to both support and refute the claims made here. 

Firstly, it is undeniable that a lack of expert consultation in residential development is certainly a barrier for sustainable outcomes. The proportion of houses designed by architects to project homes being built is now astronomical. Despite the recent increasing sustainability concerns of these big developers, there is a gap in design knowledge still apparent. On a recent visit to Fairwater Community at Blacktown, a new master-planned community development by Frasers, I observed homes equipped with rainwater tanks and air-conditioning systems powered by geothermal technology. Unfortunately, the brick-veneer construction of these homes and the 3mm sheets of glass and their entirely glazed back walls didn't support the energy-efficiency gains of their high-tech thermal control systems. However, this considered, are the so-called professionals actually doing a better job?

Having been working in the building industry for two years now, I have witnessed both positive and negative answers to this question. Whilst my most recent job was under a highly-experienced architect who valued design integrity and delivered architecture which reflected as such, there was often strong back-lash from the client and project manager who thought they knew better. On the other hand, in my first job I witnessed the architect design absolute monstrosities of glass and concrete for wealthy clients, without any consideration for sustainable design with a view only to satisfy the client's demands. 

Both urban planning and good sustainable design are dwindling in our cities right around the world. But is it due to the empowerment of lay people and decreasing respect for our built environment professionals or because of an increasingly money-driven focus in our development system? 

Sustainability & Urban Form - Is Compact Better?

Whilst my previous post touched on the necessity of equipping new residential suburbs with the essential infrastructure and facilities to support the population, there has been strong argument from academics and advocates of sustainable built-form alike to restrict urban expansion altogether and instead opt for denser living.

Many articles have advocated going up instead of out and literary papers have discussed the holistic benefits of a city where people and buildings are more close-knit. They equate higher density living with a stronger community environment which enriches social and physical health and this is much a driver as the obvious benefits of reduced car-travel and greenfield depletion.

For as long as I've read these articles and listened to these lectures, the idea of increased high-density living has bothered me. I see a decreased quality of life in which there is greater competition for employment and reduced access to green space with associated physical and mental health degradation. I see the heat island effect being increased to detrimental levels. I see increased alienation of more rural-based workers and decreased availability of suburban jobs. I see reduced quality of schools with smaller yards and a lack of campus environment which promotes physical activity and improves mental health. Or maybe I'm just the typical suburban-Sydney resident (as described in last week's lecture) who can't stomach the idea of not owning my own block of land, two cars and a dog running around in the backyard.

However, upon reading Alan Oakes' article "Revisiting Neuman's 'Compact City Fallacy'", it appears I'm not alone in my reservation. Oakes addresses an essay written by Michael Neuman in 2005, entitled 'The Compact City Fallacy'. Through his studies, Neuman reveals that the relationship between compactness and sustainability is in fact "negatively correlated, weakly related, or correlated in limited ways." The foundation of Neuman's argument is in the concern that while the world's population continues to grow and a greater and greater proportion of those people are moving to cities, our cities are actually becoming less sustainable, producing more emissions and consuming more resources. 

So why is this and what should we do about it? Ultimately, it comes down to the integration of sustainable-thinking into all phases of the building process right from conception stage. An unsustainable city will always be unsustainable, no matter how compact. For Neuman, it's about modelling ourselves on nature, an integration of living systems. This means, no matter how smart the building facade or how energy efficient the HVAC (and for Neuman, 'technology' seems almost synonymous with 'compactness'), it is the processes rather than the form that should define building. 

Sustainability is a broad term and we have to remember all it encompasses if we're going to get it right. It is not solely economic benefits or even benefits for the greater environment. People must be at the heart of sustainability. Sustainable building should improve the quality of human life. Higher-density living cannot achieve this on its own. We must integrate living systems within the built environment. Most importantly, people must have visual and physical access to ample green space most of the time when living in a city in order to maintain their physiological and mental health. 

Image: Aerial photograph of the very compact city of Hong Kong

Source: Oakes, A. 2013, 'Revisiting Neuman's 'Compact City Fallacy'', gb&d Magazine,  Sep/Oct 2013, <http://gbdmagazine.com/2013/23-notebook/>.

Image Credit: Zhang, M. 2016 'These Drone Photos Show the Density of High-Rises in Hong Kong', PetaPixel, 5 Mar 2016, <http://petapixel.com/2016/03/05/drone-photos-show-density-high-rises-hong-kong/>.

Residential Growth & Density in Sydney

This week, Tone Wheeler gave a presentation on residential growth, density and the composition of the built environment in Sydney over the last 180 years. The idea of the expansion of our city in a manner that is consistent with smaller lots, larger footprints and greater monotony was presented as a quirky series of four case studies on "the Hills" - Surry Hills, Summer Hill, Pennant Hills & Beaumont Hills.

How sustainable is the future of our city when new development in Sydney's west is not only bigger than ever before but heavily reliant on the existing employment opportunities and essential facilities of the CBD and inner suburbs and entirely dependent on private motor vehicles and ever-expanding road systems to access them?

As a local student and also currently in the process of trying to buy my first home, the lecture certainly struck a note of familiarity with me. Last year, my fiance and I drove all the way out to Box Hil - another Hills suburb which represents an additional half 10 km ring further out than Beaumont Hills - to check out a land auction for a new master planned community called 'The Gables'. Being fresh out of uni and on low incomes, we drove well past Sydney's rail network and the excitement of shopping districts and sports stadiums, through acres of farm land, in search of the base for a home we could afford. To our horror, in this wasteland so far away from the bustle of Sydney city that smelt like farm animals, void of any infrastructure (including streets at this stage), they were auctioning off blocks of a maximum 450 m2 for well over $500,000! We couldn't believe it. We didn't even want to live out here! 

Source: Celestino & Ray White 2016, 'Masterplan', The Gables Box Hill, accessed 11 March 2016, <http://www.thegablesboxhill.com.au/uploads/The-Gables-Masterplan-Web.pdf>.

As Tone conveyed, Australians are so transfixed on owning their own land. They'll pay anything for a slice no matter where it is! Admittedly, here we were, nearly 50 km out from the CBD hoping for our own little slice - so that we could get a dog. After turning away from the dollar sign attached to these cow paddocks, we headed back to our homes, an easy 30 minute train ride from the CBD, picked up a map and drew a line, north to south. Now we find ourselves at open homes in Parramatta every second weekend, browsing through the more affordable alternative and the very alternative Tone spoke about in his lecture. These townhouses allow us to keep our little slice of backyard for the dog and yet we are only a short stroll from a bustling business district, complete with restaurants and shopping and a train station with express services to the city. Everything we want in our home is right here.

On top of all this, the more compact nature of this development reduces the extent of services required to support these homes and with shared walls, no two metre side accesses between houses are wasting space, providing a much more sustainable alternative. Why don't we see more of this type of development? Here's hoping that ever-increasing house prices, driving people out of this market, will point more and more people to considering the alternative where an understanding of the environmental impacts of current development practices in Sydney has so far not managed to get through.