Turning Point
Crisis Landscapes and the role landscape architecture.
Monday, 28 January 2013
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
Tredje Natur flood design for Saint Kjelds
Flemming Rafn Thomsen and Ole Schrøder from Tredje Natur won a competition to re-design Saint Kjelds as part of the Europan architecture competition in 2011, after which the city of Copenhagen signed them up to advise on the strategic development of the area.
They are redesigning the Copenhagen neighbourhood to better handle the floods expected as climate change leads to fewer but heavier rain storms. When heavy rainfall strikes in Saint Kjelds, the water will be collected above ground in parks and squares to simultaneously relieve the sewer systems and create new recreational areas around the pools. A giant ring in the main square will spray out a cooling mist on hot days, while excess water will be channelled along new cycle lanes that will double as storm drains, leading to canals and out to the harbour rather than into people’s basements.
“Only last year, three cloud bursts cost the society over 5 billion DKK in damage to the buildings and infrastructure,” says Flemming Rafn Thomsen, partner at Tredje Natur. “The climate adaptive plans in Copenhagen, and whole of Denmark really, are humongous and will probably have a time frame longer than 20 years, but the political will to get something done soon is pretty strong.”
The climate is changing behavior. The Copenhageners can look forward to fewer but heavier rain showers, as the city has already been experiencing over the last two summers. In Saint Kjeld’s Neighborhood a comprehensive urban development project seeks to demonstrate how the city can be arranged so rainwater can be managed in the streets in a more natural and effective way. The project was designed by the newly established architectural firm TREDJE NATUR, and promotes new solutions for how we adapt to the climate changes and develop our cities.
“The increase in rainfall is a major challenge for our city. But by tackling the challenge the right way, we can secure the city from cloudbursts while also bringing the city new recreational values. The ideas in Saint Kjeld’s Neighborhood are a really good example of this,” says Technical and Environmental Mayor of Copenhagen, Ayfer Baykal (SF).
Mor information can be found here on the project
Manchester School of Art MA Show Manchester 2012
The MA student exhibition show has been a great success. It opened on 27 September and runs until 5 October 2012. If you haven't had chance to visit it yet then you have 3 more days! Well worth a visit. It is at CUBE gallery on Portland Street 12-5pm.
Monday, 1 October 2012
Gehl architects work for the Avon River front in Christchurch, New Zealand.
An Article from Gehl Architects blog:
"In Copenhagen it is possible to buy an
organic kiwifruit from New Zealand. These are displayed in the supermarket
alongside non-organic Italian varieties. Which one should I choose? Should I
buy the ethically farmed NZ kiwi, or should I buy the Italian one with fewer
air miles? What is the most sustainable decision? And is it possible for the
most sustainable decision to also give me the highest quality of life?
Decisions regarding sustainability are
increasingly affecting how we build cities. This is especially true in
Christchurch as it embarks on the single largest infrastructure investment in
its history – that of rebuilding.
Debate around sustainable cities has
historically centred on individual buildings. In this regard, it is very easy
to get caught-up discussing the merit of a five-star versus six-star green star
certification, or green roofs, or solar power, without considering other
factors. This is evidenced in Melbourne, where the majority of new 6-star green
certified homes have been built on the urban fringe. With limited access to
public transport and cycling infrastructure, occupants require cars for most
journeys. Just like the organic kiwi, a large amount of high-carbon transport
is required to make these ‘sustainable’ homes accessible. Is it right to buy an
organic kiwi on the other side of the world to where it grew? Can a ‘green’
house have a three-car garage?
What the Melbourne case highlights is
that we must consider end-user behaviour if we want to make the most
sustainable city. A recycling bin is no good if nobody uses it, or if its
contents are contaminated and so taken to landfill. The most modern green
workplace accessed by car produces more emissions than an older workplace
accessed by public transport. A green building potentially isn’t green if its
inhabitants use it differently than expected. A sustainable city is not simply
a collection of green buildings, it is the infrastructure for a collection of
people to enjoy sustainable lifestyles because they offer a higher quality of
life.
