Learning from & Preserving the Past: A Sustainable Approach in Future

A Sustainable Cities 2011
highlight was from Dr Saaed Zaki, who said we should not only learn from past
mistakes but preserve historic cities and structures as they might well be more
sustainable, longer-lasting and useful than many of our modern “green”
buildings. Big is not necessarily best when it comes to cities and buildings,
as Nigel Grier from Sustainable Townsville pointed out, while Singapore shows
how to achieve a balanced, sustainable and greener approach to buildings and
transport.

Ken Hickson reports on the Sustainable
Cities in Singapore:

Attending conferences and expos
can be time-consuming and mind-numbing, but every now and again one is entirely
stimulated and energised by listening to and meeting some of the best brains
and sustainably-connected people. That was the experience at Singapore’s third
Sustainable Cities Conference 27-30 September and organised by IBC.

Every speaker made a platform performance
to be remembered, and participated freely in formal and informal discussion.
Therefore, selecting the best to highlight is not the easiest or the wisest thing
to do. But I will.

My biased assessment is by no
means final, but impressions count, whether first or last.

I cannot go past Dr Saaed Zaki
for a most stimulating and thought-provoking presentation on “Learning from the
Past to Plan Sustainable Cities of the Future”.

He saw historical cities as
examples of resource conserving urban development, citing Indian locations he
knows survive and thrive: Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaiselmer and Surat.

What lessons can be learned? Many
of course, but he made the point repeatedly that we should be preserving what is
best because it might well be more sustainable that what it is replaced with.

We also need to bring about a
closer amalgamation of urban economy, environment, technology and architecture
to create sustainable cities of the future

Dr Saeed is the Managing
Director, dwp, Thailand. He possesses over two decades of extensive experience
with local and multinational firms in property and real estate development,
with over ten years of which in a senior management role. An architect, urban
designer and urban planner by trade, Saeed has a proven track record of
successful project planning design, development and implementation, throughout
Asia. In 2007, Saeed joined dwp, responsible for the overall operation and key
commercial strategies and initiatives, across the Thai market. Directing
multiple design studios, Saeed collaborates closely with design directors to
ensure that individual project requirements and client business objectives are
met, while maintaining design integrity and quality.

For more go to: www.dwp.com

Coming before Dr Saaed on the programme
was Robbert Van Nouhuys, Director , ACLA, & Hyder Consulting Hong Kong on “Think
Cities!: Addressing the Global Consequences of Urbanisation in Asia”.

He drew attention to the adverse effects of current
sustainable architecture and urban thinking particularly as it relates to megacities,
urban efficiencies and ‘quality of life’. He also joined Dr Saaed and others in a very stimulating and
lively panel discussion.

For more go to: www.hyderconsuting.com

Dr Uma Maheswaran, Vice President,
Sustainable Development, Jurong Consultants Pte Ltd, Singapore gave some
insight into “Deriving a Carbon Assessment Framework for Cities”, including a
total sustainable solution approach to cities and some relevant cases from his
experience in Singapore and elsewhere. More here: www.jurong.com

Arup is well known as a very
sustainable business leader and scene setter in design, so Elad Eisenstein,
Associate Director and Design Leader, Integrated Urbanism  for Arup, in United Kingdom acquitted himself
well on the subject of “Integrated Urbanism: Making Places in an Ecological Age”.

The challenge of making places
from anew and how can cities and communities be developed and retrofitted to
increase resource efficiency were key topics he covered. He also gave examples
from new cities in Europe, the Middle East and China. More from Elad and Arup
here: www.arup.com

The panel discussion on Future
Cities was lively affair with Nigel Grier of Sustainable Townsville and
Zingspace, plus Emma Strain, Head of Environment, Greater London Authority,
United Kingdom, joining the three aforementioned speakers:

What does the city of the future
look like? How are governments, urban planners, sustainability experts, and
other stakeholders facing up to the threat of climate change, population
growth, natural disasters and the need to regenerate the world’s aging cities?
What more can be done to current green building tools and ratings to prepare
cities for an energy efficient future?

Moderated by chairman of the day
Nicholas Brooke of Professional Property Services Group, Hong Kong, it covered
the ground effectively and produced a sense of the urgency required to deal
with the challenges of climate change and the need for more sustainable development
to deal with both mitigation and adaptation elements.

It was refreshing to hear from
Nigel Grier with his perspective as an ecologist and environmental planner.
Townsville, a relatively small tropical city in Queensland Australia is leading
the way in sustainability in its planning and development. Described as a small
city with a big voice, it is a recognised solar city in Australia and was the
only Australian city in the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge.

