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Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy |
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URBAN ECOLOGYBY PETER NEWMAN
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URBAN
ECOLOGY
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ENVIRONMENTAL
PLANNING
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TASK
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All environmental tasks in one
locality.
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One environmental task in all
localities.
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FOCUS
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Individual building or collection of
buildings.
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Individual task by subject and sector, eg
automobile dependence.
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TIMING
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Solutions are all together.
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Solutions are one at a time
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CHARACTER
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Solutions are unique, imaginative,
intuitive, visionary
and very local.
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Solutions are general, rational and based
on scientific documentation and universal commonsense.
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TRADITION
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Architectural utopian urban planning
tradition, eg Ebenezer Howard's Garden Cities.
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Engineering technohygienic tradition, eg
Haussman's Paris.
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PHILOSOPHY
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Efforts take place in a 'life' world
relating to the human moment in time. It is both pre-modern (non intentional)
and post-modern (intends to be non intentional).
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Efforts take place in a 'system' world
relating to a universal time. It is modern (intentional)
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APPROACH
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Uses design alone
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Uses implementing techniques, eg policy
levers, economic instruments, audits and life cycle analysis.
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SCALE
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Small and local
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Large and global
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INVOLVEMENT
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Grass roots (bottom up)
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Civic involvement (top down)
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INNOVATION
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Practical experiments that are never
completed; tinkering.
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Demonstration projects;
research.
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INFLUENCE
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Contributes to cultural
change.
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Contributes to social change.
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Table 1 Overview of the differences between urban ecology and environmentally sound planning, based on Jensen (1994)
Jensen says the difference is one of doing many little stories as opposed to doing major global ones. Although the global approach has had centre stage he says that there is 'a clear trend for the little stories to take the floor'.
The measures of interest that urban ecology would like to see in any new building or urban project, are:
Jensen (1994 p354) says that:
'In practice these efforts are based on combining a number of tested and untested techniques in new and frequently creative ways and adapting them to conditions in the locality'.
PHOTO 2. A
demonstration of urban ecology in this inner city Copenhagen
retirement home
for economists; it features solar water heating, solar air heating,
and rainwater is collected and
used for the common laundry, garden and toilet flushing.
Across Denmark there is a proliferation of these urban ecology projects which Jensen describes as 'a mixture of design and tinkering'. They are part of a long history in Denmark of architectural experimentation and indeed the ecological motivation is easily traced to a series of events and encampments in the early 70's, especially the Christiania commune in Copenhagen, which is still actively experimenting with urban ecology (and is now one of Denmark's top tourist attractions). The cohousing movement in Denmark is also one of the expressions of urban ecology (McKamant and Duret, 1988) and is where a lot of the experimentation continues. These Danish experiments are set out in this case study below.
PHOTO 3. Ole Michael Jensen at his co-housing home in Copenhagen.
The distinction between urban ecology and environmentally sound planning, as set out above, is a useful one but as Jensen says this dispute is not new; urban planners have always been divided between two camps: one dominated by architects with their insistence on just addressing the local and only using design as their tool, and the other by engineers with their insistence on more global and scientific solutions. Troy (1996) suggests in a deprecatory tone, that 'scientific environmentalism' is the problem with approaches that end up suggesting city form needs to be more compact.
However, the differences are not quite so water tight as suggested by Jensen. It is entirely possible to have global, urban systems changes such as reducing automobile dependence or creating more water-sensitive cities, that also require visionary and imaginative solutions. These approaches can use all the large scale policy levers and economic instruments, but which also can be integrated into the local ecological solutions of urban ecology. The approach of this book is to try to integrate the global and the local because they need each other.
The sustainable city of the future which integrates transport and water management into land use management (ie environmentally sound planning), can also be used to integrate all the other areas of urban ecology mentioned by Jensen above. In order to do this, it will require all the ingenuity of the urban ecologist and all the skills of the environmental engineer and planner.
Building energy. The focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy in buildings has developed rapidly since the 1973 oil crisis. Urban ecologists across the world have found all kinds of ingenious ways to create better buildings which use less fossil fuels. One of the key findings is that if buildings are joined together they save a great deal more energy, ie dense, compact buildings will add an extra dimension to the energy story of not only saving transport fuel but saving building energy. Troy (1996) suggests that dense buildings take more energy because of the large amount of materials required. However, embodied energy is only a small part of the on-going energy used in buildings. For instance, the amount of transport energy used is largely dependant on the placement of buildings.
