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Showing posts with label higher density. Show all posts
Showing posts with label higher density. Show all posts
Ok, so I’ve put forward an argument for increasing density in our neighbourhood as an critical aspect of sustainability – although I’m sure many of my neighbours would beg to differ on that score. Which is understandable...
After all, increasing density is always going to be a hard sell if you happen to be the one living next door to a new multi-storey development, and you’ve just been told someone is going to build their balcony overlooking your bedroom window. I know I wouldn't like it. When it comes to helping the planet, most of us would much rather stick to recycling instead.
But even if we put the environmental concerns aside for the moment, the fact is that with rising land prices increasing density is inevitable in inner urban areas. So the problem becomes making sure we get the ‘right’ kind of density, in the ‘right’ place.
Where should we locate higher densities:
In the plan to the left (click to see larger) I’ve shown higher densities along the major roads (Wellington, Alexander and to a lessor extent Gold and Hotham). This doesn’t mean that I’m proposing that these areas should be exclusively high density, or that density should not be increased outside these areas. Rather, the areas indicated are those where we should encourage a concentration of higher density.
Why there?
The reasoning behind the location of density is a combination of New Urbanism and Christopher Alexander’s ideas.
We want to keep higher density housing on busy roads, and away from Charlotte Street, so that we can maintain the ‘quiet back’ of our nieghbourhood, which might include a peaceful common green area in the centre of our neighbourhood.
And we want to 'reward density with amenity' by locating higher densities adjacent to shops and café’s, workplaces and activity centres (see previous post).
More design notes:
- High density residential should be located where possible to reuse existing building envelopes, and adjacent to amenities.
- In order for residents to maintain a ‘relationship’ with the street, high density buildings should not be more than four stories in height (rare exceptions are fine).
Plan showing possible location of various 'program' and density in our neighbourhood
Click image to see larger
Building a more sustainable neighbourhood is also about creating sustainable community. The more we talk to each other, and the stronger our relationships are; the stronger our community is. Our neighbourhood already has a few locations for us to cross paths; including the two pubs, the café and the corner store.As densities increase, it’s important for us to maintain and strengthen the local centers in our neighbourhoods. The plan above shows two mixed use ‘centres’, located adjacent to the existing amenities (pubs, café, childcare facility) and providing additional work spaces, offices, shops or cafes. The one on the corner of Wellington and Hotham is meant to service our neighbourhood primarily, the one on Gold Street is intended to service the area further south (the street layout means that it has to lie a little closer to ours than is ideal).
The diagonal pattern on the street in the 'centres' indicates the ideal location for some kind of public square. Somewhere for café tables, and a community noticeboard – maybe for local activities, like a farmers market, or the occasional white elephant stall. The 'design job' now is to work out if cars and a public square can share the same space, or if there is room for both.
Why not put the centre in the centre?New Urbanists tend to propose neighbourhoods which look like the image on the left: the activity centre with the shops and cafes and bus stop is in the middle of the ped shed (5 minute walk), with the infrastructure around the outside.
Alexander argues that activity naturally happens along the edges of communities. And that the roads required to service those centres located in the middle of neighbourhoods only act to divide the community in half. Alexander recommends what he calls “‘eccentric’ nucleus”; centres placed on the edges of communities, but allowed to bulge towards the centre. He suggests that the actual centre of a neighbourhood should be occupied by a quiet community green and/or leafy footpaths.
More design notes:
- Small scale retail and office should share residential building envelopes.
- Children should be able to play in all minor streets (woonerf system), but a specific play area for young children & toddlers to be provided where indicated (yellow area). Play area should not be fenced off, or have a defined perimeter.
Plan showing location of 'eccentric nuclei' oriented towards the city.
Which image shows the most sustainable lifestyle? A terrace house in Fitzroy? Or an 'earthship' in New Mexico?
That urban sprawl is not sustainable seems pretty self evident – the growing sprawl of suburbs and ever growing McMansions is chewing through natural resources. In outer Melbourne, green field development is eating into remnant grass lands and red gum stands. Heating & cooling those big houses with their multiple bathrooms and lack of eaves is a problem, as is the fuelling the ever growing daily commute, as well as catering for the increasing congestion in the city.
And there’s not much in the way of alternative transport for these people because of there are so few residents over a large area, it’s difficult for outer suburban areas to support effective public transport networks.
And sprawling suburbs, bereft as they are of their own town centres, except the ubiquitous shopping malls, tend to lack community, lack identity, lack a ‘sense of place’.
So, if the endless sprawling of our cities is a social and environmental problem, then there is only one solution: higher density housing.
I think it’s funny that people who are otherwise into sustainability are always quick to have a go at “greedy developers” building apartment buildings, or townhouses in their neighbourhood. The developers who are building higher density housing may well be greedy, but they’re also helping the planet.
Perhaps it’s a NIMBY thing (not-in-my-backyard), or maybe it’s an understandable concern about an erosion, or change in neighbourhood character. And of course, there are problems attached increasing densities including increase pressure on infrastructure, noise and privacy concerns, and impact the solar access of homes surrounding new developments.
Of course there are good things about increasing density too. Neighbourhoods with higher densities can support higher levels of infrastructure, which means more choice: more schools, more doctors, more public transport, more shops (especially more specialty shops) and more cafes with decent coffee.
More units and apartments mean more mixed communities – more old people, more students and lower income residents, which is good for social diversity.
A lot of people seem to have an idea about sustainable living that it’s something like this self declared sustainable community in New Mexico. That is, being truly sustainable requires leaving the city and setting up a self-sufficient house somewhere in the desert or the bush.
Houses, aka ‘earthships’ built with recycled materials.
Of course it’s good that they’ve used recycled building materials, and they’re attempting to grow their own food. But I guarantee that they’re regularly piling into their pickup trucks to head all the way into town and buy their toothpaste, donuts and sugar and shampoo like everyone else. Hell, they’re probably commuting into town to work.
After all, many of us live in 'recycled' houses already, mine was built in about 1920, so it's embodied energy is pretty low. The only difference to the way most of us live in the city, and this community, is that our food and other supplies have less ‘food miles’, and we haven’t messed up a pristine desert ecosystem by building a house on it.
I visited the earthship site recently and was appalled the find the following comments:
From: scotty o (Tue 15 Jul 2008 04:38:17 AM EDT)
cool, we need something like this in aust (downunder)
From: GMB (Sun 20 Jul 2008 07:02:12 AM EDT)
It would be good if you could "homestead" land on either side of the desert roads in Australia for this purpose. We have heaps of this land that is going unused and is more or less useless for any other purpose.
Useless? Not being used? How many people still believe that a piece of land which filters water, and supports ecosystems and plant life which in turn reduce greenhouse gases – is useless unless we build a house on it! Makes me cranky...
So we can forget the dream of running away from the city to be green. The answer is not to turn our backs on the city, in fact it’s the opposite. We need to make our inner urban areas more city-like by increasing density.
One of the best things we can do here in our neighbourhood to help the planet is support higher density: Each extra person living here in Collingwood is one less person driving past us on Alexander Parade to their home in the outer suburbs, and producing carbon emissions all the way home.
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