In the past few weeks, I have been interested in the commons, co-housing, and combating loneliness (as well as researching for our nomoregas campaign). The interest spiked after we started a little experiment I want to write about here.
I live with my family in a shared ownership flat, in a newish building close to the Regent’s Canal. The building, designed by Davy Smith Architects, is a combination of a one-storey parterre (a low block that hosts all the commercial units and the entrances to the building) and three 4-or-5-storey elements sitting on it, about 15 metres from one another. The building’s shape leaves two elevated gardens (the roofs of the parterre) between the three blocks of flats. As residents, we have access to one of these gardens, that were intended as common spaces. Problem is, no one ever uses the gardens. The landscape is well kept, and there is a soft wood decking, so the design issues are not entirely apparent. My first interpretation explanation was that the massing and layout of the building itself didn’t work. Firstly, four flats have their main doors facing the gardens, so by using the garden you are getting very close to someone’s home; at least this is the feeling we get from the higher storeys: the space between the blocks is a sacred distance, custodian of a minimum degree of privacy. In reality, when you actually use the garden, this feeling disappears. The second point, there are about twenty flats facing the garden, so you really feel very much like on a theatre stage. But, this is also an advantage, like Jane Jacobs said and millions of Mediterranean mothers can testify. So, what was lacking, in reality?
Several years ago, I lived for a few months in Copenhagen, in a flat within a cooperative housing block. My landlady owned one of the largest flats, which had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, its own kitchen and living room. (Other flats shared some more fundamental services, like showers, in Denmark..). The building was a large 1900’s courtyard block with several entrances. The tenants shared a beautiful, enormous courtyard and most of the spaces on the ground floor: bicycles stores, offices with printers and screens, and most importantly kitchens and dining areas. They also shared the work required to maintain the grounds and the common areas. In the summer, most tenants or owners would eat in the courtyard on large wooden tables that were set out there for them. They would meet other tenants and mix as they like depending on whom they wanted to dine with.
So, back at our London shared garden, we decided to buy a table. Eventually we settled for cheap, extendable, IKEA wooden table that I bought for less than 150 pounds. I like that it’s a standard object.
Even though we’ve been living in the building for more than three years now, we only know about fifteen or eight neighbours and have significant conversations with five or six. Virtually no one from the block opposite ours, with which we share the common garden. We decided to test the table theory by initiating a common dinner. We sent very last-minute text messages on a Friday afternoon with the invitation to share a dinner that evening in the garden, on the new table. Everyone would bring something to eat or drink (I cooked pasta with vongole). Everyone would bring their own chairs (we haven’t yet bought any chairs).
Now the theatrical setting plays to our advantage: the windows facing onto the garden mean control from the flats to the gardens, but also vice versa. Young parents can leave their children asleep in the flats under the scrutiny of various kinds of monitors. This meant for some they could have an adult dinner for the first time in a while (definitely, something many of us are not used to anymore). Open air dinner without arranging nannies or concerns about the children getting bored, tired, not looked after; no need to arrange travelling. It was a great success. Eight or nine people showed up, and we met for the first time with three of our neighbours we really liked.
Those who couldn’t make it knew that the table was for everyone to use. And during the dinner we discussed potential uses: we imagined people working from home, sharing a meal at lunch break and several more casual dinner encounters. We never gave instructions to anyone, though. And then left for the Easter holidays to Italy. While in Italy, we were invited to a party by another neighbour! The table started attracting some form of interest. And it also started moving around. Upon our return, we found two more chairs. Then those were gone..
ii.
During our holiday, I read a bit more about cohousing, sharing and other forms of co-living. In brief, the central point of the co-living experience is the dining table. Shared dining areas are usually heated rooms with large kitchens, often connected to other shared facilities. The practice of the shared dinner rotates around one or more fixed days when people know they will find others helping with the set-up and cleaning.
We don’t have a way of creating a shared dining room (yet), but perhaps for a few weeks, we can take advantage of the so-called British summer. We also wanted to test the efficacy of the fixed day, so we decided to propose a weekly dinner evening.
We’ll send the Tuesday for the Wednesday and Thursday – first-day flexibility. We will poll the fixed day, and start sharing responsibilities: for example sourcing chairs.
The aim of the social experiment is firstly to disguise the desire for food, company and wine as a social experiment. The second is to test the power of objects with an agency. Something we are reading about and we will investigate further in a future post.
During our recent reflection on ecological design and architects/urbanists’ role in society, we concluded that we should expand our agency by getting involved in issues we care about.
We also anticipated we would start with natural gas. Why gas? We care about the climate crisis and we care about peace. For several weeks now, we have been glued to the news cycle, hoping that the war would end. We have decided to at least try to do something: but what should we do?
Fossil fuels are at the intersection between climate crisis and geo-politics, therefore contributing to the transition to renewable energy will serve two purposes. After long reflection we decided to adopt a literal approach and accelerate the phasing out of natural gas from UK homes[1]. Gas boilers and hobs, gas meters and bills, risks related to carbon monoxide, gas safe certificates: the whole thing. If we manage to help one thousand homes transition away from gas, we will save thousands of tons of CO2 and at least symbolically work against the aggressor in Europe.
How?
We think the best way of getting rid of gas in homes is to provide unbiased, precise information on viable alternatives, especially for cases that are usually overlooked. A balanced investigation will not only help people who are already interested but could also help shape government policy towards embracing new opportunities. We call our research and campaign nomoregas (#nomoregas).
Now that we have a goal, we need a plan. First, we want to narrow the subject by examining the current energy technology landscape. We are looking for cases with the potential to transition that have been ignored so far for lack of technological solutions or creativity. Second, we will create an alliance with think tanks, experts and manufacturers to tap into the best knowledge and ensure accurate analysis. Third, we will test transition scenarios by checking costs and performances for the most promising technologies compared to business as usual. Finally, we will collect the data and produce a guide[2].
I. Weak points
Typically, the financial case for getting rid of gas boilers is more compelling in energy efficient buildings. For example, new-build homes will have to be gas-free from 2025. Those cases are so straightforward that we will not investigate further. The case is more difficult for existing buildings, which are complex, expensive and sometimes risky to insulate beyond a certain degree. The 7 million solid wall homes (any home built before the 1920’s) in the UK are very leaky on average[3], and there is little incentive to drive the almost revolutionary scale of retrofitting that would be necessary to significantly upgrade these buildings. Without incentives, retrofit projects are very expensive upfront and make financial sense only in the long run[4]. Pair that with a pretty much global tradition of subsidising fossil fuels, which make the advantages of retrofitting even less visible, and the outlook is grim. In conclusion, retrofitting a (solid wall) home is expensive, and existing homes are also where most of the poorest people live.
