This article actually reads quite a bit like a manifesto so it’s hard and perhaps a disservice to the author to try summarizing it, but let’s highlight a few points. In Reinventing our cities as constructed ecosystems, Ken Yeang, a Malaysian architect who describes himself as “ecologist first, architect second,” considers the various systems human society is built on, especially the natural ones, and what we need to change in facing the climate crisis.
Very short post since there isn’t that much to say yet about the project and I haven’t looked into potential pushback (this replaces the infamous Sidewalk labs plan which looked good but was very problematic). But for now this new version of Toronto’s Quayside project, which includes a design for a mass-timber building covered in plants, certainly looks fantastic. So have a look at the vision, perhaps we’ll revisit later.
With industrialization, and then globalization, most cities in North America and Europe have moved away from local manufacturing. This has resulted in a disconnect between making and citizens, much like the disconnect with nature, and the animals we eat. As a “consequence manufacturing only takes a little role in the urban life in European cities today, shifting the focus on services rather than production.” That’s a problem on multiple levels and there are good reasons to bring back more local manufacturing, not the least of which being resilience.
Trying things out, observing the results, learning from them, adjusting, trying again. A loop of learning and progressions that can be used at all scales, from personal projects to… cities. In this case, Singapore uses such a methodical approach to becoming a net-zero city.
When we hear the word “regenerative” for cities, the economy, or agriculture, it’s different from “sustainable” but too often said as if it were just the new, cooler version. As this piece at Matters Journal shows, it’s much more than a new word; regenerative needs to be the new sustainable because “we are already over or close to breaching many of the nine planetary boundaries being anxiously monitored by scientists around the globe. It means that doing no harm is no longer going to cut it.”
