City Performance workshop highlights

21/10/2011 Written by: Sue Garland No comments

Buro Happold and built environment think-tank The Edge hosted a two-day workshop in London on the theme of ‘City Performance’. Supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of The Netherlands, the Italian Embassy and the Royal Danish Embassy, the event built on the collaborative spirit of ‘A vision of sustainability’, a previous conference held in 2009.

The aim of the workshop was to explore whether there are distinct national experiences of the challenges we face  – wealth creation, congestion and climate change – or whether we are moving towards a shared international understanding and collaborative will to address these issues.

Adam Poole, Analyst at Buro Happold and member of The Edge, said: “We brought together groups who don’t usually meet – competitors working on the same problem, architects and engineers and professionals from different countries and started by asking ourselves: How do we need cities to perform?”

As part of a joint welcome to the event, Jochen Rabe of Buro Happold addressed sustainable city making. His premise is that adopting scalable, consistent approaches is key – from working through an integrated masterplan to complete urban planning.

Dr Richard Simmons, Visiting Professor of City Design and Regeneration at the University of Greenwich and former Chief Executive of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), examined interpretations of urban dystopia in films such as Blade Runner and Slumdog Millionaire. Looking at what makes successful cities he drew on the combination of security, exchange, governance and resilience. He believes that there is no consensus on measuring performance and that it is up to professionals to create the conditions in which “the twisted timber of humanity” can come together to address specific drivers.

Professor Edoardo Croci, of Bocconi University, Milan, commented:  “We need measures to compare city performance but firstly we have to establish the criteria for choosing those indicators.” Professor Croci sees cities as “laboratories for solutions to climate change.” He pointed to The Covenant of Mayors, which involves local and regional authorities committing to increase energy efficiency and use of renewables. The current 2,990 signatories aim to exceed the European Union 20% CO2 reduction objective by 2020.

Marilyn Taylor, a regeneration and neighbourhood planning specialist, concentrated on the implications of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in the UK, which removes eight out of the nine regional layers for planning. In future, local plans will be developed by local planning authorities who will hold primacy in setting policy and direction in conformity with the NPPF.

“At neighbourhood level, local communities have a raft of new ‘community rights’ within the planning system including the right to bring forward their own developments like the Community Land Trusts,” Taylor said. “Some communities will be disappointed that these new rights don’t give them power to prevent change, particularly the building of new housing. Others will respond enthusiastically to fresh opportunities to shape their local areas.” She also pointed to a safeguarding mechanism within the new framework, which introduces a new duty of consultation on the development industry.

Day two included debates addressing power laws that govern how cities thrive and the dynamics for change makers. Group workshops addressed city management and achieving change, rewriting policies to be permissive rather than obstructive.

Professor Salvator Roberto Amendolia, the Scientific Attaché at the Italian Embassy, picked up on Geoffrey West’s work on cities and economies of scale. He noted that with the animal kingdom scale laws are negative, so the bigger the life form the less energy needed per capita. By contrast, with cities scale laws are positive and work for infrastructure and socio-economic phenomena such as creativity, so with size comes disproportionate benefits. The message is density has its upside.

The function of urban space was Markus Appenzeller’s focus. From KCAP Architects & Planners in The Netherlands, he said: “It’s the space between buildings that makes cities.” He pointed to the “insidious undermining” of public space by developers, often as part of retail venues that come with lists of restrictions on behaviour.

Anders Hasselager, Senior Policy Advisor at the Danish Energy Authority, presented the Danish Government’s framework. They are following a path established early on and have built capacity as part of the future planning system. It takes into account that EU countries have had to adopt energy policies that promote the liberalisation of the markets, demonstrating collaboration between state and individuals.

Paradigm shift towards ‘Citizen economies’ was the theme Indy Johar from design strategy practice 00:/. He focused on ”catalysing change in our cities, towns and neighbourhoods”. Indy addressed the emergence of the 1% of social change makers driving the social economy using the power of digital communication. This shift is from managed to smaller self-run communities supported by ”powerful digital techs, web 2.0 technology and thinking culture.”

The final workshops agreed that we are dealing with constant change in planning and that our institutions are out of date.