Of all the existing homes, we decided to focus on the single-family homes because they are usually overlooked compared social housing and higher-yield interventions. It’s quite clear that, unless there is a miraculous shift in policy, existing, uninsulated homes will be the last to transition to electric energy engines – as in fact it is confirmed by the current policy, which expects to phase out gas boilers in existing homes from 2035[5]. So, the aim of the study will be to find solutions to bring forward this date with only minimal intervention on the fabric (while we lobby for more incentives, of course). In other words, our working base case will be an existing home where a boiler needs replacing. The only incentive we will rely on is the broken gas boiler.
2. Finding case studies
We are now looking for easily comparable case studies to test new solutions and assumptions in the boiler needs replacing scenario. After extensive research, we selected a report compiled by The Carbon Trust for the GLA in 2020 (The Carbon Trust, 2020) that looks precisely at the financial and environmental implications of replacing a gas boiler with electric alternatives. The report is extremely well thought and thorough, but focuses almost exclusively on heat pumps, because it was published in 2020, and its authors could not see it in the future. Therefore, it does not factor in the increased costs of gas, the moral imperative some people feel, and all the new solutions that have come to the market in the UK and Europe in the last two years.
Hence, the study finds only heat pumps as viable substitutes for boilers. Aside from this, the document is a little masterpiece in proactivity, thoroughness and clear communication. The study analyses fifteen London properties of varying sizes and energy insulation, from the tiny ground council flat to the large detached Victorian house. For each property, the report analyses the financial and environmental implications of replacing the gas boiler with a heat pump. Two reasons why it’s a masterpiece (in my view). First, the approach is very pragmatic: it avoids as much as possible factoring inexpensive fabric upgrades and focuses exclusively on the heat source. This is contrary to environmental and retrofit orthodoxy: our credo is always fabric first; or the cheapest energy is the one you don’t need in the first place (I could go on). But in this case, we are focusing on the heat source only because the situation we want to tackle is a boiler that needs replacing. We cannot realistically hope that everyone replacing their boiler will have £20-50k available to do some essential retrofitting, and we don’t want to wait for the government.
The second reason why we appreciate the report is the clarity of communication. The Carbon Trust does a great job at boiling down the comparisons to very few, easily comparable graphs, and to one final parameter: the cost per tonne or removed CO2. This parameter tells us not only whether the heat pump alternative is viable for the single user, but also for society at large. In some cases, the financial case seems not to be there: at a cost of £700 per ton of CO2, for example, it may be better to invest in a wind farm than to replace the boiler. At the same cost, even the government should probably avoid incentivising change while focusing on other solutions. Finally, the same parameter is handy because it shows exactly where we should focus our attention: cases where the cost per ton of CO2 reduction exceeds £300 need our help.
Our aim now is even clearer: to find design and technological solutions to expand the pool of cases that can viably transition away from gas when their boiler reaches end of life. The report’s conclusions confirm our intuition on single-family homes, which do not figure in the list of viable building types (page 5 of the main document and page 31 of the Options Appraisal):
The up-front cost of heat pumps is higher than traditional alternatives and many building types will require additional up-front financial support. However, the lifetime financial case for heat pump retrofit is already strong in some building types, such as electrically heated buildings, buildings with a high cooling demand and buildings that already require major renovations. These building types should be prioritised for heat pump retrofit.
[…]
There is already a compelling financial case for deploying heat pumps in some London building types.
· Homes, blocks of flats and non-domestic buildings heated by electricity.
· Buildings with a high demand for cooling such as large office buildings.
Blocks of flats where upgrades are required to the heating systems and heat distribution systems in any case.
To better understand these conclusions we have plotted in the diagram below, showing all the cases that didn’t make the list and two that have.
The coloured cells highlight the cost per ton of CO2 removed by switching away from gas boilers. Reds are higher costs, green are lower costs.
Trends.
The coloured column reflects the cost of switching from a gas boiler to heat pump, divided by the tons of CO2 reduced. This reflects the absolute cost to the world at large, not yet a business case, but it’s very useful to understand how to tailor the new investigation. Roughly speaking, the size of the property increases from top to bottom, from flat to block of flats. There seems to be a direct relationship between size and viability. Case no.5 is the only exception because it is already heated with an electric boiler, which (in 2020) is or was very expensive to run. By replacing the inefficient boiler with a very efficient heat pump the savings are so high to offset the extra cost for the heat pump in no time. In all other cases, the comparison is with a gas boiler and the relatively inexpensive gas prices in 2020.
The only other factor to account for is the current EPC rating of each property. But we can say that within a relatively wide range of EPC ratings, from B to E, the size of the property holds the strongest correlation. This is because heat pumps are expensive and need at least a 150 square metres playing field to make their efficiency count.
It is clear that in the current energy market, smaller properties that do not require extensive refurbishment do not benefit from heat pumps. We need alternatives to both gas boilers and heat pumps, and this is what we are going to focus on first.
Actions:
Finally, we have a plan of action.
First of all, we will ask The Carbon Trust to update the figures considering the latest gas prices and the recently introduced £5000 tax break from the government. Secondly, we will suggest to analyse a 20-year life span which is what we expect of an energy engine today and therefore use 2040 as the real ultimate deadline. (This will make comparisons easier – the 2030 and 2050 dates are more aligned to the carbon targets but less to the matter at hand. The 2030 deadline is also biased in favour of gas boiler which have a shorter lifespan compared to heat pumps (at least according to the report); 2050 is in my opinion too far a horizon for a single-family home; no one makes investments with 30 years return!)
Third, we will offer to help with alternative test designs and mechanical solutions.
Finally, we will reach out to consultants, experts and manufacturers to compile a list of all possible alternatives and combinations of alternatives to gas boilers in existing single-family homes.
Call to action
Collaborating with the right people and organisations will be crucial to delivering an effective tool. So if you know anyone we should speak to in the energy, insulation, government and non-government policy experts, and consultants, please contact us or simply share this post.
Update June 21st, 2022
We have been introduced to three world-experts on the topic of residential energy. We have discussed with one, who has warned us against the risk of transitioning too quickly to electricity, given its price.
Carbon trust does not have the resources at the moment to either discuss or update their report’s data.
Things are more complicated than we thought..
We will follow the work in post no. 2.