Tropical Sustainability is a
challenge and an opportunity, as Townsville is also positioned in the heart of
Australia’s growth of mining and fossil fueled energy production. It is also
the site for one of Australia’s most advanced clean energy projects – MDB carbon
capture project involving algae and is the “end of the line” of the Copperstring
project which incorporates renewable energy into the national electricity grid.

More on Townsville here: www.carbontownsville.org and on Nigel at
www.zingspace.com.au

From small and tropical to big
and cool, we went from Townsville to London, when Emma Strain took to the
stage:

Emma Strain is Head of
Environment for the Greater London Authority in United Kingdom and gave real
insight into “Developing a Low Carbon Capital – a Holistic Approach Towards
Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy and Waste Management for London”. It was
eye-opening to hear of the practical application of policies with funding from
European and the UK Governments.

Securing investments,
implementing energy efficiency, decentralised energy and energy from waste and defining
roles and responsibilities in the partnership between public sector, private
sector and knowledge institutions were well covered by Emma.

She spelt out the Mayor of London’s
low carbon zones programme, called  RE:CONNECT, which is supporting a community
approach to cutting the capital’s carbon footprint. The programme was designed
to show the potential of a complete approach to reducing a community’s CO2
emissions by involving local residents, communities and businesses.

RE:CONNECT has been running since
winter 2009. Its aim is to cut carbon emissions locally, helping London meet
its target of reducing CO2 by 60% by 2025 and contributing to the Mayor’s
vision to make London the greenest, big city in the world.

Ten London boroughs were chosen
to receive funding and support from the Mayor and the GLA to create local low
carbon zones (LCZs). Each of the zones has a target to reduce carbon emissions
by 20.12% by 2012 and is developing innovative delivery models to do so.

RE:CONNECT’s ambitions have been
quickly copied by central government and the programme has attracted interest
from academia, energy suppliers, trade bodies and government officials from
cities in Belgium, France and Japan.

A local approach to carbon saving
has many advantages. It offers communities a real freedom to tailor-make plans
to fit with the specific challenges and opportunities of their neighbourhood.
Giving communities the chance to design and manage their plans to reduce carbon
emissions means they can better integrate services and deliver more meaningful
behaviour change in their neighbourhood. A local approach also provides
economies of scale in terms of raising funds and speeding up delivery by
partners.

More on this: www.london.gov.uk

If the first day was something to
crow about, the pressure and interest didn’t let up on Day Two, when Paul
James, Director, UNGlobal Cities Institute, Australia, gave an excellent
introduction as well as a thoughtful summary at the end. More from Paul at www.cities.programe.org

Moving Sydney to a Low Carbon
Future was the topic for Chris Derksema, Sustainability Director, City of
Sydney, Australia. He pointed out the critical role of “leading
by example”, helping others to do the same
and the implementation of green infrastructure across the city. While not as
advanced as London in terms of carbon-cutting and energy efficiency funded programmes,
Sydney seems intent on leading the pack of Australian cities into a more sustainable
future. For more go to: www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au

South East Asia is not too far behind
in the rush to achievement in the sustainability stakes as Peter Stueck of
Aedas showed with his case study of the BSD City Green Office Park in West
Jakarta.

Singapore had more than one
chance to show its sustainability face and Dr George Sun, Deputy Director, Land
Transport Authority did this well with his paper on “Green Mobility and
Integrated Land Transport Systems for a Sustainable City Master Plan”.

Jeff Robinson, Principal Engineer
and Sustainable Buildings Leader, Aurecon Group, Australia gave a thoroughly
coherent look at “Regenerating Asia’s Existing Cities through Green Retrofits”.
More on this at: www.aurecongroup.com

It was a very green end to the
second day, when the very eloquent architect  Jason Pomeroy, Director,
Broadway Malyan, Singapore presented on “Considerations into a New Vertical
Urbanism: Balancing Social Space with Greenery in the Urban Habitat”. In
visuals and in words, he showed the benefits of greening buildings inside and out,
going beyond just looking green, to putting it into effect throughout the
structure and its environment. There’s more at
www.broadwayMalyan.com

I couldn’t do more than congratulate
all speakers, chairmen and panellists on doing a sterling, sustainable job. And
look forward to the next IBC event on Building Retrofits Asia 2011 when yours
truly has to take the stand as chairman and presenter. Go to: www.ibc-asia/buildingretrofits
for more.

Source: www.sustainablecitiesasia.com
and www.sustain-ability-showcase.com