I stumbled across this car parking stand-off in Calton. The cars are parked behind an apartment block. The laminated note attached to the toy car reads:

"DO NOT REMOVE. This is the property of unit one. We pay rent for this carpark and thus shall utilize it for whatever vehicle we see fit".

Classic.

Mind you, when it comes to sustainability I guess the space occupied by car parking is often hotly contested. The battle lines are drawn a little like this:


Sometimes we have to choose between a street tree or a car parking space. Of course trees provide obvious environmental benefits; they reduce green house gases, filter pollution in the air, and reduce the amount of heating in summer. A car parking space on the other hand is probably never going to contribute much to sustainable suburbs - although whether providing a car park is actively 'bad' depends on how many of them are available. If you provide 'enough' car parking spaces, then by definition you're facilitating the use of the private cars; the easier it is to get a park, the more likely you are to drive and the less likely you are to use public transport. But by strictly limiting the amount of parking available then you can begin to tip the balance the other way.

At other times we have to choose between having a row of parking or a dedicated bike lane. You can guess which one of those two options wins out in the green stakes.

Christopher Alexander suggests that no more than 9% of any neighbourhood or development should be given over to parking. He recommends this partly to reduce the amount of traffic (and encourage pedestrian life and public transport use), but also because higher concentrations of parking (on ground level) tend to have a negative affect on the urban fabric. Walking through big expanses of parking is nowhere near as pleasant an urban experience as walking past a row of shops, or along a leafy footpath. And it's no coincidence that on TV the bad guy is always shown kidnapping innocents in the car park as they're walking to their car...big car parks feel exposed, dangerous, and alienating.

I've been reading about these bioregional thinking questions – adapted by Bill Devall and George Sessions in their book Deep Ecology. It's an interesting test to do on yourself - I can't answer more than half - which is a bit depressing. I tested Adrian (my partner), and he did quite well actually. Anyway, good luck, let me know how you go...

1. Trace the water you drink from precipitation to tap.

2. How many days till the moon is full? (Plus or minus a couple of days.)

3. Describe the soil around your home

4. From what direction do winter storms generally come in your region?

5. Where does your garbage go?

6. How long is the growing season where you live?

7. Name five resident birds and any migratory birds in your area.

8. What primary geological event process influenced the land form where you live?

9. From where you are reading this, point north.

10. Were the stars out last night?

Maybe these questions (and the answers) could be turned into a billboard, or artwork in our neighbourhood.

The idea of turning Charlotte Street into a green (or a woonerf green) is a response from a series of Christopher Alexander's ideas. Ideas which I think are so compelling that I’m going to summarise them here – (for more information follow the links).

Excuse the male pronoun – the book was written in the 70’s, his ideas might not date, but modes of expression do.

Pattern 59: Quiet Backs
People in busy environments “needs to be able to pause and refresh himself with quiet in a more natural situation".

So we should “give the buildings in the busy parts of town a quiet "back" behind them and away from the noise. Build a walk along this quiet back, and connect it up with other walks, to form a long ribbon of quiet alleyways which converge on the local pools and streams and the local greens”.

Pattern 64: Pools and Streams

So we should “preserve natural pools and streams and allow them to run through the city; make paths for people to walk along them and footbridges to cross them.”

“Whenever possible, collect rainwater in open gutters and allow it to flow above ground, along pedestrian paths and in front of houses.”

Pattern 60: Accessible Green
Pattern 171: Tree Places
“If you are planting trees, plant them according to their nature, to form enclosures, avenues, squares, groves and single spreading trees toward the middle of open spaces. And shape the nearby buildings in response to trees, so that the trees themselves, and the trees and buildings together, form places which people can use.”

In the last post I discussed the idea of "smooth programming", based on Deleuze & Guattari's writings in Mille Plateaus where they distinguish between two types of space: smooth space and striated space.

I came across the website of architect Christian Hubert, where he has this great image of smooth v's striated space, as well as a nice list of oppositions:

• felt / woven fabric
• non-metric / metric multiplicities ( Pierre Boulez)
• primacy of the line (vector) / primacy of the point
• Riemann space / Euclidean space
• becoming / progress
• "free action"(or play?) / work
• haptic / optic ( is perspective a model of striation?)
• local / global (?)
• reading / writing? (De Certeau)
• quality / quantity?

According to Deleuze and Guattari, smooth space is occupied by intensities and events. It is haptic rather than optic, a vectorial space rather than a metrical one. Smooth space is characteristic of sea, steppe, ice and desert. It is occupied by packs and nomads.

For more of Hubert's writings and 'note takings' (on, it looks like, just about any theoretic topic of interest to artists or architects) visit his site.