The ability to save energy by bringing buildings together is achieved through a shared insulating effect - the fact that waste heat from one house can help to heat its neighbours. It is in many ways a symbol of how communities work in a city to create a better use of resources than if individuals are by themselves. It is also a message to urban ecologists that their inventions in individual dwellings can be transferred in a more global way if a community is built around their idea. Thus engineers and planners can take these ideas and find out how they can better be used to raise standards in all new development and thus encourage the more extensive community-wide processes of sustainability.
On the other hand, an individual urban ecologist could develop a low energy house sitting by itself in all its ecological splendour but do nothing for the community and also not be as good itself because it is not attached to others. This imagery of the need for urban ecologists and environmental planners to work together will be pursued further in the other elements of urban ecology.
Recycling. Recycling of household waste and building waste requires things to happen in the individual household or in the design of buildings, but it also requires things to happen in the local community in order for processing to occur and markets to be created. Thus urban ecologists are needed to show how we can separate waste and make compost, and how we can design buildings with low waste/recycled materials. But then the environmental engineer is needed to collect these recycled materials and other waste and do something with them for the local community.
In the past, the technohygienic engineer mostly dug a big hole and buried solid waste, especially in Auto cities where it is very expensive to have to collect solid waste due to so much scattered land use. But in European and Asian cities which are more compact, there has been a long tradition of recycling. Garbage has been burnt for power and heat or turned into compost, and materials such as paper, metal and glass have always been recycled at quite high rates. It is the Auto City where it became standard for solid waste to be just collected and dumped.
PHOTO 4. Recycling is part of each apartment block in Copenhagen.
In European cities recycling is heavily supported in high density apartments where everything required for recycling is just a short walk from each door. Troy (1996) argues that large residential blocks are needed for recycling in order to have space for composting. This is a very limited view as it assumes that people can only do composting as an individual household task. Collections of buildings can have neighbourhood composting and can share in the tasks of managing it.
In order to change the Auto City so there is more recycling, it will be necessary to do urban ecology experiments in all parts of the city, to be more ingenious with solid waste. But it will also require community-scale solutions to be worked out by engineers. This is a process that is well under way in Auto cities due to the sheer pressure of ordinary householders wanting to do something for the environment. However, if OECD data can be relied on, Auto cities in Australia and the US have a long way to go to catch up to other parts of the world.
PHOTO 5. Transport costs are a large reason why recycling rates are low in Auto Cities.
Localised sub-centres should be better able to organise solid waste management, particularly local composting systems, as part of a recycling system. Collection can be more efficient due to shorter travel distances in the compact centre and then recycling can be integrated into the ecological functions of the community operating in the less compact parts of the urban village. Urban ecologists and environmental engineers would have more opportunities to develop localised recycling systems in this kind of city. The advantages are multiplied many times when, as shown below, the other urban ecological issues are integrated into this approach.
Urban agriculture Within urban villages it is also possible to develop new community-based approaches to open space and urban agriculture, such as outlined by the UNDP (1996) and as expressed in community permaculture. This new food production system is based on a more diverse, ecological approach to agriculture which is more sustainable. Again, permaculture can be conducted in individual backyards, but it is not the only way, nor is it even the best way. It appears to work much better if it is based around the diverse skills and commitments of a local community, rather than an individualised approach on each household block. Many European cities with their extensive community gardens or allotments are already models of this and have shown a lot of interest in Permaculture.
We have suggested the permaculture approach should be an important orientation for improving the sustainability of small country towns (Lindeggar and Tap, 1994; Newman, 1991). It will also be very important for big cities, particularly when urban water begins to be managed more locally, raising the need to absorb nutrient-rich water in local situations. At present the average environmental engineer cannot imagine how this can be done. They can only see how to solve sewerage problems by big pipes. Urban ecologists are going to be needed to experiment with localised sewerage linked to community permaculture before water engineers' perceptions will be changed. Then when they see that it works, they will be able to take some of this 'tinkering' at the building level and scale it up to be viable at the community-scale. This is the skill of the engineer. Thus the visionary urban ecologist and the technohygienic environmental engineer can together help create the more sustainable city of the future.
