Page 102 - IJES Special Issues for AIEC2016
P. 102
2 © Lehmann 2016 | Advocacy for the Compact
environments, bringing significant conve- people of different cultural, ethnic and class
nience and value to citizens. Viable Smart backgrounds has never lost its significance.
Cities are now emerging around the world. Mixed-use buildings with appropriate density
While the term has been around for more create a sense of ‘urbanness’ and vibrancy,
than a decade, it is only in the past few which are essential criteria for any liveable city.
years that emerging technologies, such as Mixed-use buildings make the most of an urban
big data and Internet of Things, offer the area and can better complement what is already
potential for the dynamic, integrated digital there. Much of this urban feel is dictated by the
infrastructure on which our 21st century ‘urban grain’, the fine scale and the mix of all
smart cities will be built. kinds of activities, both private and public.
Each city has a basic underlying (partially Public space is shaped by the width of the
intangible) system that gives it its identity and streets, boulevards and laneways, and the
sense of place. It is impossible to come to an dimension of blocks, building heights and gaps
agreed definition of what constitutes good between buildings, creating a pleasant scale and
urban design for vibrant cities, and what rhythm with a rich layer of surfaces and
constitutes the ability to express, in a single textures, details, materiality and surfaces to be
building, bigger urban ideas. Great cities are not experienced and enjoyed as one walks or cycles
always practical or efficient; they can be through the city. The ultimate goal of urban
romantic, multilayered and poetic places, but design should be rich experiences like these and
they must also, increasingly, be resilient. The opportunities for human relationships, which
essentially visible structure of any city is laid activate the potential for intervention at the
out by its pattern of streets, boulevards, neighbourhood level, enriching our lives as
parklands and building blocks, and its network citizens. We all know such places – where urban
of public spaces, waterfronts, gardens and design has improved quality of life and brought
squares. health, joy, social relationships and equity to
urban living; as others have said before me, a
Walkability and connectivity (horizontally and liveable city is a happy one. This liveability is
vertically) have again become very important also enhanced when buildings are made from
urban design principles: streets are for people durable, locally sourced construction materials
and trees, not just for cars (Gehl 2010). In the and when the re-use of old meaningful
twentieth century, streets, squares and public structures is incorporated into their design.
spaces have lost their prominence and
relevance in shaping the culture and use of Sociologist Richard Sennett has extensively
cities, which have become dominated by the discussed the relationship between private and
automobile. Active mobility is on the rise again: public life, asking what has happened to public
if a city is walkable or can easily be experienced life and public space in cities today (1974). Why
by bicycle − as in Copenhagen, Stockholm, can’t these qualities become the basis of our
Barcelona, Paris or Munich − it greatly adds to urban thinking and future developments once
its liveability and quality. again? Since it is very difficult to change urban
form retrospectively, we need to shape the next
Thousands of tiny details make up the character generation of cities on the basis of such
of a place, overlaid by cultural, spiritual and substance of urban form and a high-quality
social qualities that form its identity. The cities public space network that allows for informal
we admire have evolved over a long period of and random social interaction between pedes-
time and, in line with economic, technical, trians with easy access to a mix of uses; with
cultural and social changes, have human-scaled appropriate density, mixed-use programs and
urban solutions (often designed in an era when walkability, accepting these as drivers of our
one could still cross town on foot and enjoy urban strategies. In this book the authors will
neighbourly relationships) that have been argue that energy efficiency, low carbon
modified gradually as human society pro- emissions, reduced embodied energy and
gressed. The idea of the city as a mixing pot for
Science Target Inc. www.sciencetarget.com