A major factor in a sustainable
lifestyle is transport choice. In 2009, 91% of trips were made by car in the
Greater Christchurch Region. In Copenhagen the figure is 30%. Copenhagen has a
long history of cycling which it has researched extensively. In 2010, 37% of
people cycled to work in Copenhagen, with 70% continuing through winter. When
asked their reason for choosing to cycle, the overwhelming reason respondents
gave was convenience. Cycling in Copenhagen has nothing to do with
ethical choices, it has to do with finding the easiest way to get from a to b.
It is the result not of a ‘special Scandinavian mentality’, but of ongoing
investment in cycling infrastructure by the City of Copenhagen, as well as the
development of urban forms that create short enough distances for cycling to be
viable. Copenhagen is internationally celebrated for the high quality of life
cycling affords its citizens including health and accessibility benefits.
This identifies the issue at the heart
of building a sustainable city. The central challenge is to make it easy
and even desirable to be green – to create the infrastructure that will
allow inhabitants to make sustainable decisions because they are in their
own best interest. The challenge is for a city to be ‘Good for me’ and
‘Good for the planet’. This sometimes involves trade-offs such as weighing an
isolated green building against integrated green transport. It will involve
having an open mind.
In May last year, we asked you: ‘What
kind of city do you want?’ Many of the most popular responses related both
to a better lifestyle and sustainability. When debating your new sustainable
city I encourage you to consider not ‘Is this city sustainable?’ but instead
‘How can this city make a sustainable lifestyle attractive for me?’ The answer
to the latter question will illuminate the path to an enduringly sustainable
city.
But back to the supermarket: Which
kiwifruit did I buy – the organic New Zealand variety, or the lower-transport
Italian? I bought the organic Danish apple.
Thursday, 27 September 2012
Welcome to my exhibition
Thank you for taking the time to review the blog and visit the exhibition. this blog is a work in progress and should be up to date with the exhibition information by the end of the weekend, so please come back and visit and comment on any of the blog postings. It is hoped that over the next week there will be some interactive blog postings and discussions on issues on landscape architecture and crisis landscapes.
Extreme tourism in the ghost town of Prypiat
A fairground wheel in the abandoned town of Prypiat. On the 26 April 1986 there was a catastrophic nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear power plant. in Ukraine. Prypiat was founded in 1970 to house workers for the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It was officially proclaimed a city in 1979 but was abandoned in 1986. The city was home to 50,000 people who where all evacuated in 2 days following the disaster. In 1986 the city of Slavutich was constructed to replace Prypiat.
Many of the building interiors in Prypiat have been vandalised and ransacked over the years. Because the buildings have not been maintained since 1986, the roofs leak, and in the springtime the rooms are flooded with water. Trees can be seen growing on roofs and even inside the buildings. All this adds to the deterioration process; a four-story school collapsed in July 2005.
There are concerns about visiting Prypiat and the surrounding areas and you can now find companies to give you a guided tour, extreme tourism. The radiation levels have since dropped and in certain areas the radiation levels are very low. The city and surrounding zone are boarded with guards and police but it is apparently relatively easy to get the documentation to visit the site.
Frequency of disasters
There appears to be an
increase in the frequency with which disasters are occurring. According to
statistics from the International Centre of Interdisciplinary and Advanced Research
(ICIAR), disasters were about 100 per decade in 1900-1940, which rose to 650
per decade in the 1960s, 2000 per decade in the 1980s, and it reached 2800 per
decade in the 1990s. Further to this the Centre
for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and the United Nations
International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) stated that by 2010,
natural disasters alone have caused the death of more than 780,000 people over
the past ten years and destroyed a minimum of US $ 960 billion worth of
property and infrastructure (Amaratunga et al 2011)
They further discuss that it is hard to
establish whether this growing number of crisis is due to an increase in events
or an increase in vulnerability. Vulnerability could be increasing due to a rise
in the global population, effects of climate change, the regions economic
status, urbanisation, war, poverty or other underlying development issues (Blaikie, Cannon & Davies 2004). ICIAR believe
that urban regions have complex infrastructures that support human activities,
deliver services and facilitate economic growth which the population are
increasingly dependent on and that dependence increases vulnerability.
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