At present, there are very few examples of this scaling up process happening, but there are many examples of household-scale urban ecology experiments. In Fremantle, a community park has been refurbished as a model of permaculture and community art. The water supply for the new diverse ecosystem is coming from the three surrounding houses whose gray water is filtered and then trickled through the different levels of the park. The King William Street Park is now a very attractive and productive piece of urban land in a dense inner city location. It is managed by local volunteers (Stocker and Barnett, 1998).
PHOTO 6. King
William Community Park in Fremantle is a permaculture
garden that uses 'grey water' from the
surrounding houses for trickle irrigation.
This permaculture park has been an important community building exercise, but most importantly, it has been a successful experiment in urban ecology as it has shown Australian environmental engineers that it is possible to recycle gray water. Up until this project it was not allowed and this urban ecology experiment gained permission only under great pressure and with extreme suspicion being expressed. Now it needs to be scaled up to take a larger proportion of local waste water which can be used to upgrade a larger piece of open space with permaculture.
Urban nature. As outlined above, in this new kind of city, development should increase densities around nodal centres to reduce automobile dependence and should reduce density in other areas where natural ecological areas are important. Thus urban nature areas can be created and maintained by local communities. The most eco-sensitive areas are usually along water courses and hence drains and concrete creeks can be given back some of their ecological integrity.
Local open space systems can also be designed to provide wildlife corridors through the city along such water-courses. A Zurich creek runs several kilometers through the city and is a haven for birds and many aquatic species.
PHOTO 7. This creek in Zurich was once a covered drain but has been reclaimed as a natural watercourse.
Other green wedges can be provided through extensive landscaping along roads. This approach is not only useful for traffic calming, but it becomes part of the urban ecology.
Most of the examples of creatively bringing nature back into the city have come from small groups of private urban ecologists who lobbied city governments and often (like in Berkeley) even provided the labour to dig up the drains and create the new slow-flow conditions in the creek. But once demonstrated it is up to the municipal environmental engineers to further implement this in other parts of the city. Thus once again the partnership is needed.
New Suburbs The Sustainable City model tends to emphasise the importance of redeveloping our cities rather than any further fringe development. However, wherever it is necessary those new suburbs can also be designed with a community focus and small scale technology that provides for local management. Such ecology-oriented urban villages are now the preferred development option for environmentally sensitive fringe locations in Perth and in other Australian cities (Landmarc, 1992). They are using urban ecology inventions and extending them through engineering and planning to a new community.
Most of these new communities are still not compact enough for them to have much transit or pedestrian quality but they are better than traditional suburbs. Similar developments are found in the US in some of the New Urbanism developments such as Kentlands outside Washington which are neo-traditional in design but have no transit due to their location on the urban fringe. Even worse are the Gated Communities (see Blakely, 1994) which often have many urban ecological features but are only for the very wealthy and so they have deliberately ensured there is no transit service. They do not wish to be joined to most other parts of their city because in their perception this enhances the possibility of crime. Thus they are 'ecological' but are totally auto-dependent.
Local community: the integrating force The factor which joins together the urban ecology approach and the environmental planning approach, is the local community focus. Although it is possible to engage in environmentally sound planning which is highly removed and technocratic, we suggest that this will, in the end, be counterproductive. As shown in many ways throughout this case study, any environmental goal needs to be localised if it is to be sustainable.
But urban ecology is also not automatically going to be of use to local communities either. It is possible to have urban ecology projects which are highly individualistic and do nothing to help create a better local community. If urban ecology is elitist it will not be sustainable. It will serve only to create a better world for the few who, if they follow the trend to US gated communities, will do nothing for transit or the inner city or any other part of the city. They will just be hiding while others suffer the impacts of the deteriorating urban environment. The global (ie outside the individual) is important. Urban ecology, like all the visionary ideas of architects, will ultimately be tested by what it can do for the broader community in the city.
