Responsible Design

Residential is probably the sector with highest environmental impact, due to its direct and indirect implications: use of land (deforestation) spread of utilities (energy, water, waste) conditioning certain lifestyles (for example: long distances and consumerism)… Focusing only on the construction sector, the high reliance on other industries such as material providers (steel, wood, ceramic), machinery, technology, workforce, sums a huge impact on the production of a country and its environmental footprint.

cycle

Urban planning’s social impact is also huge being a tool able to zone and discriminate or mix and integrate. It can also provide public facilities for free common use or restrain properties to private uses. While it is clear that maintenance of private properties is private, public facilities are more complex: Involving public workers but also private business and the former citizens. We will analyze this with three examples of the city of Madrid: The parks of Madrid Rio and Valdebebas, and the urban plan of Azca.

Society and over all decision makers, have to be educated on urban impacts and implications in order for them to distinguish real effective solutions from science fiction projects that promise sustainability and development but trigger environmental or social disasters. It is essential to use critical thinking and analyze apart from the benefits, the entire cycle of the project in order to value its efficiency. In this matter, the life span of the project is the most important parameter to take into account in regard of the maintenance costs, added to the initial investment of its creation.

Madrid Rio 2006 – 2011   (101 hectares)

By burying the high way underground, an extensive degraded area has been recovered, but the design is very artificial demanding a constant high maintenance effort.

“It is a great entertainment area for the capital but it risks falling into abandonment due to its high cost” Edelmiro Rúa , president of  Colegio de Ingenieros.

Madrid’s major established a contract with Urbaser for 41.6 millions until 2014. (866.000 E per month, around 250 workers) After, a new contract for the next 8 years with ‘UTE Parques Singulares’ was signed for 111 million regarding maintenance of this park and other 7. This halved the number of workers,  which led to strikes. Still there are 2,5 workers per hectare, while in park Juan Carlos I y Juan Pablo II, there are 0,95 and 0,59.

Artifcial Design: demands higher maintenance, more vulnerable to degradationparks

-Species planted: If the species chosen are able to survive in the wilderness under the zone’s climate and soil conditions they will need less maintenance than those that are more vulnerable to the climate and demand a higher amount of water and specific nutrients. For example maintenance of grass in Madrid is a major issue, there is a need of implementing new less-water-demanding species of grass.

– The care of the vegetation demanded by design: This is for example geometrical designs in shaping bushes or in flower patches that obviously need constant mending.

->Degraded vegetation areas dissuade citizens from using these spaces becoming a fail public project.

On counterpart to artificial designs we can find the following example:

Valdebebas 2007-2015 (470 hectares)

Maintenance cost per year: 1,5 millions of euros. (almost 12 times less  with 4 times more land than  Madrid Rio)

The design of this space was performed according to environmental sustainability guidelines, using native species, resilient in the city and recreating characteristic ecosystems of the interior of the Iberian Peninsula. We should also take note that part of this park is considered forest so it is expected to follow its natural cycle and demand no maintenance. There are also public patches for growing vegetables which creates a win-win relationship between the gardens and the citizens that will be involved in its maintenance.

It is true though, that the fact that Madrid Rio’s park is inserted in a city landscape and means to connect effectively parts of the city while providing security (visibility, night lights), makes it more difficult to implement such a natural design as Valdebebas which blends with the natural scape of the metropolitan area.  Anyways, an in-depth previous cycle-analysis could have helped diminish its artificiality.

Stepping away from parks, public paved spaces are also very affected by uses and the detriment of maintenance, incurring into social issues.

AZCA 1964-1975

azca2Abbreviation for: Asociación Mixta de Compensación de la Manzana A de la Zona Comercial del Paseo de la Castellana.  Also known as Madrid’s first skyline and one of the most important commercial and business sectors in the city.

Antonio Perpiñá won the 1954 international tinder with a design inspired in the Rockefeller center of New York. The purpose of the plan was to build a huge office block with a total separation between road traffic, which would be buried, and pedestrian circulation in the surface, with a large railway station. The project underwent several reforms until its final approval in 1964.

What in the beginning of 80’s was a public-space triumph serving the business and commercial scene during the day and a high-standard clubbing scene during the night,  turned out  to be one of the most degraded spaces with highest criminality rate in downtown Madrid.

Problems:

-The underground road was cancelled into a pedestrian walk, so the initial high flow rate projected for this area was significantly reduced leading to isolation, affecting citizen security. The lack of this road along with the design at different levels makes it more difficult for the public cleaning services to access frequently leading to a fast degradation.

-The labyrinthine design due to the structure pillars from towers above along with deterioration of many of the needed nightlights created a dark criminal paradise. Adding to this, due to these issues nightlife lowered its quality but not its activity and keeps fouling the space.

vitruvio

 

To conclude mentioning one of the great fathers of architecture:

Roman author and architect/civil engineer Vitruvius (1st century BC) stated in his all-time referential guide-line ‘De Architectura’  three main principals:

Urban planning designs the course of humanity and it has been dangerously trivialized without regarding its consequences.  It’s utterly important to re-design a more sustainable future for the world.


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