In this podcast, Ross O’Ceallaigh of the Green Urbanist interviews Helen Pineo. This conversation covers personal reflections about urban living and the basics of healthy urbanism. We spend a lot of time talking about how healthy urbanism relates to planetary and ecosystem health. We also get into details on the ‘business case’, new models of development and a mutual love of community-led housing.
Listen to the podcast and read more on the Green Urbanist substack for Episode 62 using the link below.
There’s a lot of guidance about designing healthy communities from public health and built environment professionals. For a change, I found it interesting to hear what Lord Richard Best called his ‘Top 10 Tips’ for designing healthy communities. Lord Best is ‘not a fan of major UK housebuilders’ because he feels their level of quality is not up to muster. So his example healthy development, Derwenthorpe, is led by the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust, not a private developer.
Derwenthorpe on the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust website
Lord Best has an informed position on designing and planning healthy communities based on his roles as Vice President of the Local Government Association and the Town & Country Planning Association, and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Care for Older People. He was also the CEO of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (1988-2006).
Derwenthorpe is a new development of 489 ‘attractive, affordable, eco-friendly family homes in a digitally inclusive, mixed-tenure community’.1 It’s situated on the edge of an existing village, Osbaldwick, outside of York. Here’s what Lord Richard Best thinks makes this development healthy – couched as his ‘Top 10 Tips’:
Top 10 tips for healthy places (not in any order):
Affordable housing – 40% are rented on secure tenancies
Lifetime Homes Specification (fully accessible – good for all ages and conditions)
Residents get a free bus pass for a year or a loan to buy a bicycle
Home zones (shared street space) where pedestrians have the right of way
Substantial play spaces for children
Sustainable Drainage Systems to avoid flooding (and water ingress into homes)
Electric vehicle charging points on each home, one car parking spot per house and a car club
Affordable heating and power – they have a Combined Heating and Power (CHP) system providing low cost energy for residents.
There are more details on the Joseph Rowntree website (below) with other features of this development that contribute to its sustainability and health credentials.
1Derwenthorpe on the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust website: https://www.jrht.org.uk/community/derwenthorpe-york
Given the long timespans of urban regeneration projects – spanning decades from initial plans to completion – I happened upon New Zealand’s largest renewal project at just the right time. Wynyard Quarter is well along its transformational journey from an industrial port into a very liveable and sustainable community.
In April 2018 it was already clear that Auckland’s planners have used fantastic public realm design and amenities to turn the port into a welcoming, walkable and fun neighbourhood. Having visited or worked on some of the world’s leading portside developments in Sweden, Hammarby, BO01 and Masthusen, I can see that this project will likely become a case study in sustainable design and development.
Kia Ora, Welcome to Wynyard Quarter sign
Walking from Auckland’s CBD you’re drawn west, past the ferry terminal and under the New Zealand’s Team America’s Cup Yacht at the Maritime Museum. You enter Wynyard Quarter by passing rows of luxury yachts and crossing a pedestrian drawbridge. As you approach, there are meanwhile uses, pocket parks and information boards drawing attention to the redevelopment. There will be 500 homes and 48,000 sq meters of commercial space in the central area of the quarter, much of which is starting to take shape now.
Visiting with my young family, we walked straight past the lovely waterside bars and restaurants to Silo Park. There is something here for all ages. A water feature, basketball net, and ‘under the sea’ themed playground were being enjoyed by children, teenagers and adults. Posters advertised outdoor concerts and an open-air cinema project against one of the silos. My favourite part was walking up the gantry, a bridge-like structure with multiple levels and partly covered in plants. It offered fantastic views of the emerging neighbourhood and the harbour bridge beyond.
The view from the gantry looking down on Hamer Street and the playground.
There are many planning frameworks setting out the ambitions and development requirements for Wynyard Quarter on the Panaku Development Auckland website. The project’s Sustainable Development Framework aims to move beyond zero net energy, water and waste impacts to a built environment that positively contributes energy and water and is ‘restorative’. Among other requirements, homes have a minimum target of 7 Homestar rating1 while commercial buildings will need to reach 5 Green Star rating2.
The city wants Wynyard Quarter to be a place where residents are proud of their contribution to a ‘more sustainable future’. This project has the most sophisticated monitoring system that I’ve ever seen for a masterplanning project to showcase its progress against sustainability goals, called Wynyard Quarter Smart.
Users of this online interactive tool can view information on a map of the neighbourhood or through navigating different theme areas, such as ‘Transport, Movement & Connectivity’. It’s fantastic to see that the project managers are reporting their progress throughout the renewal project.
Screenshot of Wynyard Quarter Smart online interactive monitoring tool
This regeneration project is leading practice in many areas, incorporating smart systems and adopting ambitious goals for sustainability and health. Just reporting what I saw on my brief visit, here are some of the outstanding design and planning features that will support the developments’ goals for generations to come:
Infrastructure first: The housing development is just beginning but even early residents will be able to adopt healthy and sustainable behaviours such as walking or cycling because the street infrastructure is already in place to support this. There are also plenty of things to do in the area so that people will have reasons to interact and develop a sense of community.
Public realm design for all ages: People of all ages and abilities will find the parks and amenities around Silo Park to be fun and accessible. The gantry structure has a lift and stairs so wheelchair users or parents with buggies can see the outstanding views from the top deck.
Safe streets: The crossing points are clearly marked and level. The pavements are wide and allow plenty of space for pedestrians and cyclists.
Sustainable drainage: The sustainable drainage systems contribute to the landscape aesthetic and filters water.
Identity – marine and industrial heritage: This place has a very strong sense of identity that comes across through the design of the public realm – buoys floating in grass, the gantry, the ‘under the sea’ playground, the remnants of train tracks, and of course the silos.