The key first steps in sustainable city planning are to provide the transit corridors and the sites of urban villages and begin to enable communities to enter into the local processes of sustainable urban management. The experiments and the visions are an essential part of the process. Demonstration transit-oriented urban villages with all the ecological and water sensitive aspects in their design are an important part of 90's and 21st century sustainable city policy.1
Some of the most innovative urban ecology approaches are occurring in Europe, especially in Denmark, and here the best examples are a combination of urban ecology and a more global environmentally sound planning.
Denmark and some other Northern European countries are leading the world in terms of implementing urban ecology. Numerous projects and programs ranging from individual buildings to entire municipalities aim to transform settlements towards sustainability. This applies equally to inner city areas, suburbs, small towns and rural villages.
The examples given here are from the inner city, middle suburbs and urban fringe. Many more examples of Danish urban ecology can be found in the book "A Guide to Urban Ecology in Copenhagen" by the Danish Town Planning Institute (Munkstrap and Lindberg, 1996). It contains 45 examples across the city and to be a part of the Guide the development needed to show most of the following characteristics:
There are obviously other characteristics which are found in particular developments. Some of them and the best overall approaches are summarised below.
There are a number of projects in inner Copenhagen and other inner city areas which are described as 'ecological urban renewal'. In these the process of renewing buildings, which is of course an ongoing process in the city, has involved some additional components.
Oster Faelled is a private infill development of 500 flats which includes large underground tanks for collecting rainwater for gardens, water efficient taps and toilets, energy efficient lighting, electronic meters for each flat, and district heating.
BO 90 is an inner city ecological cohousing project in Norrebro which, along with common laundry, freezer and recreation facilities, it has an electronic control room for water and energy, a roof length solar air panel for supplementing space heating and water heating, double pipes for recycling gray water (not yet functioning due to regulations!), stored rainwater for flushing toilets and for gardens, composting and a common area of fruit trees.
Korsgade 20 is an infill building which is built entirely of recycled bricks, timber and tiles with recycled concrete for foundations, as part of a Danish EPA experiment.
Many inner city apartment complexes are being renovated with their balconies enclosed by glass which conserves energy and most have special areas for stormwater to be percolated to the aquifer rather than running into drains.
Baldersgade 20-22 was occupied by squatters before a foundation purchased the building so that they could continue to live there on the condition they helped to renovate it. This has happened together with an innovative gray water recycling system that purifies the water in the cellar (through a biofilter, a charcoal filter and UV disinfection) before pumping the water back to be used for flushing toilets.
Christiania is a social experiment which is one of the best known examples of urban ecology. The group took over unused military land in the centre of Copenhagen in 1970 and have slowly been becoming a more legitimate part of the city ever since. They are one of Denmark's top tourist attractions. The 800 or so residents pay a small sum to be part of the collective and share in the management of the small city within a city (see chapter 7 for a further discussion of Christiania).
PHOTO 8 Christiania
is the community which has done most to dramatise
urban ecology since it took over a military
site in central Copenhagen in 1970.
Many of the collective functions in Christiania are ecological. There is an active recycling centre which collects and sorts construction waste from the city and sells it cheaply to residents building or restoring homes on the site. Rainwater is collected at the recycling centre and all other large buildings on the site, and is used for toilets, a collective laundry and the collective solar heated bathhouse. There are groups who monitor and advise on water conservation and on energy conservation. Factories in Christiania now produce their own models of bikes (including a freight bike for large parcels or several children) and wood burning stoves. All are now popular in Denmark and are thus a major source of revenue for the community.
Glass Pyramid Perhaps the most spectacular of the Danish inner city urban ecology projects is in the regional town of Kolding. Here a run-down inner city block of some 145 apartments (in 5 storey traditional buildings) with an enclosed courtyard, was transformed by a process that not only renewed the houses but created a beautiful water recycling system based on a 'glass pyramid'.
PHOTO 9. The neighbourhood in Kolding before 'ecological urban renewal'.
The waste water from the complex is first treated by a small scale primary and secondary waste treatment plant located underground, then the water which still contains some organic matter and most of its nutrients, is pumped to the glass pyramid using photovoltaic cells and a battery. Once in the pyramid water passes into a series of ponds on the ground floor containing first algae, then plankton animals and finally a fish pond complete with aquatic plants that absorb much of the remaining material; water is then pumped to the top of the pyramid where it trickles down over trays containing 15,000 plants that when grown are sold to a local nursery. Inside the pyramid is like an exotic greenhouse.
