Greenwashing. 15 minute city. 3D printed buildings. Biomimicry. Climate change urban mgmt. Go Jauntly. Goldsmith Street, Norwich. National Park City. Past plans for susturb. Pedestrianisation. Sustainable buildings. Unsustainable urb. Urban greening. Clever animation by @otucis shows a big intersection could be simplified and made more human-friendly.… Development Opportunities in the Western Desert by c_coates300. *****This bike rack creates #electricity for neighbourhoods #SDGs #Innovation @TopCyberNews @Jackthelad1947 @seth_leitman @arikring @HansLak @AdamRogers2030 @Adamsfrt11 @autrement_votre @SDGaction @TradomGlobal @JolaBurnett @h.
OAT sur Twitter : "- Planning for 2052 needs a citrus and a doughnut. Last panel on stage, imagining year 2052, where economic growth no longer is the dominant goal and human and ecological flourishing matter the most. @KateRaworth #planning2052 #oat2019. Simon Kuestenmacher sur Twitter : "Infographic visualizes impact of #bicycle #infrastructure on users. Good infrastructure reduces stress and leads cyclists to perceive their trip as shorter than it actually was. Bad infrastructure does the opposite. Via. Transport for Quality of Life. Simon Kuestenmacher sur Twitter : "Trees (and greenery in general) must be front and center when planning urban environments. Greenery significantly softens the heat island effect, looks nice, provides a home to animals and help to limit air pollution iss. How much space do 200 people take up in different modes of transport?…
#OTD 1958 The Litter Act came into force in London as part of the Keep Britain Tidy campaign. Offenders could be fined up to £10 for dropping litter. In the first year nearly 1000 were prosecuted.… Pocket Park Map. “If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places." ~ Fred Kent. The Terrases Roy in Montreal.… Pocket Parks come in many shapes and sizes City of London’s tiny, protected green spaces #pocketpark #urban #greenspace #wellbeing #cleanair #urbangreen #health… London parks used sheep as natural lawnmowers, 1920s.… BBC Politics sur Twitter : "'We're defending our own rights in our streets'. @dinosofos has been to Sheffield to see why the city's quiet tree-lined streets have become an urban battlefield. Watch the full film here.
Joe Smith sur Twitter : "In British planning this long dominant thinking known as ‘predict and provide’. In truth this approach failed to predict new road space being immediately consumed by generated demand, or provide efficient access to stuff. So much. This is the start of something big. Amazing to see this on Embankment, central London, which for decades has been a deathtrap for anyone not inside two tons of metal.… Metallic apartments will purify the Berlin air #pollution #CO2 #architecture.
CECHR sur Twitter : "Greenspace, greenroofs and trees feature as Europe’s largest urban shopping center breaks ground in France #architecture #cleanair #pollution Facade will also be covered in “depolluting coating” to improve outd. These animated videos show just how much space cars waste in our cities by @FastCoExist. Matthew Sparkes sur Twitter : "This is the 20mph, single-lane, residential road I live on in @LewishamCouncil. Driveways for parked cars, pavements for parked cars, road for parked cars and speeding cars. Not a lot of space given to walking and cycling. I. Last night's Evening Standard on the announcement of the #NationalParkCity Week in July. It's critical it is for all Londoners... We have so many opportunities all over London.…
German cities to trial free public transport to cut pollution. “Car nation” Germany has surprised neighbours with a radical proposal to reduce road traffic by making public transport free, as Berlin scrambles to meet EU air pollution targets and avoid big fines.
The move comes just over two years after Volkswagen’s devastating “dieselgate” emissions cheating scandal unleashed a wave of anger at the auto industry, a keystone of German prosperity. “We are considering public transport free of charge in order to reduce the number of private cars,” three ministers including the environment minister, Barbara Hendricks, wrote to EU environment commissioner Karmenu Vella in the letter seen by AFP Tuesday. “Effectively fighting air pollution without any further unnecessary delays is of the highest priority for Germany,” the ministers added. The proposal will be tested by “the end of this year at the latest” in five cities across western Germany, including former capital Bonn and industrial cities Essen and Mannheim.
Reluctant to say I told you so but I did & so did @RamblersGB & @livingstreets & @LondonNPC & loads of others... Walkable cities reduce blood pressure and hypertension risk, study finds. Peter Head sur Twitter : "Cities in @ICLEI network are thriving through improved & expanded, natural environment of green corridors,healthy ecosystems, ample&safe green open spaces,food gardens,green &blue infrastructure and accessible, easy, daily commun.
