Over 80% of people in the UK live in urban areas, and over 50% globally. These figures are growing, so how can we ensure the built environment of our towns and cities provides opportunities for a good urban life? In this blog post, I share some examples in London and elsewhere that inspire me and point towards what a good future could look like for all of us.
Once the essentials of life such as food, shelter and warmth are provided for, the things that lead to dramatic increases in personal wellbeing aren’t things at all. Relationships with other people, access to nature and involvement in cultural activities are all reported as being instrumental in improving our wellbeing. What might surprise you is that the choices we make about how we design buildings and their settings make a huge difference to these drivers of wellbeing.
life-centred design
Let’s start with the building itself. We will all have stood and looked at a building that gives us a sense of foreboding, and one that invites us in and fills us with joy. These differences can be deliberately crafted into the design of the building. Life-Centred Design is a concept that asks questions of designers that challenge them to consider people and the planet as a holistic approach to sustainable development.
One aspect of Life-Centred Design is consideration of nature. ‘Biophilia’ reminds us that humans evolved surrounded by nature, and are therefore a part of nature. Separating nature from humanity fights against our evolutionary history, creating stress in our modern lives. One modern example of biophilia in action is The Jewel in Singapore Changi Airport, an oasis of nature that creates calm in the centre of a hectic international airport. Another example is the Barbican Centre in London, which integrates nature at every turn of the otherwise brutalist architecture.
Taking inspiration from nature in design can lead to buildings that kick back against the climate and nature crises, providing space that supports people and planet. Roots in the Sky is a design that didn’t grow off the drawing board, but provides a blueprint for the future. The rooftop forest garden planned to top off a redeveloped courthouse in Blackfriars, London was to add over an acre of publicly accessible green space in a densely grey part of the city alongside new community spaces. Additionally, the reclaimed steel and structural timber intended to be used in the conversion, would have dramatically reduced the building’s environmental footprint compared to standard designs.
The creative bid works on the premise that ‘the greenest building is the one that exists’.
The importance of natural materials
Natural material selection for construction brings many positives to a building design. From wooden cabins in the forests to whole towns and villages built with local stone, connection between buildings and their local natural resources create a sense of harmony in a place. As well as the aesthetic and emotional benefits, locally-produced, low-processed materials have a smaller environmental footprint than many alternatives. Take hemp as an example, innovators are using hemp as the raw material for many building products like hempcrete or hemp insulation. Hemp is a rapidly growing plant, locking away tonnes of carbon it has sucked out of the atmosphere, and positively contributing to climate change mitigation, much in the same way as timber from carefully managed forests. Hemp building materials have the added benefit of supporting building breathability and therefore the health of building users.
In London, the Greater London Authority (GLA) intends that every home that the Mayor delivers or invests in should aim to exhibit high-quality design that is socially and economically inclusive, and environmentally conscious. And more householders want their homes to be energy efficient, providing benefits for the planet and reducing energy bills.
Good building design will use the best materials, inspired by nature, to provide people with cosy and healthy places to work and live without having a detrimental impact on our already fragile planet.
Environmentally-conscious design by default
Now we must scale up from buildings to whole neighbourhoods. It is clear to me that designing with people and planet in mind makes for better buildings. But what about the places those buildings exist within, what can be done to make a positive contribution to the wellbeing of residents, workers, and passers-by (human and non-human alike)?
Create Streets is a social enterprise that advocates for ‘gentle density’ in housing, enabling large-scale housing, while retaining a small-scale environmental footprint and achieving a big social impact. As our towns and cities become more populous, do they grow outwards, with all the pressure on transport networks and land, or do they grow up? Optoppen is a concept that will enable additional floors of housing to be added to existing buildings. Built from timber to minimise climate impacts, these ‘topping up’ extensions enable additional community-building with minimal disruption to existing neighbourhoods.
This idea of gentle density is central to some of the most successful new developments. Poundbury is a town extension of Dorchester, a walkable neighbourhood of 2,500 new homes and commercial space for an equivalent number of jobs. And while the idea of a ‘15-minute city’ has somehow become a politically divisive concept, people who live in neighbourhoods with school, work and shops an easy wheel or walk away from home seem to love them.
Designing inclusive places is an emerging practice. A research project on autism inclusive urban design used Derry/Londonderry as a case study to challenge neurotypical design practices by considering how autistic people experience travel through an urban environment. Taking inclusive design a step further, at a recent healthy cities conference, one study indicated the vital importance of integrating social infrastructure into neighbourhoods to enable people to connect within their own groups, connect across groups and private space to just be themselves peacefully.
When we think about placemaking, we want to consider not just the needs of today, but also the future. Parks and plants are considered vital for people and planet within an urban environment, for water and drainage management, air quality, mental and physical health and aesthetics. The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park climate emergency design guide, created by Planit, sets the standard for landscape design that integrates nature into the fabric of a city in a climate positive way. Materials selection, just as we saw for buildings, is critical in ensuring park designs create more benefit than harm.
BedZED: a model for the future?
How does this all come together? I had a fascinating conversation with Elly, one of London National Park City’s volunteer Rangers, who spoke about her experiences of living in BedZED in Sutton, the sustainable urban village created by Bioregional and Peabody.
In our discussion, Elly jumped straight to the community field being the heart of the development. Residents use this public parkland space to create wildflower meadows, raised beds for food growing, seating areas for companionship and amenity space for sports and activities. The development is small enough for everyone to recognise everyone else, and enabled by social media, this level of connectedness has led to exchanges of old furniture, surplus food and more. The pedestrian-priority network of walkways through the development allow children to play safely, and the adults even get to join in for trick-or-treating.
Indoors there are two community rooms, variously booked for commercially operated yoga and so on, but also for the monthly BedZED Bar, the Friday lunch pop-up community kitchen and in the winter a warm space for residents from surrounding areas (BedZED is highly insulated and benefits from a communal biomass heating system, meaning the residents rarely feel the cold).
In her own words, these shared indoor and outdoor spaces “allow us to be good neighbours. They feel like a gift that you want to share with everyone else.”
So as the world continues to urbanise, how can we ensure everyone gets to live a good life? Designing buildings and places that take full account of the needs of people and planet is absolutely possible, as shown by the many examples described here. It all starts with a belief that we can do things differently, better. The National Park City Charter sets out a commitment to take action for greener, healthier and wilder urban landscapes. What if you were to sign the charter and make a commitment to support this mission?
David will be speaking at the Regenerative Business Summit in London on 14th November if you would like to hear more on this topic.
David would like to thank Rosie Cade (Rising Tide), Marc Sansom (Salus Global), Marcus Grant (Cities and Health), Pippa Henshall (London Legacy Development Corporation), Elly(London National Park City Ranger) and Miriam Habte Sellasie (National Park City Foundation) for generously sharing their insight and inspiration.