PHOTO 10. Inside the glass pyramid.
The water then passes out to a small wetland before it is allowed to run down a cascade to form a small creek through the common gardens and a children's water playground.
PHOTOS 11 and 12. The cascade and water playground at Kolding.
This water is mixed with rainwater collected from the roofs and stored in an underground cistern. After it has been aerated through the cascade and creek this water is used for toilets and washing machines in the buildings. Any excess water is percolated to the groundwater.
The complex also has solarised its buildings, has a solid waste recycling centre complete with a worm composting unit (that also takes sludge from the treatment process), and a community garden. The project was a partnership between the community and the local government whose engineers and planners are keen to make Kolding a global leader in city sustainability.
PHOTOS 13 and 14. Solarised buildings and worm composting system of Kolding.
The suburbs examined here were built in the 1960's and 1970's in the Danish dense-low tradition, ie no high rise but little emphasis on isolated single-family homes, instead houses of two and three stories are clustered around common courtyards and open space. At a density of around 35 per hectare this is lower than most European urban development, but is still a lot more compact than Auto City suburbs of around 10 per hectare.
The examples are all taken from the Municipality of Albertslund. This municipality of 30,000 people won the European Sustainable City award from the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives for 1996. It has a range of projects but four in particular will be mentioned.
This neighbourhood of 390 houses was built as a social housing project in the 1970's.
PHOTO 15. Public space joins low rise social housing in Hyldespjaeldet.
In 1989 the community decided they wanted to do something to integrate urban ecology into their present suburb. They began small by building a shared chicken coop on public land, managed by 10 families to take all their green waste and provide sufficient eggs for all. Although it took some time and agony for the Municipality to approve it, the idea of people working together on an ecological project was recognised as very worthwhile. The idea really caught on (particularly among the children) and now there are 400 similar cooperative chicken coops in the Municipality.
PHOTO 16. The
original chicken coop in Hyldespjaeldet which started the public doing
things together and led to many
other ecological projects.
Next, a group of people set up a recycling depot which hand sorts waste delivered by the community into 48 different fractions. All organic waste goes into household composting bins or to chickens. There has been a 40% reduction in waste being removed and the profits have gone into their community centre built at the recycling depot.
PHOTOS 17 and 18. The recycling centre and a compost bin in Hyldespjaeldet.
Then another group established a community vegetable garden on a rented 2.5 ha site and other groups established children's nature playgrounds and the local school was converted into a School of Culture and Ecology.
PHOTO 19. The community vegetable garden in Hyldespjaeldet.
The result has not only been a better environment with reduced metabolic flows of resources and waste, it is also a much stronger community. Most people are part of one of the different ecological groups. None of these activities have been done in backyards but are now part of what it means to live in Hyldespjaeldet. In the early days the suburb had a very high turnover in residents as it is a relatively poor area and there is nothing very special about the design or the buildings themselves which are prefabricated. However, now it is a different story and the annual turnover has reduced from 40% to 16%. The implications for reduced transportation were confirmed in an evaluation of Danish urban ecology projects which found Hyldespjaeldet to have 30% less car ownership than a similar 'control' middle suburb, 50% lower vehicle kilometres travelled per year and 15% fewer car trips; in fact 74% of the households in Hyldespjaeldet live in a 'car-free' way, ie they have less than 10% of their trips by car (Scheurer, 1998).
This local community centre was established by the Municipality and the State to provide information to communities on sustainability. It employs 5 people who go into each of the 65 neighbourhoods of Albertslund to help the community develop projects like in Hyldespjaeldet or to develop a local traffic plan (traffic calming, cycle plans, car pools and commoncars for rent, as well as suggested transit improvements) or to speak at schools.
PHOTO 20. Inside Albertslund's Agenda 21 Centre in Hyldespjaeldet.
The Centre also runs an Ecological Cafe with only organic food. People come to this place for information and to talk about environmental issues. It is involved in advocacy for local communities and helps in the Green Accounting process.
PHOTO 21. Ecological Cafe in Hyldespjaeldet.