I’ve been reading Networks Cities (and their Chinese Application) draft edition edited by James Brearley. The book looks at new urban design and architectural projects in China which have been conceptually driven by using the idea and the form of networks to design how the city should be laid out, especially to decide how program and density should work.

The idea of Networks Cities as it appears in this book, is largely influenced by the work of Steve Whitford; an architect, urban designer and academic at The University of Melbourne. Steve has written an essay in the book where he gives a history of the development of city form/design and a sense of how his networks city fits in:


“No Zone City”
Whitford describes this as the city as it was before the introduction of planning – some of the urban spaces most loved by tourists and locals would fall into this category – all those old medieval fortress cities. But they tend to only work on a small scale, they can’t cope with contemporary traffic and other hazards, and Whitford points out - the only way to sort out programming conflicts (i.e someone has built an abattoir next to my second bedroom) is to take it to court after the fact.



“Ghetto City”target="new"
This is the zoned city popular in the middle of last century. The kind of city planning which Jane Jacobs rallied against, which separates city activities into discrete enclaves: Industry separated from offices, culture centres separated from retail, retail separated from restaurants. And residential apart from everything else. Besides creating cities which have little pedestrian life, and feel ‘dead’ or ‘boring’ (see Canberra, Brasilia, Chandigarh) – these cities privilege the motor vehicle, and require huge amounts of travel from one program to the other – so they’re not a good solution for sustainability.


“Mixed Use City”
A response to the problems of what Steve refers to as the “ghetto city”, this is a bit of a return towards the “No Zone City”. You get the juxtaposition of program again, and the diversity – but on a city wide level it tends to be homogenous. That is to say – one part of the city tends to look and feel like another.



“Mosaic City”
This is where Whitford places Alexander’s response to the “Mixed Use City” where he calls for a city made up of little distinct clusters of program or culture or form; which can start as small as 4-6 houses. Whitford calls this a “both/and solution which would no doubt please Robert Venturi.”

These clusters are still mixed use (meaning they mix different programs, for example, retail, open space, residential, together) - but instead of the program being distributed evenly throughout the city, it’s focused in various points throughout the city, creating diversity and a sense of place.

“Banded City”
The “banded city” takes Alexander’s clusters and turns them into bands –allowing someone who walks through the city to have a continuous experience, they could choose to have “a green experience, a high culture experience, or a commercial experience”.

Whitford points to Rem Koolhaas’ proposal for the La Villette competition as a precedent – in the proposal a visitor experiences continuous program as long as they walk along a band, if they walk across them “they experience a variety of programs compressed within a short space-time.”



And finally we get to Steve Whitford’s idea of the “Networks City”:

“Networks City”
The idea is that you copy the long continuous strips of program that you might find in a “Banded city” and rotate them around and overlay over the original bands to create a lattice.

This way you can travel across the city within one continuous experience – so you could have a “green city experience” or a “retail experience” across the whole city. The city is continuous and connected – while at the same time being diverse. Programs are distributed all through the city without creating homogeneity, or a sense of sameness.

“Surprisingly the answer to the question: Where is the housing, the commerce, the (clean) industry? Is everywhere. Importantly the answer to the question: are there ghettos of housing, commerce or (clean) industry? Is no.”

I've used this theory as a way to think about how my neighbourhood could fit into a series of sustainable networks. Shortly I'll post a design which is an attempt to think about how density, program and open space could work in my neighbourhood, and in the larger Local Transport Area defined earlier.

Today I was riding my bike home from Fairfield for the first time. I checked out my route first on google maps, and was pleased to note that 80% or more of the ride was along an off-road bike trail along the Yarra River (the Capital City bike trail) which goes all the way into the city. All I had to do was roll down the hill from the shopping strip in Fairfield and after a few moments I’d be on the trail which would take me most of the way home.

As I left Fairfield shops and rode along the merrily south along the on-road bike lane approaching a major intersection when the bike lane just... disappeared.


View Larger Map

After a bit of illegal and potentially dangerous manoeuvring I managed to make it to the off-road trail. But the experience made me think about networks, and how important holistic thinking is for thinking about ways to make my neighbourhood more sustainable

In a way, holistic thinking, or thinking about the ways in which elements inter-relate to each other, is central to sustainable design.

At the risk of gross overgeneralisation; traditional design processes tend to focus on discrete objects or design elements, rather than the relationships or dynamics between elements and objects.

So, in this example, I imagine that council would have a range of design professionals who contribute to the location of bike paths: A landscape architect (or open-space/recreation person) probably designed a cycling master plan, linking as many existing bike tracks together as possible. As part of this hypothetical master plan, an on-road bike path was recommended to link the shops & train station with the Yarra River and the off-road trail. I know it once existed, because you can still see the faint marking of it carrying through the intersection.

