“We try to focus on the key areas of sustainability, like carbon, water, energy and waste. The important thing is to look at those things early because it’s then that a lot of them can be designed out. You can bring population and employment into balance, minimising the trips people make and encouraging as many people as possible to use public transport. Depending on the location, we also want to react to climate conditions for heating and cooling,” he adds. Harrison says China is likely to be a good learning ground for masterplanners in the future: “I’m sure a lot of the complex urban questions that we’re now facing around the world will have some answers in China, just simply because of the numbers of people involved, the scale of the development and the relatively free hand.” With sustainability in mind, it is likely that cities will become increasingly dense. “Future cities are probably going to have public transport taking a more dominant role, perhaps even personal rapid systems, if it’s feasible. But to do that you are going to need high densities of people, rather than people spread out across a city. You need to have high concentrations around stations to make them economically viable,” says Harrison. “I think there will be more transport-orientated developments which will be very dense, but there will also be clustering as well,” suggests Tribe. “Rather than megatropolises like the Chinese are developing, I think there will also be compact densities that are highly linked. That means either physically with super-fast trains or IT with fast broadband.” The move to denser urban environments is already evident
in Europe and North America, particularly where sprawl is a concern. After the Second World War, the tendency was to build outwards, creating new suburbs and commuter towns. In recent years, however, that sort of construction has become increasingly unacceptable, according to Harrison. “Politically, it’s quite difficult to plan any kind of new
growth in the UK at the moment. This is due in part to the recession of course, but also because the countryside and heritage is very much valued. So, it’s all about infilling particular city sites, and a sustainability agenda of having denser cities that use land more effectively. “And then there’s the realisation what wonderful
architectural assets are to be found in the older hearts of cities, often in buildings that had a previous use,” says Michael Hebbert, Professor of Town Planning in the School of Environment & Development at the University of Manchester. “Urban renaissance is partly building renaissance – rediscovering old buildings.”
The Guangzhou East Tower in China uses the cultural association with bamboo to define its form. It consists of a five-star hotel above serviced apartments and offices.
17 As well as investing heavily in cities like Liverpool,
Bristol, Leeds and Cardiff, the previous UK government announced plans for up to 10 eco-towns around England. It was hoped that these settlements would address the pressing need for affordable housing while being sustainable and carbon neutral. Plans included smart meters for residents to track their energy usage, plug-in points for electric cars and large spaces for parks and playgrounds. However critics doubted the eco-towns’ ability to attract the necessary infrastructure, such as transport and schools, and to meet the ambitious environmental standards. The plans have since been downgraded considerably to four eco-towns. These are now slated for 2016 and still need to make it through the planning approval process. “The UK has a fairly robust policy to sustainability, but because we are building in much smaller volumes, it is more difficult to affect some of the fundamentals of land-use planning,” says Paul Fraser, a senior urban designer at Atkins.
By comparison, Fraser was part of the team working on Mussafah in Abu Dhabi, which is of a sufficient size to support a full range of public services. “Ideally, you have a hierarchy of public services. Within
a typical five-minute walk, you would expect to find a local shop, post box and so on. A bus network would allow you to get to a health clinic and a bigger set of shops. And then regional facilities like hospitals would be accessible with at least one mode of transport. “It is essential that you create an effective network that allows you to access as many of these things as possible without using your car,” Fraser explains. “There is tremendous latent demand for urban buzz,” says Hebbert. “You can see it in the take-up rates of residential opportunities close to city centres. It is about a rediscovery of everything that an urban, as opposed to a suburban, lifestyle can offer. So the value of proximity is going to increase and, with that, encouragement for a high- quality, high-density urban residential offer. I believe that’s going to be the trend of the coming century.”
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