“Dubization” the creation of cities disconnected from nature #geographyteacher #place… Adaptive Circular Cities #SmartCity #DigitalTransformation. If Melbourne’s Ecological Footprint is currently around 8 gigahectare, then for it to become a Half-Earth city (a la EO Wilson) it would nee… This tiny house by architect Marco Casagrande has a footprint of exactly one parking space, making it easy to fit in almost anywhere:…
Are Passive Houses the Future of High Performance Homes? by @ProudGreenHome. Kamikatsu: Japan’s Town With No Waste. London Now London Future. Ikea begins work on 'most sustainable' UK store. *****What if we made LDN AMAZINGLY more green? Inspired by @LondonNPC #NationalParkCity, this from @WATG in @standardnews. *****Air pollution is one of the greatest external threats to health for people in cities. *****Sustainable airports eg Oslo, Norway uses stockpiled snow to cool the building in the summer. Read more. Scientists discover yet another reason cities need more trees by @FastCoDesign.
Scientists Discover Yet Another Reason Cities Need More Trees. That might seem inconsequential at first.
But wind can affect things like humidity, temperature, how pleasant it is to walk around outside, and even the pressure gradient between the interior and exterior of buildings. When there’s a larger gradient, more air from outside will enter a building through small gaps and openings, requiring greater energy consumption to heat or cool the building. Researchers from the University of British Columbia created a computer model showing that when there are no trees in a neighborhood, that pressure gradient goes up by a factor of four.
Because wind pressure can be the root cause for about a third of a building’s energy consumption, the finding means that if there are no trees around, the cost to maintain a building’s temperature can rise. The researchers estimate that trees in the Vancouver neighborhood they modeled save 15% on your energy bill in the summer and 10% in the winter. Unleashing the power of moss to clean cities. Copenhagen’s largest school will be powered by solar energy & the lesson for today. *****Paris - River Seine swimming pools: This photo from @Celia_Blauel in @Paris makes us even MORE determined to achieve our dream for #London. Congrats #Paris □□□□□♀️□ *****What makes a good city? Criteria / good governance / subnational (theconversation)
This is one of a series of articles to coincide with the 2017 Ecocity World Summit, which begins today in Melbourne.
Our cities have now been named as the saving places of a planet in crisis. And yet we cannot decide on the principles that make for a good city. Everybody has a view, but some views are more sustainable than others. What we desperately need is a big and general public dialogue about the principles that make for a good city. This is the basis of our project, Principles for Better Cities, led by the City of Berlin.
Broader vision is needed We need to get beyond the current tendency to become fixated on spruiking different high-level concepts. But the concept of the smart city is too often reduced to narrow technological monitoring and big data collection. *****TfL to spend £18m on preparing London for new electric black cabs. Transport for London is spending £18m on upgrading the capital’s power grids to charge the first generation of battery-powered black cabs.
From 1 January 2018, all new black cabs will have to be battery-powered electric models by law as part of TfL’s effort to reduce toxic pollution from diesel engines. The cash will pay for network reinforcements to enable British Gas owner Centrica and other energy companies to install 300 rapid electric-car charging stations by 2020. The charging point can top up a car’s battery within minutes, rather than the hours it takes for the city’s thousands of conventional electric vehicles. An initial 75 fast chargers are due to be operational by the end of the year. While some of the sites will be exclusively for black cabs, the network will also be open to the increasing number of owners of Teslas, Nissan Leafs and electric BMWs in London. *****10 green roof buildings.
Architects are touting plant-covered tower blocks as a way to tackle air pollution and improve the quality of urban life.
From one of the world's tallest living walls to an entire "vertical forest" city in China, here are 10 examples showing the rise of verdant architecture. Rosewood Tower, Brazil, by Jean Nouvel Ateliers Jean Nouvel has recently designed a plant-covered luxury hotel in São Paulo, which will feature staggered terraces overflowing with trees and a latticed Corten-steel facade. Dutch Windwheel - silent wind turbine & apartment building #housing #architecture. *****Indoor air pollution: 10 tips for home indoor air quality #Tips #HealthyLiving #architecture #HomeSweetHome #indoorquality #indoorair. These are the 7 greenest cities in the world. For more bees, veg and happiness - Great meeting #Harrow @CllrWeston in #Pinner! #NationalParkCity #BigWalkAroundLondon. Is this the world’s greenest, smartest office building? It’s the world’s greenest office space, and probably the smartest, too.