The Municipality have provided each year since 1993 a set of green accounts for all of their 65 neighbourhoods. These consist of the per household consumption of water, electricity, gas, heat, and the calculated CO2 from all energy. Some travel data are also provided. Each neighbourhood then discusses the data in public meetings which are run by the Agenda 21 Centre. No legal or financial pressure is used by the Municipality, just moral pressure. And with the encouragement of the Agenda 21 Centre and awareness of which neighbourhood is doing best, the people themselves come up with all kinds of suggestions as to how the metabolic flows in their area could be reduced.
Each year since 1993 there has been a reduction in the energy and water use by almost all neighbourhoods, some have been quite sharp reductions.
The Green accounts are also done for all Municipality buildings and functions, and all industries with each of them being discussed internally. As well, a list of all pesticides used in the borders of the Municipality is provided; no pesticides are used by the Municipality itself.
PHOTOS 22 and 23. Green accounting in Albertslund showing each neighbourhood and how well they compare with others and the previous year.
Green Accounting is simultaneously addressing the global needs of sustainability and facilitating local urban ecology. Other local governments in Europe are now starting to copy this innovation from Albertslund.
The Municipality has several innovations it is pushing to try and minimise the need to travel.
PHOTO 24. Bicycle path at Town Hall pond in Albertslund.
The Municipality has taken seriously its ability to help create markets for green products through its own purchasing program. Thus it only purchases goods and services that have at least received the ISO14,000 certification, whether it be paper, computers, graphic design firms, or food.2 The Danish government certification of organic food is quite strict and most supermarket products now have an organic option. Often the products are a little more expensive. The proposal to only purchase organic food in Albertslund's day care centres was opposed by teachers and parents, but after a trial period was found to be cheaper as they purchased less meat and had less wastage.
The Mayor of Albertslund, Finn Aaberg, who has overseen much of this move towards sustainability for the past 22 years, concluded that 'A people is not a people without a project, and this is ours.' They clearly are one of the global leaders in urban ecology and environmentally sound planning.
PHOTO 25. The mayor of Albertslund with the 1996 Sustainable City Award.
Other examples of urban ecology in Copenhagen's outer suburbs were examined for this book, eg in Ballerup and Hoje Taastrup. Although there is a lot of discussion in these suburbs, the actual projects on the ground are very thin. The suburbs built from the 1980's on are often lower in density and are poorly located in relation to transit access with US style car-dependent shopping malls. They thus have little evidence of community of the kind observed in Albertslund. It may just be a time factor but it may also be that the areas are too scattered and car-dependent for them to function other than by car. This, in our experience, no matter what the culture, means there is little opportunity for community to flourish. Some urban ecology is happening with chicken coops and permaculture but it has few signs of the dynamism evident in Albertslund.
The same pattern is found in the low density parts of Australian and US cities. Although the promise of urban ecology on the big block is there, the reality is much less. Urban ecology needs commitment and help from others. It needs a community approach to make it anything more than superficial. We find that the best examples of urban ecology are indeed occurring in inner city locations, rather than as Troy (1996) would suggest, in the areas where people have big blocks.
We find that public activity is minimised in the Auto City and in those parts of any city which have Auto City characteristics. It is just too hard to manage, other than for activities such as organised sport or church, which are based around individual households. More committed community development occurs only with enormous effort and is hard to sustain. Community for activities like urban ecology projects, seems to grow out of organic urbanism which seems to require a certain level of pedestrian contact or 'accidental interaction'.
The exceptions to this are where there is an 'intentional community' which provides a moral commitment binding people to work together. These, like the various cohousing projects in Denmark (eg the rural organic farm co-op Svanholm) are obviously creating community and generally it is around urban or rural ecology. One of these, Torup, is on the urban fringe of Copenhagen.
Torup is a small eco-village on the edge of Copenhagen. Like a lot of urban ecology experiments, the people who established Torup were driven by ecological and social ideals. They were therefore careful in choosing their site and were able to locate adjacent to a small regional rail line, thus making them less auto dependent than many eco-villages.
PHOTO 26. Torup housing on the outer fringe of Copenhagen.
The Torup village began in 1990 when the cooperative bought a 13 ha farm. 10 ha are still used for cooperative cultivation and the rest of the site has 30 houses and a village centre. Four houses are dome structures and one is earth covered.