[1] The energy transition from fossil fuels should transform all sectors, but we think that agriculture and existing homes will be the trickiest, followed by the energy generation. Agriculture is outside our field of expertise (for now..), so we will look into existing homes. [2] (As you might imagine, the process is messier and more iterative: steps 1-4 happen simultaneously and are repeated several times, slowly learning and adjusting.) [3] In the late 90’s and early 2000’s several incentives allowed to upgrade millions of homes, but since 2013 a shift in policy has caused a complete stall in retrofit projects. (TBI has a good report on this aspect, here). The lack of incentives continues to date. The regulations on energy efficiency have been greatly scaled down. [4] And the financial incentives are often upside down: for example, today new-build homes are VAT exempt, while expenses tied to retrofitting an existing home – no matter how well designed for efficiency- pay 20%! The only discount is on the insulation material itself, but there are so many exceptions to make it almost useless. [5] (https://www.energylivenews.com/2021/10/18/boris-johnson-confirms-ban-on-all-new-gas-boilers-by-2035/).
This is a fascinating debate and one I am very fond of.
Given my background and annoying nature, I would try to structure the argument more clearly. I would also describe our project’s relation more in-depth. Finally, colour is very personal. It might be helpful to investigate the artists’ houses to try and find some correspondence between life and work or between artists’ work and consistent forms of living. Now I imagine showing several artworks to clients and extrapolating their ideal colour scheme.
Back to the structure. Intro. The human perception and colours. What is the effect of colours, and what is their use? Why does the human brain even perceive colours? This is evolutionary neuroscience. The human eye is not comfortable in the presence of plain and consistent surfaces such as a perfectly white wall (in praise of imperfect decorators). We are more comfortable with slight colour variations and textures. Natural materials have this advantage. The first quote in the blog post is so important: there is no colourless architecture.
It’s enough to think of a Carlo Scarpa interior or the exterior of San Marco and the Doge Palace in Venice. Other incredibly colourful interiors I remember are Bernini’s churches.
1. The first distinction I would make is between interior and exterior colours. Interior and exterior surfaces serve different purposes. The exterior embodies the building’s civic, contextual, and representative character. Instead, the interior represents the comfort or lack of thereof, the buildings’ protective, atmospheric, everyday nature. Second, colours in front of us and colours around us: interiors. Interiors are the essence of architecture, the art that surrounds the user. The exterior architecture is the social and political value of architecture, city building environment and community. For some reason, interiors tend to be discounted in favour of the exterior, especially in academia. On the other hand, several formal and informal houses around Napoli are left unfinished on the outside, while the interiors are vibrant. Even when finished, usually the exteriors were pretty unimaginative: coloured render and metal railings.
The second is the use of the building. From a phenomenological or experiential point of view, anything experienced daily will slowly evolve into something different and will inevitably build a stronger relationship with the user. The second reason and the basis for a final distinction are between everyday personal or nuclear experience, e.g. the house lived by one family, versus the regular use of several people, like in workspaces, schools, versus places experienced by the masses and only seldom be different from something that is perceived sell them. Moving from the first to the latter, the expression and ambitions of the building are less and less personal and will quickly become more generic. Commercial buildings tend to be closer to houses because modern marketing strategies usually require that a brand is reflected in every aspect of a company’s communication. Even more particular or personal can be small companies’ commercial premises, which reflect the founder’s personalities. In other words, colour is a way for the building to talk and be louder.
Finally, I think the building should have a say. I don’t want to sound boring, but I believe in some form of plausible relation – excluding restaurants, bars, clubs and maybe hotels – between interior and exterior. I can’t explain it enough; it has to do with coherence, or avoiding visual short-circuits. For example, I live in a zinc-clad, large windowed, crisp-cornered 2010’s building. The interiors are the epitome of standardisation: 2500mm ceilings, 2 metre high doors, glossy white kitchen, wood floor in the living areas, carpet in the bedrooms, and grey tiles in the bathrooms. When I thought about personalising the space (I had to, of course), I felt that I needed to respect the essence of the flat and the building. So I opted for patches of plain colour (every door and every frame are coloured), coloured joinery (IKEA or designed by me), and plants. In other words, I find there is added beauty in the economy of means and coherence of style.
Our contemporary take on the conservatory resulting from the side and rear extension in Peckham, South London was very successful. The fully glazed rear extension‘s clean lines create such a stark contrast to the existing building that the resulting new building is intriguing and respectful at once. We worked particularly hard at unifying the garden and the kitchen/dining/playroom to feel as one space: an indoor and outdoor room. More details about the project here.
I was recently invited to discuss the 2030 UN Global Goals and summarise our mission and sustainable values. We feel that sustainability is the most exciting part of our projects: it requires a lot of collaboration with experts in their field. We like to share knowledge and hope that the below is useful.
Our mission is to expand the agency of ecological design.
Why did we chose this mission and how can we make it happen? When I started working in the UK, I chose to use my research platform, Unagru, as a host to kick start a new architectural practice. Right from the outset, I wanted to integrate urban ecology and architecture.
Unagru means ‘one crane’ in Italian and the pun of referring to both the bird and the machine-for-lifting in both languages. I like how the double meaning expresses both the natural and artificial simultaneously. Questions of how natural and artificial our environments want to recur constantly in our profession.
Unagru has now grown into a solid architecture practice that has produced many private residential projects. We always try and bring these into a wider-scale investigation into ecological and urban matters. We also like to submit ambitious competition entries that address these issues at every scale: from the room to the region. We are well placed to combine the European and the British, the urban and the architectural, and the ecological and aesthetic.
I define ecological design as consisting of three components: 1. Pragmatic, environmentally friendly design solutions
2. A focus on social justice, cooperation, and ways of living together in harmony
3. Complex design processes that take into account multiple layers and scales.
Through practice, I realised it is challenging producing effective ecological design on a small scale. We look to overcome this and make sustainable designs that are as beautiful, comfortable, and valuable as they can be: our mission is to expand the agency of ecological design(ers)…
Our three strategies:
Be better practitioners. As we gain more hands-on experience, our projects integrate environmental solutions in beautiful ways. We devise low-carbon systems with our clients and collaborators. We make energy efficient homes with low embodied carbon disconnected from the gas network. We always try and incorporate sustainable urban water management systems. We encourage the use of recycled materials locally sourced from our sites.
Be a research hub. Every one of our projects create new knowledge and we like to share this on our website. Research & Development grants help sustain our work without imposing any costs to the clients. Long term, we will produce even better buildings that align with our clients’ visions.
Be an activist. Architects can be seen to be detail-obsessed and shy. However, we can be strong advocates for the community and we all want to make the world a better place. We need to be proactive. We need to get out there and lobby, inform, and campaign.
Unagru are starting with two campaigns in the second quarter of this year:
“no more gas’ (#nomoregas). The Ukraine Crisis has made the phasing out of gas even more critical. In our domestic refurbishment and remodelling projects, we help the clients to find the best ways in going electric. We will share our case studies to help others become less dependent on gas. We can advise on and test new design solutions, providing new knowledge towards a more sustainable future. We will record our processes, talk to experts and provide free guides to help everyone get on board.