At a later date, let’s speculate, a traffic engineer has come along. This persons job is to try to speed up the traffic and reduce the likelihood of car crashes, in other words – their job is to think about the network that services cars. They don’t have to worry about bikes, or transport in general, or carbon in the atmosphere – they just have to think about cars, that one intersection and the immediate surrounding area of traffic.

So, it’s a no brainer: Take out the bike path, and the intersection is safer, and more efficient. That is to say; it’s safer, and more efficient for cars. It’s certainly not safer or more efficient for bicycles.

Of course; I’m just guessing here, perhaps the traffic engineers and the open space planners and the landscape architects got together and workshopped all the different variables and needs of different stakeholders and this was the best solution. But I’ve got to say – I doubt it.

If we want to see more sustainable design outcomes, the first step is to change our design processes. Our design professionals, that is to say; our engineers, planners, landscape architects, resource managers, architects and urban designers have to find ways to collaborate, early and often on design projects. And as designers we also need to find more holistic ways to approach design within our own areas of expertise. We need to think and design more rhizomatically, we need to do more network thinking, we need to consider whole systems rather than focus on discrete elements.

The reason cars dominate our cities and neighbourhoods so much, or rather, the means by which they are able to do so is because they make use of a strong and unbroken network. A good way to make our cities more sustainable is to create strong unbroken networks which will allow the flow of alternative means of transportation, energy and ideas.

After doing some additional reading – I’ve redefined the neighbourhood boundaries. Initially I just centred the ‘block’ or neighbourhood around our house, besides being, well, a little egocentric, this created problems because it leaves a little area to the north stranded between our neighbourhood and Alexander Parade. Alexander Parade is a major road and too much of a social & physical barrier to have running thought the middle of a community. So, as there are not really enough houses to consider treating as a separate community, for the purposes of this project, I’ve merged them into ours.

Below I’ve worked out six ‘neighbourhoods’ based on Alexander’s principles. I’ve also decided to work on this scale because it makes sense practically – it’s large enough to sustain some fairly large scale sustainable interventions, but small enough to be managed locally and have effective individual involvement.

It would make sense to break this down again if people started putting this design into action, into smaller “housing clusters” or “action groups” (8-12 households, 20-50 people)

So ‘my neighbourhood’ becomes the area defined by Alexander Pde, Gold Street, Wellington Street and Hotham Street. The area highlighted on the plan below; it has about 400 residents, and is roughly 220x200m.

As discussed in earlier posts, I've been reading "A Pattern Language" to get some theoretical guidance for sustainable urban design decisions. Alexander recommended that as much local control as possible should be given over to small communities of 7000 (max. 10 000). His argument is that in communities larger than 10 000 the individual has no effective voice, he also points out the historical precedents for this model: Sophocles ideas & Athenian democracy, Jefferson's ward republic and Confucian principles.

As it happens the suburb of Collingwood is already pretty much a Community of 7000 in terms of population - there's about 5500 residents plus many more business owners and other stakeholders.

The area shown is bounded by Alexander Pde to the north, and Hoddle, Victoria Parade and Smith Street (going clockwise).

Alexander's pattern:

• As nearly as possible; use natural geographic and historical boundaries to mark these communities.

• Give each community the power to initiate, decide, and execute the affairs that concern it closely; land use, housing, maintenance, streets, parks, police, schooling, welfare, neighbourhood services.

If I apply Alexander's concept of a Local Transport Area to this part of Melbourne then I end up with an area 3.2km across bounded by Hoddle Street to the east, Brunswick Road to the north, Royal Parade to the east and Victoria Parade to the south.

It takes in Fitzroy, Collingwood, Carlton and most of Princes Hill, Clifton Hill, Parkville, Princes Hill, Carlton North and Fitzroy North. The squiggly line to the east is the Yarra River.

The area is squarer than what Alexander proposes; he prefers long sausage like developments. But it is bounded by major roads, which together could act as a ring road.

If you were to apply Alexander's theories here (not that I’m necessarily proposing to) then you would make travel on the ring road fast and efficient, and make motor vehicular transport within it slow, inconvenient and expensive.

You would have few cross streets within the ring roads bounding the LTA and privilege bikes and pedestrian traffic. Local Transport Areas would be well serviced within by public transport and well connected to each other. Each LTA would have a distinct identity and be well defined physically (a massive ring road would do that I guess).

Below is a kind of check list of dimensions which are useful for urban design and planning projects.