The village is supplied with electricity from a windmill, all houses are well insulated with solar orientation and active solar heating.
PHOTO 27. Wind power supplies Torup with electricity.
Water is from bores and rainwater tanks. Waste water is treated by filtering it through a large earth mound. The village aims to become self-sufficient in food and jobs but is not there yet. Torup has minimal car use as it functions in a largely self-sufficient communal way and where travel is needed people generally use the train.
The community approach so critical to Torup, and so many of the other successful urban ecology projects discussed is not always present in Danish urban ecology. One project, Villa Vision, is the opposite as it tries to demonstrate how ecotechnology can enable people to lead completely isolated, self-sufficient lifestyles.
This example of Danish urban ecology is not as flattering as the others above. It is a development paid for by industry as a demonstration Eco-House of the future. This commitment from industry is very worthwhile and to be encouraged. The problem with Villa Vision is in its design values.
PHOTO 28. Villa Vision 'autonomous' house in Copenhagen.
Although its combined 'tinkering' probably fits the criteria of urban ecology, Villa Vision does not represent the kind of development which we would say helps make a sustainable city. The development is a 'Disneyland' style showpiece only. It is presented therefore to show how we need to do more than 'tinker'.
Villa Vision is a high technology eco-house designed to be self-sufficient in heating and electricity with minimal water consumption and emphasis on waste recycling.
PHOTO 29. Digital taps in Villa Vision.
It has solar cells, water taps which you program for the exact water required (one cup two cups etc), light sensors that turn off lights if there is no movement in a room, sensors that move outside shades (like petals around a flower) whenever the sun is too strong or open and close windows for programmed climate control. Its waste water system treats water through a root zone ecosystem.
PHOTO 30. The mound outside the house contains the waste water treatment system.
Villa Vision was lived in by a family and is now an office. It is not a livable environment as its circular shape reflects all sound inwards and so it is disconcertingly noisy. The small den used as the 'entertainment room' contains all the electronic forms of entertainment including CD stereo, TV and internet connected computer.
PHOTO 31. The lounge in the centre of Villa Vision.
Everything about the building suggests these would be well used. The design is not for a community setting. It is designed to sit in isolation and create an even greater opportunity for isolation. It is the ultimate in self-sufficiency.
Villa Vision is located today in the Danish Institute of Technology and is surrounded by a large car park.
PHOTO 32. Villa
Vision is located autonomous and sits in a carpark
- a tribute to technology developed withoput
community values.
It symbolises that urban ecology can be expressed as high tech 'tinkering' with the goal of creating self-sufficiency more for an elitist 'green' market than any broader goals of sustainability. If you want to escape the city and not have to interact with anyone other than electronically, if you want to avoid any civic responsibility at all, even the need to participate in a local community's infrastructure, then Villa Vision is the answer. This is not a global contribution to sustainability.
The importance of Villa Vision is that it shows how all technology, even green technology is subject to a set of values. It is not enough to say that urban ecology is post-modern and so is 'non intentional', as though this means that Villa Vision is as acceptable as the other developments described above. We need to have a more global understanding of what our technology is designed to do and we need to understand what this means for professional praxis and for personal and city ethics.
There are many urban ecology projects developing in US cities for example those summarised in Walter, Atkin and Crenshaw, 1992; Roelofs, 1996; in publications by the Institute of Local Self Reliance; by the US EPA in its 'Sustainability in Action' (Concern Inc, 1995), Context Institute, (1992) and the 'Sustainable Communities' report of the President's Council on Sustainable Development (1997), and in the Urban Ecology quarterly newsletter. Two examples given here are meant to represent something of the flavour of what is occurring, emphasising urban examples, as most of the effort so far has gone into small ecovillages.
One of the oldest examples of US urban ecology is Paolo Soleri's Arcosanti in Arizona. This unfinished dream is converting a mesa in the desert into a 21st century example of ecotechnology, solar-architecture and artistic expression. It is a prototype of what Soleri calls Arcology (architecture and ecology working together) for 5,000 people. It is a compact walking city with large scale solar greenhouses on 10 acres of a 4,000 acre preserve.
PHOTO 33. Arcosanti in Arizona, one of the few examples of North American urban ecology.