“far less water” (#farlesswater) Today, more than 1.7 billion people live in river basins where water depletion exceeds recharge, a trend that will see two-thirds of the world’s population living in water-stressed countries by 2025. We will introduce robust design solutions that allow clients to use water sustainably. We all have a lot to learn and we want to create a wide network of people that help each other to achieve our goals in reducing our consumption of water.
Join the campaign! Please get in touch for your comments, ideas, questions and anything else you’d like to discuss!
Where we meet the absolute hero-est of them all, Ian McHarg.
Ian McHarg virtually created the discipline of environmental planning. His work is part of research for an alternative cultural approach to the dominant dichotomy of economic development vs equality and nature. First, Patrick Geddes and then his pupil Lewis Mumford had pursued a “third way” for urban development: “the city as a polis in harmonious relationship to the organic complexity of the regional ecosystem” (Steiner 1997, 57). The historical relationship between morphology, ecology and the social production of space, which Geddes exemplified with the phrase work, folk, place, and which Mumford had described in his historical evolutions in “The Culture of the city” (Mumford), are translated with a particular emphasis on environmental dynamics in McHarg’s work.
Patrick Geddes’s Valley section. Worth an entire new post.An evolution of the valley section, Ian McHarg’s section of a residential settlement proposal.
After World War II, Ian McHarg elaborates a theory of ecological planning, reusing and systematising the different traditions of American landscape architecture and inheriting the research program of regional planning and social ecology from his mentor Lewis Mumford. McHarg embodies the combination of two almost opposite approaches to the relationship between society and nature: he is an ecologist, an activist who takes it upon himself to disseminate ecological knowledge through radio and television broadcasts; and a landscape planner and designer, attentive to the relationships between urban space, quality of life, economic development. The condition of the human being in the modern city, in continuity with the idea of sanitation, is described in terms of disease, which McHarg defines as the inability of the urban habitat to adapt to the physiological needs of the inhabitants. McHarg’s theoretical contribution is based on pragmatic considerations of the usefulness and effectiveness of an interdisciplinary knowledge that allows to verify the results of transformations, as opposed to the irrationality of choices guided by the exclusive speculative interest: a critique that extends to the ordering of daily life, to individual consciences and to cultural and religious debate. In designing with nature (1967), McHarg elaborates a complex theory on the relationship between man and the environment through the development of ecological concepts that are declined in a socio-spatial and philosophical sense at the same time. One of the thought experiments in the volume describes an imaginary space capsule that should have brought a man to the moon using the least possible amount of resources: sunlight, water, bacteria, and algae. The capsule is a limited ecosystem, where oxygen, nutrients and waste must be continuously reused and renewed to allow the astronaut to survive.
Reporting in spatial terms the evolutionary theories of succession and flows of matter and energy, McHarg describes two possible forms of evolution of ecosystems: the entropic or destructive one, through which the energy introduced into the system progressively degrades as the disorder increases; the creative or negentropic one, in which the energy supplied is transformed into increasingly complex and varied systems, therefore more and more ordered and in dynamic equilibrium. This last type of evolution characterises ecological systems: «Energy is temporarily trapped; it will inevitably be dispersed in entropy, but it will also be replaced. Meanwhile, living creatures […] cause matter to rise to higher orders” through the work of plants, first, of other organisms later.
Planning as a form of evaluation.
Staten Island, maps and overlays.
McHarg’s devised a method to understand the how the landscape works, how it has affected and can affect societies and cities, and how to design new development. The method uses overlay mapping: superposition of maps describing different aspects of the landscape to extrapolate new information. The succession of layers is chronologically ordered: geologists and climatologists identify the longer-term processes that had defined the geomorphological structure; hydrologists describe the surface and groundwater cycles that feed biological life, represented by landscape ecologists and botanists; finally, historians, sociologists and urban planners have at their disposal the tools to understand the characteristics of each site and the conditioning they had exercised on settlement dynamics. Combining the data, McHarg was able to recognise the hidden differences in the landscape and identify the suitability for development of each area. McHarg called this method ecological determinism. Only after investigating the full scope of the natural-social relationships can the ecological designer start her creative work.
Ecological determinism goes both ways: on the one hand it allows to suggest how we should intervene in the territory; on the other, it highlights the historical links between nature, social evolutions and the social processes of production of space. Like never before, the agency of nature is made evident: performing functions of protection, nutrition, sustenance and ecological balance on which cities depend. With the increase in the possibilities of movement and choice of settlement environments, according to McHarg, even human ecologies tend to become more and more specialised: man adapts in different forms: “man-nature” is different in every place, “There is the morphology of man-Piedmont, man-Coastal Plain […]” and so on.
The Valleys
The plan for the Valleys, an area under development north of Baltimore, is a classic example of applying this design process. The brief involved the construction of a typical American suburb: economical and efficient design of the infrastructural network, private gardens, and urban sprawl. Based on geological, hydrological, ecological investigations and overlays, McHarg classifies the landscapes of the area according to their availability for urbanisation: the result is an organic diagram that highlights above all the piedmont areas, more stable and less fertile, but which widens, with less intense gradations, even on some scenic slopes. The design proceeds through the definition of three transformation scenarios: the disordered one that had been foreseen maximises spatial dispersion and fragmentation; a second, linear one, concentrates the development along the existing transport arteries, thus saving the entire territory of the Valleys; finally, the proposed scenario is composed of different urban ecologies, laid out to minimise the impact of infrastructures and the built-up area, while taking advantage of the scenic and ecological services of the valleys. The difference in quantitative terms between the three schemes is zero; the difference in environmental, and creative terms is fundamental. The project suggested increasing the population density in the most suitable areas to preserve the most fragile ones. A diversity of settlement types allows to calibrate density and impact the land’s conditions while allowing for the colonisation of almost all areas. The result is a complex settlement composed of some centres equipped with public spaces and collective buildings, vast suburban areas that occupy mainly the highlands, and more dispersed houses and services in the wooded areas.
Bird’s Eye view of the proposal for The Valleys.
After this long introduction, you might want to meet the man. Here’s Ian McHarg:
“…Colour is one of the oldest architectural design elements – colourless architecture does not exist.”
“I sympathise with Gropius who when asked his favourite colour, replied, “All of them!” People are frightened about choosing the ‘right’ ones, but I don’t worry about following rules… if a colour is beautiful, it will go with another beautiful colour.” – Richard Rogers, 2013.
