Creating sustainable places

Masterplanning and urban design

London, 20th November 2008

Tim Stonor

Summary
My presentation approaches the subject of sustainable urban masterplanning by discussing the twin issues of “people-first” planning and collaborative practice. To illustrate my argument I will draw on examples from Space Syntax’s recent work, including large masterplanning projects in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Sao Paulo, Brazil as well as smaller projects, closer to home, at the Elephant & Castle.

We are what we eat…
The quality of advice provided by masterplanners and, ultimately, the sustainability of the built outcome, is as much the product of our education, inter-professional relations and working cultures as it is any individual talent. The deep structures of our universities, memberships and working cultures have a profound influence on personal processes of reasoning and acting. We are what we are fed – in the classroom, at the conference and around the meeting table. And what could be wrong with that? The problem, too often, is that the outcomes of our actions fail to deliver the aspirations of our intentions. New towns, planned to create fresh economies away from war-damaged cities, fail to thrive. Housing estates, designed to engender community, sink into no-go squalor. Relief roads, built to ease congestion, instead encourage more of us to drive. Clad in fitness gear, we become increasingly obese. Function, it seems, follows our rather poor form.

But we know all this, don’t we? Or do we? Is the current round of housebuilding healing the mistakes of previous generations? Are we now building local movement economies that reduce carbon emissions by providing jobs closer to home, shops on our urban doorsteps? Apparently not, otherwise we wouldn’t fear the creation of future slums in the new, “high-density, mixed-use” redevelopments of our cities.

People first, buildings second…
Pressed to explain the unintended outcomes of planning and design, the professions have, at worst, blamed the “customer” for not using their buildings and public spaces properly. A few, inspired by Jane Jacobs and William H Whyte have taken the time to understand the customer, working with them to produce plans that put people first, buildings second.

Bill Hillier’s research at University College London, has uncovered knowledge about the relationship between spatial network design and human behaviour that, applied back into design, can militate against the risk of failure. Experience from the past twenty years shows how masterplanning practice can be informed by space syntax’s focus on human activity, in particular the patterns of movement that are the lifeblood of towns and cities and that shape the densities of social interaction, crime and land value found therein.

Confrontation or collaboration…
However, there is a second core problem. As well as looking at the users of the places and the systems of space that they occupy, we need to examine the people that plan and design such places in the first place. When we do so, we find pervasive, “silo” structures in which people fail to communicate with each other: planners with architects; academics with practitioners. This begins in our universities, where we are largely educated apart. We emerge, mostly ignorant of the disciplines alongside which we will be required to work. In practice, we work through such impediments in different ways: avoidance or confrontation being the most common. In avoidance mode, we partition the work: “You do the road and I’ll do the buildings”. Confrontation creates a competition of the egos – whichever captures the client’s heart survives. Neither approach is satisfactory since the results of both often fall short of the social and economic results that policies desire.

New initiatives offer a fresh direction for a more collaborative form of future practice. The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) is sponsoring “UrbanBuzz”, a major attempt to de-silo practice. Similarly, the UK Academy of Urbanism has developed a programme of “UniverCities” in which, like UrbanBuzz, people from the public, private, community and educational sectors are encouraged to come together around local projects. It is early days for both but the experience of each is encouraging.

The need for change…
One measure of success will be when people-first, collaborative working methods are the norm, not the exception. For this to happen, professional cultures need to change - in education and in practice. We should not underestimate what this means. It means architects caring about traffic engineering; seeing retail as a positive act of humanity. Surveyors understanding the basics of design. Academics not fearing the ugly face of the outside world. Professionals admiring researchers and embracing new knowledge. All parties not fearing the change that must happen to make the outcome of the masterplanning process truly sustainable.