The US has a growing Eco-City movement spearheaded through groups such as Urban Ecology Inc. and Eco-City Builders. Some projects are attempting to put into practice the principles of ecological city design by constructing eco-villages within established urban areas.
One such project is Eco-Village at Ithaca. This project is set on an agricultural parcel of land on a ridge above the medium-sized city of Ithaca in New York State and has strong ties to Cornell University through the people involved in it. The aim is to develop a small urban settlement by building a series of tightly clustered houses and community facilities which occupy only about one-tenth of the site, thus preserving the rich agricultural land for productive uses (actually a key aim of the overall project was to buy agricultural land and to protect it from traditional sprawling development). Remote work opportunities will exist through community-based electronic work stations included in the common facilities. Much of the construction is complete. The settlement will attempt to use a range of environmental technologies for energy, water and waste treatment, though difficulties with the city authorities and traditional urban development practices are considerable (eg opposition to the idea of not connecting to the main sewer system and established ideas about access road standards etc).
One of the sustainability problems which does face the development (and others like it such as Arcosanti in the Arizona desert near Phoenix), is their relative remoteness and lack of a transit service and the need which most residents will experience to use cars on a regular basis for a lot of trips.
The innovation in the project is as much social as physical however, with some of the biggest problems being associated with joint decision-making and negotiation about critical decisions facing the community. There has been an effort to change some of the patterns of typical urban life away from privatized ways of doing things towards a communal approach. The communal facilities, for example, include a common kitchen area and a roster for preparing communal meals.
Such projects are a drop in the ocean compared to the massive urban sprawl that is occurring on the fringes of US metropolitan areas. However, they are fledgling, pioneering exercises which will hopefully help to bring a more ecological approach to urban development into the mainstream and to integrate ecological settlements into the heart of urban areas and not just on the fringes of cities.
Australia has few examples of urban ecology. It has developed technology to enable houses to be located in areas outside of cities and be self sufficient, however, transport energy is usually high.
PHOTOS 34 and 35. Ex urban autonomous houses in Australia.
There is also an autonomous self sufficient house in the centre of Sydney which has been fitted out to show how it is possible to live like Villa Vision envisioned. It claims to be a 'sustainable house'.
PHOTOS 36, and 37. Michael Mobbs autonomous house in Sydney. Is it sustainable?
The obvious place for self sufficiency is in remote pastoral situations, aboriginal out stations and eco-tourist developments. Here the technology is appropriate. But is it right for cities? Can the examples from Denmark offer more of a clue where demonstrations of urban ecology should be explored?
PHOTOS 38, 39 and 40. Remote settlement urban ecology in Australia.
In the interim period there is a strong movement to create demonstration eco-technology educational facilities in Australia. One is at Fairbridge farm outside of Perth and another is in the environmental technology centre at Murdoch University.
PHOTOS 41 and 42.
Fairbridge Farm outside of Perth is being developed
as an eco-village with demonstration urban
ecology technology.
PHOTOS 43 and 44.
Environmental Technology Centre at Murdoch University
has demonstrations of permaculture,
solar and wind power, waste treatment and recycling systems, etc.
This wind turbine generates about 5 kW hrs/day on average and this is used to power a submersible pump which pumps groundwater up from about 16 metres depth into the large storage tank.
Numerous projects ranging from backyard to municipal/industrial scales are running on site. Shown here is a low-maintenance, low-cost ablution facility developed by RADG. The system promotes water conservation with water efficient appliances in use throughout, and the toilet, laundry and shower all discharge their effluent into the Downmus wet composting tank.
Questions
1. Top Down demonstration projects can create a context in which urban ecology can flourish. In Australia the Better Cities program provided money for such demonstrations but did not involve a simultaneous 'bottom up' component of innovations from the community. There is no reason why this could not have been tried, especially with invited design competitions and awards for experimental ecological houses. Similarly, an innovative design project in Melbourne on urban villages described in chapter 4 (Energy Victoria et al, 1996) would be far better if were to have facilitated more urban ecology. And the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Village which has been designed with ecological principles by Greenpeace could have benefited by returning to some grass roots innovation (Greenpeace Australia, 1993).
2. ISO14,000 is a World Trade Organisation standard for the production and labelling of 'green' products; it is potentially a powerful tool in the sustainability agenda.
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