How to “green” large-scale urban design projects Training session

UrbEn Group – training session at World Urban Forum V, Rio, March 23 2010

How to “green” large-scale urban design projects

Training session

World Urban Forum VRio de Janeiro, Tuesday March 23rd 2010

2/39UrbEn Group – training session at World Urban Forum V, Rio, March 23 2010

Introduction to UrbEn group

• Who we are?– Team of 8 urban planning professionals– From various countries– Representing several specialization areas

• Integrated water resources management• Energy efficiency in built environment• Waste management• Urban regeneration• Urban agriculture• Nutrients• Others


This course will cover:

• Linkages between crucial environmental and social issues in different contexts and “green” building strategies and technologies in the building sector, and enhance participants’ awareness.

• Tools that will facilitate the development of more natural resources and energy efficient as well as socially inclusive urban design models.

• Challenges of a trans-disciplinary discussion between actors engaged in the design, decision-making, implementation and construction (e.g. developers, planners and law makers) of large-scale urban design projects

• Experiences of the various types of actors and backgrounds at the training session


Training session outline

9:15-9:40 (25 mins.)

Part 1: Introductory lecture– Discussion: Sharing experiences / case studies

9:40-10:20 (40 mins.)

Part 2: Exercise 1 Urban context questionnaire– WHOLE GROUP: Identifying ‘key areas of contention’ in Rio

10:20-11:40 (80 mins.)

Part 3: Exercise 2 Urban design toolkit– SMALL GROUPS of 6-7 participants– Group presentations & Discussion


Introductory lecture


Problem context

• Very rapid ongoing urban expansion in built-up areas in developing economies

• Cities using more resources than available in the hinterlands

• New urban developments often absorb most fertile land– Due to agricultural society legacy

• Thus, ways of using natural resources such as land and water, and energy more efficiently, need to be integrated into new developments

• New models of urban design are needed


Large-scale urban developments

• In rapidly transforming urban contexts, time and capacity resources may be limited

• Therefore, developers keep implementing the same models which are not necessarily sustainable– Anonymous example from Beijing, China

• Based on fixed idea of ‘modernity’


Large-scale real-estate development

• Example in Beijing, China– Predominantly high-rise and on urban periphery– Often use greenspaces and water although lack of resources– House up to 30,000 people but lack of services– Often lack of access by public transport– Not necessarily sustainable


Many sustainable models already exist

• New models for new cities– Modern architects like MVRDV or Foster & Partners– Examples: Masdar in Abu Dhabi, Tianjin Eco-City in China– Seldom address challenges of existing cities

• As well as existing examples of more sustainable design and practice– For example Curitiba in Brazil, a well-known example– Eco-settlements in Europe– Level and tools for knowledge exchange on these solutions?

• And many traditional urban design solutions– ‘Smart’ in dealing with climatic challenges– Use practical and low-tech solutions


Facilitation of knowledge flow needed

• But the flow of these solutions into the building sector is still limited

• Existing standards and frameworks often address micro-scale green building standards

• But not much yet at neighbourhood scale– LEED-ND (USA), certification starting from 2010– DGNB (Germany) developing neighbourhood level indicators– Applicability of such frameworks to developing country contexts?

• Tools for facilitating the creation of new widely applicable solutions are needed


Our aim is:

• To address challenges systematically

• To tackle challenges at spatial scale at which cities are being constructed: – Large-scale real-estate developments: represent increasingly

large segments of the city– City governments’ growing interest in better urban environment– Size of projects = High visibility of projects function as signs– A range of actors are involved in the urban design & decision-

making process = a discussion platform

• To develop tools to assist the urban design process and knowledge exchange


Aim of this session

• Introduction of set of tools as part of urban design process

• Exercise using a 3 level approach:1. Urban context questionnaire: assessment of the urban context

2. Urban design toolkit: a range of existing urban design solutions to support new model development

3. Discussion on implementation context of new urban design model

• Collect feedback from you


Part 2: Urban context questionnaire


Based on existing frameworks

• Questionnaire builds on:– UNDP/UNCHS/Wold Bank 1994: Urban Management Program:

‘Rapid Urban Environmental Assessment’– UNEP: Integrated Environmental Assessment– UN-HABITAT 2003: Housing situation and housing needs

assessment– United Nations Statistics Division 2003: Social Indicators in the

Urban Context: Urban Poverty and Health Study – UNDP 2008: Capacity Assessment (+ Support Tool)– UNECE 2009: Sustainable energy division: Action plan for

energy efficient housing in the UNECE region


Aim of the questionnaire

• Tool to systematically provide a ‘macro’ overview of an existing urban context

• Highlight key ‘areas of contention’• Assess an urban context ‘neutrally’:

– Without bias to finding certain problems– Questionnaire aims to capture all ‘flows’ into and out of a city– Can be used to assess any urban context in developing as well

as developed economies

• Not related to the decision-making process• Place different urban contexts into a comparative format

• During urban design, quantitative/qualitative questionnaire data can be retrieved to guide design process and refine design