We love bold colours, but we notice many people seem afraid to use them. In this article we look to understand why this might be, and what colour means to us all. This blog post is primarily focused on colour used in architectural and interior design to convey certain moods or create atmospheres, and to reflect the personality of the user.
At The Spider we used a deep red to highlight a new three-legged steel structure (hence the project’s name..) that allowed to unify space. The steel structure was was really the centre piece of the intervention: the aim was to keep a trace of the previous layout – three separate rooms – by setting the new structure well below the ceiling and then modelling three different ceiling shapes. The red element jumps out immediately and declares the project’s intentions; while it also draws attention to the three ceilings. A visitor asks a questions and the narration begins. The design also partially incorporated an old fireplace; this time the trace was almost disappearing,in the joinery. We paint the surround a bright yellow (including part of the kitchen joinery); the client then added a stove and the fireplace gained a whole new character. The only element shifting across the original rooms os the kitchen island, for which we chose a very deep green, complementary to the red. We had in mind Matisse, and the Fauves and Van Gogh. Finally, the client chose beautiful North African tiles for the kitchen and green house areas, with complementary dark green and red tones. The result is a joiyful twist on a very subtle form of intervention. The red posts are more approachable, and soon full of magnets, childrens’ drawings and photographs. Even more colour.
We picked a bright yellow for the ceiling and wall paint in the entrance of The Boat & Pavilion. We chose the colour specifically so that the natural North light would reflect off the wall and ceiling to create a warmer atmosphere. Moving deeper into the service area (just one door away), everything is painted in a dark blue, like an underwater world: after all, it’s a house for sailors, yellow sun and blue water are familiar references.
At the Peckham Glass Box, our client Helen chose a rich Cobalt blue to create focal points in the large open plan kitchen. The colour is particularly striking within the glass box itself, surrounded by the sky and the garden.
Now, we wouldn’t be boring humanists if we didn’t try to show off a little with the theory of colour, the origin of primary colours and its relationship to the educational and practical context of architecture. If you have a social life you might want to skip ahead.
Theory of colour
“To Goethe, the theory was the result of mistaking an incidental result for an elemental principle. Far from pretending to a knowledge of physics, he insisted that such knowledge was an actual hindrance to understanding. He based his conclusions exclusively upon exhaustive personal observation of the phenomena of colour.” (Kardinata, 2014)
The most significant debate around colour was carried out by Sir Isaac Newton and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from the scientific and artistic points of view respectively, “while the theory of Newton and his successors was based on excluding the colour-seeing faculty of the eye, Goethe founded his theory on the eye’s experience of colour” (Lehrs, 2014). What draws the common point between the two is the respect of light as the source of colours, where light is the key ingredient in animating architectural spaces.
To the left, a coulour wheel attributed to Newton in 1704 (Jones, 2017). This was a result of Newton’s experiments with prism and beams of sunlight. Newton demonstrated that “different light wavelengths are combined to create different colours, and when added together the result is white light.” (Clair, 2018)
Middle, Newton’s colour wheel as further elaborated by Moses Harris. (Jones, 2017)
Right, Goethe’s colour wheel dissects the pie-chart wheel into 6 colours symmetrically, with a belief that “colour itself is a degree of darkness” (Jones, 2017), rejected Netwon’s statement of “darkness as an absence of light”.
Primary colours
“Colour can be used strategically to orchestrate spatial sequences or to visualise tectonics, it can support light and shadow, make surfaces an optical and haptic experience and much more. Colour is one of the oldest architectural design elements – colourless architecture does not exist.” – Steffanie Wettstein, n.a
Newton’s description of primary colours as “coloured spectral components of sunlight” inspired the different arguments that narrow primary colours into three, by the prominent contributors of “modern colour science” (Mollon, 2003):
-David Brewster: red, yellow, blue
-Thomas Young: red, green, violet
-James Clerk Maxwell: red, green, blue
-Hermann von Helmholtz: slightly purplish red, slightly yellowish-vegetation green, ultramarine blue
Fast forward to the end of 1910s, the birth of De Stijl art movement, which consisted of renowned architects such as Gerrit Rietveld, Jacobus Oud and artists including Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian. The movement advocates the strict ideals of vertical and horizontal geometry, with red, yellow & blue perceived as “pure form”. The International Style was then developed with the use of white, as the great Le Corbusier stated ‘white as pure and cleanliness’ which we can see that white colour is a safe bet still today (Lange, 2010). This happened in Bauhaus School as well, despite the lessons of colours being taught, but it is “notable that he (Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus) invited artists to do this not architects”. Therefore, it seems to be the implication that colours were applied mainly within the realm of art, but rather limited in architecture. (Ogundehin, 2018)
Composition A by Piet Mondrian (left). Can be noticed in other architects’ works, including Le Corbusier’s Unite d’habitation (middle), Gerrit Rietveld’s Schroder House (right).
Fast forward to the end of 1910s, the birth of De Stijl art movement, which consisted of renowned architects such as Gerrit Rietveld, Jacobus Oud and artists including Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian. The movement advocates the strict ideals of vertical and horizontal geometry, with red, yellow & blue perceived as “pure form”. The International Style was then developed with the use of white, as the great Le Corbusier stated ‘white as pure and cleanliness’ which we can see that white colour is a safe bet still today (Lange, 2010). This happened in Bauhaus School as well, despite the lessons of colours being taught, but it is “notable that he (Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus) invited artists to do this not architects”. Therefore, it seems to be the implication that colours were applied mainly within the realm of art, but rather limited in architecture. (Ogundehin, 2018)
Since 1950-1960s, with the introduction of everyday objects and the appreciative, honest pursue of natural elements and textures (Pilaroscia, n.a), the colour palette has since then inclined with natural-based, light-toned colours such as concrete-grey and brown-timber. The minimalist Scandinavian (SmithBrothers, 2016) and Japanese design prevailed, expressing a calm, close-to-nature atmosphere. In terms of simplistic furniture design and its supplies, more or less our clients (and ourselves) are influenced by the large influx of furniture markets such as IKEA and Muji, which indirectly shape our preferences in interior design and architecture.
There are more to be discussed about colours and its history which navigate the present and future of how we use, see and perceive colours. To continue the conversations Unagru is asking some fun questions, first we ask our team but please also send your thoughts to mail@unagru.com or you can send us a direct message to our Instagram!
1 what does colour mean to you? how does colour play its role in design? perhaps with the combination of texture and materiality to express certain emotion/mood?
2 which colour is your favourite/best represent yourself? and why?
3 is there any colour your least favourite? and why?
4 is there anyone/artist/architect use colour in their works that impressed you? Or any memorable colourful works?
5 do you think architecture today uses limited palette of colour like black and white? may it be buildings or drawings?