Wynyard Quarter is a great place to visit, live or work. If you’re planning a similar project in your city, it would be well worth exploring their approach to sustainability and the incorporation of health and social wellbeing principles. It has already won an ‘Excellence on the Waterfront’ award in the Comprehensive Plans category in the USA.
The silos, sustainable drainage and buoys floating in the grass
New Zealand Green Building Council’s standard for sustainable healthy homes, https://www.nzgbc.org.nz/homestar
Green Building Council Australia’s standard for sustainable buildings, https://new.gbca.org.au/green-star/
Cities around the world use tall buildings to accommodate high density development in well-serviced areas. Yet the list of potential negative impacts of tall buildings seems to outweigh the benefits. As the Grenfell Tower tragedy so horrifically demonstrated, if tall buildings are poorly designed or managed they can have catastrophic impacts on residents. Many urbanists argue that even high quality well-maintained tall buildings are bad for residents’ wellbeing. Given the need to accommodate so much urban growth in a sustainable, equitable and affordable way, can we consider tall buildings as a viable housing solution?
Trellick Tower, perhaps a victim of insufficient maintenance
Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier proposed the use of tall buildings as a means of lifting the urban poor out of overcrowded squalid slums in early 20th century Europe. His designs extended to sixty stories for offices and seventeen for dwellings and were surrounded by park land.1 These vertical cities were intended to include ample recreational facilities (including on rooftops) with attention to noise pollution, sunlight and thermal control, among other health-related design measures. Alexi Marmot argued that many British and American 1950s and 1960s high-rise housing estates inspired by Le Corbusier failed to implement features he deemed essential such as the provision of social and sport facilities, management services and regular community policing.1 These buildings therefore failed to realise Le Corbusier’s vision and many have since been demolished.
Skyscrapers in Dubai with low-rise development in the foreground
The Draft London Plan says that ‘tall buildings can form part of a strategic approach to meeting regeneration and economic development goals, particularly in order to make optimal use of the capacity of sites which are well-connected by public transport and have good access to services and amenities’.2 It also references other positive benefits of high buildings including: they act as navigation aids in the city and they contribute to the London skyline and the city’s identity. Although one could ask the cut-off point for the latter two benefits, as examples like Dubai show that after a while another tall building doesn’t stand out that much.
The list of potential negative impacts of tall buildings in the Draft London Plan is quite long:
visual impacts at multiple scales (including on heritage assets)
microclimate effects (wind, canyon effects) and impact on air pollution particle movement
interference with aviation, telecommunication, etc.
impact on neighbouring buildings’ sunlight, temperature, wind, etc.
noise pollution
effect on local infrastructure requirements.
The Create Streets charity has been lobbying for the avoidance of multi-storey residential development in London since 2013. They argue that very few people choose to live in tall buildings (with notable exceptions like the Barbican). Counterintuitively, they also claim that you can fit the same number of people in dense townhouse development using the same land area.3 Their list of detrimental impacts of tall buildings includes:
usually disliked by residents
correlated with bad outcomes for residents
bad for society and crime levels
poor return on investment over the long-term
more expensive to build and maintain
bad for children and families.3
Many tall buildings around the world are luxury developments with high-end design and amenities for residents. So is the wellbeing of residents an issue of design and execution or would residents of all tall buildings experience negative results? As with anything related to urban development, equity becomes a key issue. In London, tall buildings are used as a way to make urban infill development economically viable. Taller buildings have more housing units bringing returns to the developer, and those units with a view can bring in a premium. We as planners are told that the overall viability of a site depends on the additional storeys added to tall buildings. Allowing these storeys may increase the number of affordable homes that can be constructed on the site alongside other amenities such as playgrounds.
As usual, there are a number of issues for planners to balance and there are no categorically right or wrong answers. High density is good for walkability and environmental sustainability, but it is very unclear whether tall buildings are the right form to achieve these aims. Some of the negative impacts outlined above can be mitigated through design and engineering measures. For my personal living preference, Le Corbusier’s limit of seventeen stories for residential buildings still seems quite tall. There may be a natural height limit that humans find manageable. I would prefer the 5-6 storey apartment blocks of Copenhagen to the towers of Tokyo, but perhaps we can adapt to what we can afford.
Apartment block in Copenhagen
References
Marmot AF. The Legacy of Le Corbusier and High-Rise Housing. Built Environment; London. 1981;7(2):82–95.
Mayor of London. Policy D8 Tall buildings. Draft New London Plan. https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/planning/london-plan/new-london-plan/draft-new-london-plan/chapter-3-design/policy-d8-tall-buildings. Published November 14, 2017. Accessed April 26, 2018.
Boys Smith N, Morton A. Create streets: Not just multi-storey estates. Policy Exchange and Create Streets. 2013.
Can we save the NHS by building healthier places? This was the provocation at last night’s Developing Healthy Neighbourhoods event as part of Bristol’s Healthy City Week. Organised by Bristol Health Partners and IBI Group, and supported by Bristol’s mayor, this event asked the audience to consider two potential solutions to ‘business as usual’ development which often risks creating unhealthy places. I presented the ‘development economics for health’ solution which suggested that developers should create healthier places in all developments – not only high value schemes.
New development near Packington Estate, Islington, London.
The King’s Cross Central regeneration project is one of the largest in London and Europe at 67 acres.(1) This exciting development is opening up a part of the city which may be well known to locals but, until recently, was largely hidden to the millions of people who pass through King’s Cross and St Pancras stations weekly. With new homes, jobs, restaurants and public spaces, this development offers multiple ways of improving health and wellbeing in the local community. Continue reading “Health and wellbeing at King’s Cross”