Urban Context Questionnaire

• How it works:– Quantitative and qualitative data collection– Expert weighting of each indicator

• Scale 1-9: 1= least & 9= most important– Indication of key areas of contention by colour-coding

• Who fills it in?– Independent consultant– Time estimate: 6-8 weeks

• Depends on data availability


4-level Questionnaire Matrix

7 key topic areasPeople, Land, Water, Air, Energy, Waste, Nutrients

Each sub-topic is defined by a set of indicators

6 categories

Topic-specific sub-topics


Summary matrix of the questionnaire

People Land Water Air Energy Waste Nutrients

General information / Existing context

Consumption / Use of resources

Contention / Human health

Institutional capacity assessment

Financing

Policy instruments


Exercise 1

• Today, we don’t have time to fill in the whole questionnaire

• Therefore, we will identify ‘key areas of contention’ in Rio using the matrix

• Exercise with the whole group

People Land Water Air Energy Waste Nutrients

General information / Existing context

Consumption / Use of resources

Contention / Human health

Institutional capacity assessment

Financing

Policy instruments


Part 3: Urban Design Toolkit


Aim of the toolkit

• To show neighbourhood scale solutions / case studies:– How communities working together and the proximity of

buildings can aid sustainability

• To provide a design support tool– For stakeholder group discussions – To formulate new urban design models– To visualize alternative future development scenarios

• Target audience– Actors engaged in urban design, decision-making,

implementation and construction

• Compilation of sustainable urban design ‘good practices’– Traditional and modern/visionary examples


Urban Design Toolkit

• Compilation of case studies are:– Documented individually– Using a comparative format– One A4 page per case study

• Shows information on:

Project name: Project type (traditional/modern-architect):

Image description (top left to bottom right):

Basic information 1 City name, location 2 Population figure 3 Climate 4 Latitude, longitude 5 Mean elevation 6 Type of ecosystem Description of special features of project dealing with following topics: 1 People Social inclusiveness 2 Land Urban density, compactness, mixed use 3 Water Water conservation, rainwater harvesting 4 Air Natural ventilation, air quality protection 5 Energy Solar orientation, shading 6 Waste Waste recycling 7 Nutrients Self-sufficiency, urban agriculture 8 Other Data sources: fhfgjh

Case study image

Basic information

Information by 7 topic areas


Urban Design Toolkit

• Case study selection is based on various existing ‘best practice’ compilation:– UN Habitat ‘Best practices’– Aga Khan historic cities’ programme awards– European sustainable settlements:

www.sustainable-settlements.eu – Global Ecovillage Network (GEN): http://www.ecovillage.org/– LEED-ND pilot projects– Others

• Today, we will apply the Urban Design Toolkit to a case study we have selected in Rio


Rio case study:Barra de Tijuca suburb of Rio City

Barra in the 1970s: Empty land

The case we will address today


A guarded, gated community


Barra de Tijuca: typical neighbourhood


Urban Design Toolkit:Introduction to case studies

These will be used to address the challenges identified through the Urban Context

Questionnaire, using the case study in Rio to visualize possible solutions


SSS – National Institute of Renewable Energy, India

Data sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjab_%28India%29, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapurthala, http://www.aecworldxp.com/edesign/361/india-focus/prof-arvind-krishan-india-focus-sustainability, http://www.gisdevelopment.net/aars/acrs/1997/ps1/ps2004.asp,


Tianjin Eco-City, China

Data sources: http://www.tianjinecocity.gov.sg/


Ecosettlement Frasenweg, Kassel, Germany

Data sources: http://www.oekosiedlungen.de/frasenweg/


Auroville, Pondicherry, India

Data sources: http://www.auroville.org


Christiana, Kopenhagen, Denmark

Data sources: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/51038/


Hammarby Sjöstad, Stockholm, Sweden

Data sources: http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3096706, http://www.hammarbysjostad.se/


Isfahan, Iran

Data sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isfahan


Jaisalmer, India

Data sources: www.space-design.com/upload/RS0007.pdf


Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, UEA

Data sources: http://www.masdarcity.ae/en/index.aspx


Quingpu New City, Shanghai, China

Data sources: http://archrecord.construction.com/ar_china/featureQingpu-1.asp, http://www.holcimfoundation.org/T488/Excursion2Qingpudistrict.htm


The Gulch, Nashville, US

Data sources: www.wikipedia.org, http://www.nashvillegulch.com/


Conclusion

• We hope you have:– gained a better understanding of the linkages between

crucial environmental and social issues in different contexts and “green” building strategies and technologies in the building sector, and an enhanced awareness of urban issues.

– gained a basic understanding of the tools and process of making the design of large-scale urban design projects more sustainable in terms of natural resources and socially inclusive.

– become more familiar with the challenges of a trans-disciplinary discussion between actors engaged in the design, decision-making, implementation and construction of large-scale urban design projects.


Thank you for joining our training session!

We would like to follow up with you.

We hope we can continue the discussion today in the future to improve the tools and collect a greater range of

case studies.

Please contact us onwww.urban-group.org

How to “green” large-scale urban design projects Training session

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