Le Cobusier’s La Roche was recently repainted a creamy colour to reflect the original. It wasn’t actually white. These reminds me of a few quotes:
“The rediscovery of the interior polychromies and the restoration of the ‘stony hued’ facades (Le Corbusier’s expression) was a surprise to both specialists and neophytes influenced by the dominant discourse on the celebrated ‘white villas’ of the Modern Movement… The polychromy here was of an experimental nature, conceived as a link between Le Corbusier’s twin worlds, painting and architecture.”
Worth looking at Corbu’s different palettes, namely Architectural Polychromy.
The Parthenon was likely like this rather than white, like the image on the left.
One of the boldest uses of colour I have seen is Carlo Aymonino’s Galaratese Quarter.
Colours remind me of Aldo Rossi’s Cataldo Cemetery in Modena… and also David Hockney’s Bigger Splash (images below).
I like to be pretentious when I’m asked my favourite colour. “I don’t have a favourite colour, I have a favourite combination”
La Majorelle is probs my favourite colour combo building. You can get away with these colours in Morocco because of the light. Much harder to do here in cloudy England.
I like O’Donnell + Tuomey’s staple use of maroon in many of their schemes, for example An Gaelaras :
John Piper’s stained glass in Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (images above) is incredible. I’ve also attached a photo I took whilst there that shows the intensity of the pink coming through the window at sunset. The colour varies in different parts of the cathedral and different times of day.
I thought would be interesting to share this piece of writing about Carlo Scarpa.
“He wanted to achieve the same grace, the same elegance, the same transparency. It was the starting point of his infinite love for perfection: the revelation of absolute form, in an extraordinary tension that always combined an enormous attention to detail, even the most microscopic and hidden one, to the harmony of the whole. A very refined taste, where colour becomes transparency, light becomes stone, and matter becomes a soft rainbow, obtained with various techniques: the mosaic of small tesserae transfigured by the colours of the “murrine”, the earthy cracked surfaces of the “corrosi” pieces, the archaic tones of the “sommersi”, the Mediterranean colours of the “pennellati”, the chromatic feast of the “iridati”, the waves and the geometries of the lunar crests of the “incisi”, the splendid arabesques in vegetable flakes of the “battuti”. One of his great predecessors, Adolf Loos, wrote that “ornament is a crime”; however, Loos was, in his own way, a great decorator. He too dedicated himself to glass, making beautiful cylinder shaped glasses in excellent Bohemian crystal.” (Repetto Gallery, n.a)
I don’t like anything brown and murky.
Colour shouldn’t be obvious in painting. i.e. the sky should never be blue and plants green. This is why I hate Constable but love Turner. Turner, Monet, Hockney, Bacon, Matisse are the great colourists.
Oh, and Barrajas Airport (image above) by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is on my mind, thanks to my trip. Lovely use of colour: very cinematic and great modulation of light. Probably my favourite airport I’ve been through yet.
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Thomas:
To me colour is the variable that tones form, provides depth, embraces and absorbs the light, and stirs our subconscious. We aren’t always aware of colour and it’s impact on our mental state, and I think balancing colour and texture with activities and space can often be a challenge. I strive to find that balance by getting to know people and understand how they want to feel in their home – some super-bright geometric tiles to bring joy when you walk through the front door? Maybe some natural tones and textures in the living space and bedrooms? Or a big dark concrete kitchen island to bring the rest of the room into perspective?
I have always been a fan of natural pigments, I find these tones extremely emotive in the way they reference the natural world; they are strong but not loud, and calm without being apathetic. Two pigments that I really like are Ochre – iron hydroxide – and Schloss green – copper arsenite – (obviously most of these pigments have to be synthetically reproduces now due to cost/toxicity), I like to think they represent me in that they can put you at ease, and they are calm but with a reassuring strength.
I think every colour has its place, but there are definitely fewer places for neons/day-glo…
I have two thoughts on memorable artist /architect works:
Casa Luis Barragan, Mexico City, Mexico.
Cuadra San Cristóbal (San Cristóbal stables), Ciudad López Mateos, Mexico
One of my favourite architects – and one that goes all out with colour – is Luis Barragán, absolute master of colourful juxtaposition with texture and natural materials. A couple of his stand out works being Casa Luis Barragan – his own home and studio, and Cuadra San Cristóbal (San Cristóbal stables), beautiful use of coloured texture and mass to create monolithic landscaping.
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France.
Rogers House (22 Parkside), Wimbledon,England
The other architect is Richard Rogers; I’m not much of a ‘high-tech’ enthusiast, but I really appreciate the little pockets of joy Rogers brought into what can easily become quite mundane and repetitive typologies. Whilst everyone else built monochromatic glass and steel towers, he picked out and exposed the often-ignored building services with bright colours and exaggerated-yet-functional form. The works include Centre Pompidou, services celebrated with colour, and Rogers house, full of colour and strong juxtaposition – lots of fun!
I think we use just as much colour today as we have always used, and nowadays with colour being cheap and easy, probably even more-so. A lot of our colour-use throughout history has taken the form of décor (tapestries, paintings, upholstery, ornament, the painting of minor elements such as window frames or glass), but now we have the ability to apply colour to anything at any scale.
Written by Gary, with contribution of Unagru architects
Partly inspired by the Waste Age Exhibition we all recently visited, this article looks to develop a further understanding of using reclaimed bricks, from the economic, technical, environmental and theoretical perspectives, with a hope to unlock some myths in reusing masonry elements to be used in your next building project. Two of Unagru’s completed projects adopted to incorporate reclaimed brick within the build, The Boat and Pavilion and Peckham Courtyard.
“An estimated 2.5 billion bricks arise as demolition waste each year (almost equal to the number we use new each year!), but only 5% are reclaimed for reuse, with the rest crushed for fill. Challenges involve the removal of hard cement mortars and assurance on quality, but many more than 5% should be suitable for reuse.”
Bricks are probably the most common construction material, with their long history and background in building homes for many in the UK. As shown in Great British Brick Storage (2022), the appetite for bricks in this country is growing, and stock availability could be worsened by the recent unrest in Europe (Woodfield, 2022) – with a potential increase in the price of newly produced bricks, now is a good time to start to question why shouldn’t reclaimed bricks considered as an alternative? Especially when you consider that throughout the life cycle of a building, refurbishment or restoration, construction works create a supply of used bricks when they demolish aspects of existing properties, that could be reused.
In general, reclaimed bricks can be categorised into three forms (BuildGreenNH, 2021):
[1] Old brick: Used bricks that were once part of another building. Many people use these bricks to blend new extensions with the existing building, or to create outdoor patios, fireplaces, walls and fences.
