The answer to our problems lies with buildings. Do you actually believe you can separate buildings out from the infrastructure of cities and mobility of transit and the expectations and incentives of people?
It is off course naive to state that solving “buildings” can solve the economic problems that we face today. Nonetheless, buildings(or built environments) are to a city what particles are to matter. They make up the city and therefore cannot be isolated from the urban fabric. The life of a city lies in the activities that takes place in it and buildings harbor a large percentage of them. While designing a building we need to look at its context within the complex urban scenario. It is no new knowledge that a pedestrian friendly city is more livable but to do so, one must perform thoughtful design interventions within the existing urban conditions from the basic level ie; at building scale instead of just starting a whole new development from scratch in total isolation.
While developing a proposal an architect should develop schemes that encourage mixed as well as varying (time based) use of
buildings and thereby reduce the need for transit. This is much more favorable in terms of economic sustainability in the long run than just blindly adding on new road infrastructure and land developments for the sake of “growth”. Although the extent of its success and its impact depends on myriad other factors (political, social, cultural to name a few) at the all levels. A designer’s input is definitely not the final word on development although our contributions are far from insignificant.
Why do people tend to believe that what is financially profitable (for developers) is not actually equivalent to economically feasible (positive impacts on social welfare)?
In majority of cases financially beneficial projects by a developer do not result in economically feasible solutions for the society. But there are always exceptions an I would like to think that with the growing awareness of economic sustainability or the “Big Picture” things are beginning to change for the better.
There is a certain organization for builder/developer(namely CREDAI) in India that, apart from safe guarding the (financial) interest of its members, forces them to take part in or contribute towards public welfare. For example, this particular organization led a “clean city” drive for one of the cities that faces a huge waste disposal problem. To a developer, being a member ensures that his interests are protected (the government eases certain laws on profit) but at the same time they make contribution to the overall public welfare.
Another example (as discussed at the lecture) is the water supply development in New York where the need for a new purification plant was totally eliminated by providing incentives to the framers who cultivated near the reservoir to operate in a more environmentally manner so as to prevent pollution. Here they saved on redundant infrastructure as well as prevented a huge ecological imbalance. Restoration of cities after a war where the old buildings and infrastructure are reused or restored minimizes expense on redevelopment while actually preserving the cultural heritage. This too is beneficial to both parties.