The Edge in Amsterdam knows how much energy it is consuming, how many parking spots it has left and when the bathrooms need cleaning. Even the espresso machines recognize you and remember how you take your coffee. The building, designed for consultancy firm Deloitte, its main tenant, is fitted with 28,000 sensors which track movement, lighting levels, humidity and temperature. All this data enables the building to respond and use resources more efficiently. When areas are not being used, heating, air conditioning and lighting can be adjusted or switched off. 6 innovations that will change the face of China. Been walking with Ryan from @teratreesLtd and finding out about his innovative ideas to connect children & trees! #BigWalkAroundLondon.
Greenroof & Greenwall Database @greenroofs 1,681 Projects 36,379,361 ft² (3,379,826 m²) so far #Greenspace. VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre #biodiversity 17222 sq.ft of #Greenroof in Vancouver @greenroofs. California Academy of Sciences (CAS) Living Roof #greenroof #biodiversity @greenroofs 197000 sq.ft. Rewild my Street by Siân and Jon Moxon - Visualising London as a #NationalParkCity Winner. It would be great to see this in London. @LondonNPC #NationalParkCity. Green streets are the way to go.
As the connected problems of climate change and air pollution from traffic make living in cities more hazardous, the health benefits of greening our streets become ever more apparent.
On crowded city roads green barriers, in the form of dense hedges between traffic and people on the pavements, dramatically reduce the danger from fumes, but are difficult to squeeze in. Green roofs and walls, which take up no ground space and were originally introduced sometimes for aesthetic reasons, are proving that they have great value. They insulate buildings and lead to energy savings, reduce temperatures outside by absorbing sunlight, and mitigate the urban heat island effect. They also contribute to storm water management by soaking up the rain, and reduce noise and increase urban biodiversity. Low-impact monastery huts in Italy are made from 100% recyclable materials. #Map shows areas of #Berlin without residential population. The city is greener than you might think... By @hnshck Give him a follow :)
*****Energy saving due to natural ventilation in housing blocks in Madrid (incl wind rose diagrams) Being in Zurich is a daily reminder that high quality public transit works. This street in Amsterdam = width of any street in Brooklyn. Look what's possible when you don't prioritize storage for cars. cc #bikenyc. *****Retrofit suburbs: For some developers, smart suburbs are the new smart cities. Forget smart cities — smart suburbs could possibly be the next great frontier of urban design with better planning and retrofitting.
While some claim the end is near for suburbs, others are taking cues from cities and redeveloping suburbs to become a more appealing places for people to live. "Virtually every American city has the same story," said Robert Alan Ping, executive director of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute. From New York City to St. *****Cities going 100% #renewableenergy Many already are #sustainability. Solar house generates enough energy to share with its neighbors #housing #Renewables Net Positive.
Sonnenschiff Solar City Produces 4X the Energy it Consumes #renewableenergy net positive! CDRC Maps. Green canopy by Garis Architects spans a community centre. Trailing plants cascade over the edge of this elevated walkway, which was designed by Garis Architects to shelter a community events space in western Malaysia (+ slideshow).
Named The Arc after its bridge-like form, the project was designed by local studio Garis Architects in a park in Selangor, a state on Malaysia's western coast. A covered corridor beneath the canopy links a football pitch, clubhouse and carpark, which are distributed within the park's watery landscaping. The sheltered area is also used to host community festivals, food stalls and shops. "At the most fundamental level, it provides shelter for community activities – the place for regular living amenity, social and recreational activities, communal and sports events," said the architects.
"Simultaneously, it needs to respond to the environment, particularly in addressing the sunlight, heat, humidity and rain of the tropical climate. " *****Sedum moss on a small roof: My own modest contribution towards @LondonNPC #NationalParkCity, a whole 5m2 of sedum #greenroof #SuDS @Sudsulike @theCCCuk. Car Sick – George Monbiot. A short, simple factsheet on the impacts of traffic pollution on children’s health By George Monbiot, published on monbiot.com, 5th March 2017 I wrote this short factsheet for a local school suffering high levels of air pollution, that are caused in part by the parents, sometimes driving their children just 100 metres up the road.