[2] Salvage brick: Pieces of brick removed from older structures before being demolished. Most salvage bricks are sold through scrap yards and recycling centres.
[3] Scrapped brick: Pieces of brick left behind after manufacturing processes like cutting, drilling and moulding. These pieces are sometimes called rejects or scraps.
We often get asked, what is the benefit of using reclaimed bricks?
Historical and heritage value
“Rescued from old buildings and cleaned up, reclaimed bricks have edges that are typically worn and irregular, and may have remnants of mortar due to their original use. Good quality reclaimed bricks only require two workable sides, one bond and one stretch. Many will have fine creases, characteristic folds and variations in colour that typify old brickwork. It is this combination that many feel gives reclaimed materials a charm and character all of their own.” (Ace Reclamation, 2017)
Reclaimed bricks have the aged and patina effect that new bricks just can’t replicate. The bricks have withstood weather and time, giving the material a certain charm, like an antique piece “with character by being fully matured and weathered” (ArchitectureToday, n.a). This is also particularly relevant to be “more sympathetic in appearance within a sensitive context” (Leach, 2021) for the Listed Buildings or those located within Conservation Area, where the texture and colour of the reclaimed bricks are able to match with the existing building or neighbourhood. At the Boat & Pavilion we selected reclaimed bricks to blend the new addition of the building seamlessly to the existing.
Sustainability and environmental-friendly
“According to the Brick Development Associations Sustainability Report 2021, the raw materials and production of new bricks outputs 213kg of CO2 per tonne. They also state that the reuse and recycling of bricks at the end of their life has an output of just 16kg of CO2 per tonne. In the construction industry, the amount of bricks used in a single project can be quite high. This is a point of concern for the construction industry, as each year, approximately four billion tonnes of bricks are used in building projects around the world.” (ReclaimedBrick-Tile, n.a)
By using one piece of reclaimed brick, one less new brick is to be used. In term of embodied energy, a three-storey masonry-built house contributes 50% more than an equivalent timber-framed, larch-clad house. Reusing the bricks is a significant move in reducing carbon emission as a wise and sustainable resources management, given that bricks remain as the prevalent form of construction that demands an average of 2.4 billion new bricks that release 2.6 billion kgCO2e in the UK annually (Mounsey and Webb, 2021).
With modern technology and advancement, it is fair to say that reclaimed bricks are easily recyclable and more of them should be kept out of our landfill. But it takes time, cost and effort to take an existing, used brick and make it suitable to reuse, the process of removing debris, mortar or reinforcement steel bars that might be attached to the bricks, making them clean once more. This has also lower negligible embodied energy if bricks can be sourced locally, no toxic emissions from the manufacturing process, and diverts demolition waste from landfills (Greenspec, n.a).
By adopting the reclaimed bricks as “an eco-friendly option due to their usage being a form of unprocessed recycling” (LRBM, 2017), it is a much better option than the used bricks getting thrown away or discard at the factory to recycle, here more energy is consumed for the process which can be quite enormous.
Cost and Availability
We are often asked if reclaimed bricks are cheaper than the new bricks? The quick answer is not all the time. Even when bricks are sourced free of charge from site where demolition works are happening, the time and effort might not be as simple or cost-saving as imagined. Each brick requires careful inspection and cleaning up before they can be reused. Usually, not all the bricks from a demolition are safe to be reused, as the structural load-bearing elements or “established with frost resistance, soluble salts, strength, water absorption and size, all of which are covered by the standard,BS EN 771-1.” (ArchitectureToday, n.a) will vary.
This does not account for the labouring, which included the cleaning of debris and dirt, as well as the brushing and chipping off of the old mortar (Simon, 2021). Unlike modern mortar, lime mortar is harder to remove, especially from pre-1940s buildings, which will be reflected in higher labour cost (Greenspec, n.a).
Reclaimed bricks should be tested to ensure they are still structurally sound. Even if the bricks are not fit for load bearing purposes they can still be reused, for non-load-bearing uses such as pavement, cladding or aesthetic purposes.
The average price of reclaimed bricks varies depending on colour and availability, the common blends could cost up to 85p-90p per brick, for a rarer brick it could cost up to £1.50 per brick, due to the additional cost of sourcing and laying the bricks (Ace Reclamation, 2017). Obviously the price of reclaimed bricks could be discounted when buying in bulk, depending on the quantity and reclamation yard.
In comparison a new common brick, which is only suitable for internal structures, range in price from 20p to 40p per brick; engineering bricks, which can be used externally and have better compressive strength and protection against water and frost, can cost up to 40p each brick; and facing bricks are priced from 40p to £1.20 per brick, depending on materials and manufacturing technique. New bricks are a cheaper alternative to reclaimed bricks, whilst also having the assurance of complying with building standards and are a consistent quality (Greenspec, n.a).
Conclusion
“Reclaimed bricks can originate from old mills and stately houses to pavements, range in age from a few years to centuries old, and come in a variety of colours, shapes, sizes and textures – some even contain fossils and other debris from their original source. This means that when selecting your materials, you want a wide range that reflect these variations and are in keeping with the period of your home.” (Ace Reclamation, 2017)
To summarise the choice of using reclaimed bricks in your next project is not straightforward, it is one for each owner to review and decide for themselves. Here are some key points we would think should be taken into consideration when looking to incorporate reclaimed bricks:
[1] It is important to consult the architect or specifier about the budget concern and management by looking for the “reclamation yard who is known for sourcing quality materials” (Ace Reclamation, 2017)
[2] You may visit online resources or specialised groups such as Brick Development Association for guidance before purchasing and using the reclaimed bricks.
[3] To bring some reclaimed bricks samples to the site for the testing to match the existing bricks from the criteria of condition, colour, texture and size.
[4] If the reclaimed bricks are sourced from the proposed site, the materials should be stored appropriately against the weather and carefully restored before being integrated into the new project.
Where we encounter three of our heroes, Joseph Paxton, Frederick Law Olmsted and Charles Eliot, Who have introduced three crucial concepts of urban design.