These numbers & areas could be used to layout a sustainable township from scratch, but they're also useful for me for this project because it gives me a set of principles to work with. For example - if I want to propose that Charlotte Street be transformed into a linear park I need to be able to justify open space amenity in that location in relation to the rest of the city.

I will also use these principles to work out where the boundaries of 'my neighbourhood' should be.

Some of the figures below come from principles of New Urbanism, some from Superbia, some from Christopher Alexander.

From a Pattern Language - Alexander:

Metropolis
Ideal downtown area which can provide "magic of the city" without over-population and urban sprawl issues.

• Max 1.6km wide (but can be long)
• 300 000 people within 5-23km of each other
• Shopping streets – one for every 10 000 people; 2.9km apart
• Markets of many shops - one for every 4000 people; 1.8km
• Corner groceries one for every 1 000 people; 0.8km apart

Local Transport Area
Urban area should be broken down into local transport areas connected by efficient road transport (ring roads), however traveling within these areas should be slow and inconvenient for motor vehicles.

• 1.6 to 3.2 km across
• Surrounded by a ring road
• Slow moving local traffic and bikes within ring road
  
• One way parallel streets for connecting traffic (very few cross streets)

Communities of 7000
Communities of 5000 to 10,000 persons with local government control.

• 400m to 3.2km across
• About 30 HA
• Maximum 10 0000 people
• Densities of 125 people per HA will support a promenade within 5-10 minute walk (460m) (Collingwood density is 50 people per HA)

Mosaic of Subculture
Small urban areas with distinct character, lifestyle and culture.

• 50-400m across

Neighbourhoods
Identifiable neighbourhood with some local control

• 90 - 275m across with about 400-500 residents

Housing Cluster

• 8-12 households (about 30-50 people)
• can be as few as 3 households

Work Community
Workplaces organised as communities

• 10-20 work places

Commute

• People should commute a maximum 20-30 minutes

General:

Grassroots

• 500-1500 amount of people who can ‘rally together’

Ped sheds

• 5 minute walk (400m radius) based on new urbanist ‘walkability’ principle
  

From "Superbia":

• 25-40 houses – optimal number of houses where occupants can get to know each other well and share facilities

• 14m – the distance where you can recognise an individual
  

"You have to love the area you're trying to change"

I've been reading "A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander (in collaboration with Sarah Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein) to get a sense of what, theoretically, should be included in a sustainable neighbourhood, and how on could create a 'mental framework' for a neighbourhood.

At the same time I'm reading about PVA arrays and black water mining, but first I want to get my head around ideas like: How big should the neighbourhood be? What building heights are better? What is the ideal density, or ideal combination of densities? And so on...

"A Pattern Language" is almost 30 years old, but, perhaps surprisingly, is still an extremely useful and relevant text. The book provides 253 'patterns' for developing neighbourhoods, towns and cities. It's a little like a repertory cookbook; and each patterns is like a recipe which can be used to guide design decisions from the grand scale of laying out a city, all the way down to the best arrangement of chairs in your kitchen.

The other thing that is interesting about Alexander, and which makes him a useful reference for people interesting in improving 'their own backyard', is that he believes in bottom up change which responds to specific local conditions.

“We do not believe that these large patterns, which give so much structure to a town or of a neighborhood, can be created by centralised authority, or by laws, or by master plans. We believe instead that they can emerge gradually and organically almost of their own accord, if every act of building, large or small, takes on the responsibility for gradually shaping it’s small corner of the world to make these larger patterns appear there.”

Listed below are the 'recipes' which I am planning to try and apply (theoretically) to my neighbourhood:


The * markers are Alexander's. He recognises that some of the patterns are "more true, more profound, more certain, than others". Those marked with two asterisks ** are patterns which the authors believe are essential to all good design solutions for the particular problem/situation they pertain to; while the patterns marked with one * are likely to reflect characteristics present in most good design solutions, and those with no asterisks more in the way of suggestions or possiblities.

Summaries of each of Alexander's patterns can be found here. And I will return to some of these if necessary to give some background on design decisions.

1. What does a sustainable neighbourhood look like?
2. How does a sustainable neighbourhood work?
3. What are the basic design features of a sustainable neighbourhood?
4. How can we move towards sustainable neighbourhoods from where we are now?

to borrow a turn of phrase & proposal structure used so well by Matt Fisher in his proposal for a publication dealing with Sustainable Cities, 2005.

Superbia: 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods
by Daniel D. Chiras & David Wann

Superbia! is a book of practical ideas for creating more socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable neighborhoods. It is about remaking suburban and urban neighborhoods to serve people better and to reduce human impact on the environment.

http://www.amazon.com/Superbia-Ways-Create-Sustainable-Neighborhoods/dp/0865714908/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202089028&sr=8-1