FUTURE CITIES FEATURE


THE SHEER VARIETY OF URBAN PROJECTS REFLECTS THE GREAT COMPLEXITY OF CITIES THEMSELVES…


So cities present great challenges, but also great opportunities. “The need to keep cities functioning while global resources decline and their populations increase is daunting,” says Dr Paul Toyne, Group Head of Sustainability at WSP. “But while cities are part of the problem, they are also very much part of the solution. Having so many people together in one place gives us the opportunity to manage the provision of resources such as water, energy and food and reduce their waste.”


WSP is doing exactly this in many cities around the globe, from Stockholm to Johannesburg, San Francisco to Sydney, working with a great range of public and private sector partners. The sheer variety of urban projects reflects the great complexity of cities themselves and the various elements that combine to keep them thriving. These include schemes such as planning and upgrading power, communications, transport and waste networks, but also developing completely new ways of thinking about the spaces we inhabit and the resources we consume.


This is something that Professor Mark Deakin of Edinburgh’s Napier University has been thinking about for nearly 20 years. He is an expert in smart and sustainable cities, and recently collaborated with WSP on “Smart City” projects using technology to deliver services in new ways, funded by the European Investment Bank and the EU’s JESSICA fund for sustainable investment in cities. “Cities present very important questions for us to deal with,” he says. “They are magnets that draw people in terms of opportunities, and they are the main centres of trade, communications, culture, economic development, quality of life – all the things that make up our day-to- day experience, and our judgment of what is good and bad about the world.”


Deakin has noticed a great upswell of interest in cities in recent years, from organisations in almost every field, and a rapidly growing body of research, bright ideas and new technologies.“Europe has always used cities as laboratories for testing, trialling and evaluating the potential for any interventions which it has tried to develop over the last 20 years. Now that’s accelerating at a rapid pace.”


Though cities are still the economic powerhouses of the world, he believes that ideas about their success have gone way beyond productivity alone. “The successful cities of the future will be those that can achieve that delicate balance between society’s expectations and the reality of what the environment can sustain, while maintaining their economic competitiveness. For engineers, architects and planners, it is a fantastic opportunity to completely reconfigure older cities so that they can meet future demands placed on them.”


I5 THINGS A’VE LEARNED


BOUT CITIES


Dr Paul Toyne, WSP’s Group Head of Sustainability, has spent a great deal of time talking to colleagues around the world about many different urban projects. Here’s what he has learned.


1


CITIES HAVE IDENTITIES Cities and places within cities have their own unique look and feel, and it’s important that we recognise this when we’re considering interventions to make them more sustainable. You can create the most resource-efficient city in the world, but without an image and identity that makes people to want to live, work, socialise and invest there, it will struggle to be competitive.


2 CITIES REQUIRE SOLUTIONS


AT MANY DIFFERENT SCALES Interventions don’t have to be at city level. They might take many different forms – a global vision, a regional strategy, a concept for a city, backed up by a masterplan, and designs for districts, precincts and single buildings. The trick is ensuring that all of these aspects work together and that the governance is there to support that.


3 4


IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT ARCHITECTURE Whether you’re going to be transforming a city to make it more sustainable or designing a zero-carbon city from scratch, the infrastructure is crucial. It can only happen if the engineering services are integrated into the city, so they support its operations at the most fundamental level.


CITIES NEED LEADERS City administrators and business leaders need to understand why it’s in their interest to make a city sustainable, attractive and competitive. Most successful cities have been led to their position by a mayor or business leader with a vision. Our role is to help them understand the challenge, identify what they need and help to deliver it.


5


WE NEED A TEAM EFFORT Cities are the sum of complex networks, and no one organisation can deliver everything on its own. WSP’s strength is that we can provide many of the services that are required, but we can also pull together a complete offering from our range of partners around the world.


SOLUTIONS 13

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