Ecology and Urbanism / 2 Landscape architecture
The heroic phase of Landscape Architecture 1850-1900
In urban planning, and again in the US context, landscape designers experience, within a proto-ecological and romantic vision of nature, the integration between built and natural open spaces (Dumpelmann 2003). American landscape architecture inherits the teachings of the English and German landscape architects of the eighteenth century. It applies these teachings to the dynamic industrial world, where technological and economic development are profoundly transforming the natural landscape. Although it does not have an explicit statute or defined models, US landscape architecture is based on the idea that nature has healing properties, as argued by the founder of the discipline, Frederick Law Olmsted sr.. Olmsted introduced the idea of ”sanitation” to describe the relaxing effect of nature on human beings, particularly necessary in urban contexts. 19th century Landscape architecture was not an anti-urban or anti-capitalist movement but a professional activity that tried to equip itself over time and through design experiences with the tools required to design a functional and performative landscape. Olmsted identified these qualities with the English landscape: a picturesque aesthetic, mindful of the sequences of the scenarios, but at the same time based on the knowledge of local biological and hydrological processes. Capability Brown and Joseph Paxton (the Birkenhead Park in particular) were his main references. His was a proto-ecological approach that enhances the dynamism of fruition by constructing the landscape as a sequence of scenarios and uses theoretical models of ecology and forestry, such as succession and selective competition, to let natural processes select the plant species suitable for any context. In the American industrial cities, these principles are translated into new forms of integration of city and landscape, society and nature. Olmsted became the founder of the discipline when he (almost accidetally) won the competition for the design of New York’s Central Park in 1858 together with Vaux. In their proposal, the park is not a natural element isolated in the mineral fabric of the dense city, but a man-made landscape, manipulated through earth movements, excavations and natural selection of plant elements, perfectly integrated in the fabric of the city. Olmsted and Vaux’s design was in fact the only that solved the issue of keeping some form of connection between the two sides of the park, which would have otherwise a seprating element. Through a system of connections at different levels the design allowed the coexistence of pedestrians, horses, carriages and animals. The Park is an infrastructure that fits into the continuity of the urban fabric without interrupting its connections; on the contrary, it enhances their complexity. The multifunctionaityl of the design solution – park, infrastructure – signals the intent to integrate city and nature: finding an innovative “form” of hybrid urban natural development, in line with the needs of the expanding metropolis.
The Park System
The model of the urban park evolved into the park system: a system of interconnected open spaces that were prefigured in areas not yet reached by urban expansion; an idea that spread to major American cities, starting with the Minnesota system, designed by Horace Cleveland. The park system is a concept, rather than a fixed physical solution: on the one hand it prescribes continuity and connections between green spaces (in this sense it anticipates systems theory, interscalarity and ecological networks); on the other, it shuns rigid schemes. An important innovation of this model is the Boston Metropolitan Park System, conceived by Charles Eliot jr. (a student and later a business partner of Olmsted), The first regional plan for the protection and implementation of natural resources in relation to urban growth. Developed when the city was already among the largest in the United States, the value of the land high, few open spaces, the plan proposed to acquire the residual areas, often degraded and compromised by pedological or hydrological problems, to create punctual and linear system of open spaces for the city. A retroactive intervention strategy that sought to insert itself into the speculative development mechanisms of the American industrial city.
2.1 The Emerald Necklace and the Back Bay Fens
The project of the Emerald Necklace, designed by Frederic Law Olmsted between 1878 and 1890 (Zaitzvesky 1992), is a filament of open spaces that connects the city with the large Franklin Park on the outskirts by configuring an ecological corridor. It highlights the contractual and conflictual dimensions of the land acquisition process: linear and punctual elements of variable size and width through the marginal areas of the city. Olmsted designs the different components of the linear system by integrating hydraulic control devices, connections through parkways, and landscape design. The Back Bay fens (marshes) constituted the last ring of the system, which followed the course of the Muddy River and accompanied it until it entered the Charles River, whose flow was influenced by the ocean tides. The vast wet area of the fens had been progressively reclaimed to make room for urban expansion, causing the disappearance of a landscape and a system of ecological functions of hydraulic regulation and water purification. In the second half of the century the expansion had occurred rapidly and had affected various areas of the Charles basin, where the sewage was discharged; the morphology of the soils and the intermittent trend of the tides caused the accumulation of effluents in the fens. The hydraulic engineer corp had proposed a masonry lock to control the oscillations of the tide. Olmsted instead proposed to tackle the problem of “sanitary improvement of the Back Bay drainage basins” by building sewer infrastructures that divert the flow of wastewater and the Muddy River from the Fens. The move allowed the latter to return its original wet area condition. And yet the system is an eminently artificial one: the connection with the Charles River and the ocean tides is regulated by a weir, which limits the oscillations of the hydraulic level (Krinke 2001). The integration of the “common” landscape into the urban fabric occurs once again through the overlapping of flows: the parkways and promenades that develop along the Emerald Necklace are designed as connecting systems between the two fronts of the linear park. The Necklace is, therefore, at the same time, an ecological corridor and a system of urban crossing and connections. The Fens are structured as a superposition of three layers: an underground skeleton of sewer infrastructures, the modelling of the soil functional to the “natural” wet landscape, the system of urban connections, three layers that make up an urban infrastructure, governed by a lock.
This concept can be paired with the landscape ecological corridor: a linear path connecting large patches of biodiverse landscape, allowing animals to move between patches and therefore increasing the resilience of the system: if something goes wrong animal populations can move to other patches.
2.3 The hybrid urbanisation
The park-infrastrucure, park-system and reclamation strategies point towards a new alliance between urban and natural, that is urgently needed in the context of the rapid rapid growth of the Western city, which came at the risk of completely obliterating vast ecosystems and condemning most of the urban dwellers to a life without nature.
The new hybrid urban-natural highway is the parkway: in Riverside, Illinois, the motorways are remodelled in shape and layout to gently adapt to the landscape, and are accompanied by deep areas reserved to forests: a very early version of ecological corridor, a more pleasant traveling experience, and a system to mitigate noise and pollution effects around the motorways. Landscape architecture, therefore, views the landscape as a perfromative and hybrid element of the human world; a programme and a conceptual model opposed to the neoclassical or baroque garden design, which aimed at the representation of monarchical power or humanistic principles.
The new urban settlement is the suburb, an idea and design typology taken from the English Garden Cities and first experimented in the 1920’s Radburn, New Jersey.
Soon after Frank Lloyd Wright will crystallise these ideals in the project of Broad Acre (later Usonia), possibly the most inspired anti-urban or hybrid-urban concept to be ever conceived and the topic of one of the next blog posts.
In conclusion, we have seen three important important concepts emerge from the work of early landscape architects, mostly based in the US.
The first is an open space strategy: a sequence of open (ideally public and green) spaces creates a system that can extend to become a network. The second is the idea of urban regeneration through the coordinated trasnformation of brownfield sites. This processual idea vastly expands the potential for transformation of several territories, while introducing time into the equation of urban transformations: sites are often bought or taken at different moments and will always require different degrees of reclamation or preparation.
The third, only hinted in this post, (I will return to it in more detail) is the idea of stepping stones, where several points form an invisibile continuity just by their proximity.
