To work with the complexity of the city we (as architects) have to know the value of all the underlying layers of the building environment; social, economic, political, and legal structure and related public policies, to make sure that our building and design are as powerful statements as possible. It is a fact that the cities are growing as never before. In 2050 will 75% of the population in the world live in the cities. So know how to best develop the new areas of the cities is even more important than ever. The growth is often driven by fast planning and projects like seen in many places like in Sao Paulo, where new areas, from their “birth”, is becoming a “dead end”, because they do not interact with the city. According to the first question, I do not believe one building by itself, can change much in the terms of improving urban sustainable growth. By placing an amazing sustainable building will not change enough to change the neighborhood.
But we must as architects still have confidence in our buildings performance and impact on the city, if we will reach the goal of growth in a more sustainable way. We must have big ambitions for our projects, so we may have a change to make an influence on for example our building developers. But it is at the same time important, that we have focusing on the most central parameters in the design process. We may have to change our mindset. In the crisis of 1930´s the goal was to increase the employment and growth was the means to it. Today the growth is the goal and not the means, because we live in a new world based on consumption. By focusing only the growth instead is a bad financial decision. In many example fast growth will increase for example increase of importing and cheap labor, which is not a got long term investment. Maybe the goal is not to increase the growth of wealth in the sense of social, natural and human thinking, but more how we react on the growth.
Some architects are simplifying the city as one continuous structure (read Eric Owen Moss) and believe that the truth lies in between possibilities. But actually most architects are trained to be captivated by the building or structure we have just produced, and not how it interact with the environment and the people occupying the space. We (architects) are for example satisfied with the building after seeing that the facade still have same green color as we were hoping it would maintain. But we are not asking the neighbors of the new building, if their wealth fare has increased after constructing the building. That is not sustainable, although the building might be very energy sufficient. I see one of the most important issues, which we can deal with as architects, is to rethink the public areas. How the spaces can react on people’s daily life, and react on the growth. We need to give the city the right “tools” so it can react on the growth when designing new areas. Indispensable tools for creating new sustainable areas are for example a good infrastructure connected to the public transportation. But sometimes it is not enough. In Denmark we planned a new area in Copenhagen called “Ørestaden”. The area got a new metro connected to airport and the city, a great bicycle path and a direct access to the nature. Today the new city area is a “dead end”, and most of the apartments are empty and for sale, all though there are amazing buildings by for example Bjarke Ingels. One of the many reasons, why the area is not working properly, was caused by a bad economic decision. The politicians got a very good offer from a big mall, and they placed the giant mall in the middle of the new area. This was a very good financial idea, because the mall could pay for some of the construction of Ørestaden. But it turned out to be a very bad economic decision, because the area did not have room for local shops and cafées because of the effect of the mall. The mall also needed big roads and a lot of parking spaces. The result was a new city with big roads, and long distances between every building. The whole area became a dead end, a windy area, a place without pedestrians, many cars and no local development. The only reason to go to the area now, is to shop in the mall or to take an architectural sightseeing to some of the great empty buildings. Remember your car.
It is a common opinion that developers in the building sector are more driven by financial needs than social economic. Often it is all about placing as many squaremeters as possible . But a new awareness of sustainability has occurred in many new projects. Projects are developed in more long term matter, rather than a short term financial solution. Demands from for example EU can protect the cities from unsustainable projects. But it is crucial that we set the right parameters in the regulations, that the social economy into account. But to manage to create better sustainable spaces, we need a good client (both in the city and private), which might have even higher ambitions than the architect. We need to understand which mindset drives the politicians to make their decisions. The case from Ørestaden, Copenhagen, is an example of how a solution made out financially profitable not is equivalent to economically feasible. Or at least on the function of the new city. A better example could be the new area of the Olympics games 2012 in London, if the plan will have a happy ending. London used the “one time” financial investment (and of course mayor income) to rebuilt and improve the city and placed the Olympic Village in an area, which needed improvements. Many of the structures from the Olympics will be transformed into healthcare centres and community facilities, which will integrate with new housings in the area. The area is totally renewed in maybe 20 years. So we have to wait, to make the final judge about the project. But the new area surdenly have the right tools to react and move with the growth. But we need to relie on the decisions makers or try to lean some new tools to interact with them. I think it is crucial that architects are more visible in the public debate. If we, as architects, can learn how to transform our drawings into economical graphs, we could make a big impact on the decision makers, and we might be helpful to increase the sustainable growth.