Part of the problem is that many people are unaware of the link between pollution and health issues. When I looked for a summary – in clear and simple language, that most parents can quickly understand – of the damage that traffic pollution can do to children, I could not find one. Nor could the transport campaigns I consulted. Please feel free to reproduce it, adapt it and use it as you wish. Clint Eastwood. What America looked like before the EPA stepped in - Houston Chronicle. By Fernando Ramirez, Chron.com / Houston Chronicle Updated 7:51 am, Tuesday, February 28, 2017 Original caption: A train on the Southern Pacific Railroad passes a five-acre pond, which was used as a dump site by area commercial firms, near Ogden, Utah, in April of 1974.
The acid water, oil, acid clay sludge, dead animals, junked cars and other dump debris were cleaned up by several governmental groups under the supervision of the EPA. Some 1,200,000 gallons of liquid were pumped from the site, neutralized and taken to a disposal site. The boy with the backpack pollution monitor: Logan Eddy, aged 14, makes discoveries about air quality. A brilliant illustration of how much public space we've surrendered to cars.
Solar-Powered Water Wheel Removes 350 Tons of Trash From Baltimore Harbor @MrTrashWheel. *****California city on its way to becoming the first Zero Net Energy city in the U.S. Safer Cities & Urban Development. Urban heat islands: cooling things down with trees, green roads and fewer cars. When it comes to coping with heatwaves, our own cities are conspiring against us. Road surfaces, pavements and buildings all contribute to keeping urbanised environments three to four degrees hotter than surrounding non-urbanised areas. With heatwaves like the ones that have just baked half of Australia to a crisp forecast to increase in frequency and intensity, city councils are taking the urban heat island effect very seriously. “Some of the modelling studies have shown that we can often have an urban heat island magnitude – so that’s the difference between the temperature in the city versus the temperature in the non-urbanised surroundings – that can be greater than the types of temperature increases that we’re looking at with global warming,” says Dr Melissa Hart, graduate director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of New South Wales.
One of the simplest solutions to reducing the urban heat island effect is to provide more shade, with trees. Junction design in the Netherlands. Junction design for bikes in the Netherlands #cycling #planning #safety #bike. A Startup Is First to Map Cape Town's Informal Bus Network. How a startup mapped 657 routes, nearly 1,500m and 5,500 miles in three weeks. It’s easy to miss Nyanga, one of Cape Town’s oldest black neighborhoods, on a map of the South African city. Lightbulb moment: UK streetlights get innovative green makeover. Streetlights connected to electricity networks in Kensington and Chelsea will now act as charge points for electric vehicles (EVs), while a Lanarkshire-based IT specialist has agreed to fund development of wind-harvesting lampposts in the UK. Trials for the charging lamps are underway, while wind-harvesting technology has been backed by a new partnership UK Power Networks, the biggest electricity distributor in the country, has partnered with charging specialists Ubitricity to trial three EV-charing streetlights to be used by local residents in Onslow Gardens, in a first for Central London.
The trials, which started in November, allow vehicles to charge from street lights near domestic buildings, before being billed via a smartphone or computer. Smart-charging cables are used to accurately determine the price of the electricity generated. From London to Tokyo, 6 futuristic visions of our cities in 2121. Read more. ***** Pollution Gtr London maps. Woodberry Wetlands: London’s new wildlife oasis. Sir David Attenborough has opened a new nature reserve in London, a functioning reservoir, which has been hidden from the public for nearly 200 years As of 1 May, local residents of Woodberry Down – and, indeed, the entire general public – are able to freely visit and explore Woodberry Wetlands, London’s newest nature reserve.
This 11-hectare reservoir in Hackney has been closed to the public since it was built in 1833, but thanks to an intervention by the London Wildlife Trust, it’s now making an assortment of wildlife accessible to Londoners. The reserve was opened by Sir David Attenborough, who toured the Thames Water-owned site thanking volunteers for their efforts in cleaning up the wetlands. ‘I’ve spent the last 60 or 70 years hearing about this disaster or that disaster,’ he told an assembled crowd. ‘It’s marvellous to be here seeing the reverse, seeing things getting better. Smog Free Tower creates clean air, and air that you wear. This smog-fighting music academy will have an air purifier as effective as 33,000 trees. The Polish city of Krakow has some of the worst air pollution in the world.
In hopes of improving the city’s air quality, FAAB Architektura proposed a smog-fighting music academy fitted with a German air purification system that they say works effectively as 33,000 city trees.