The Brief

This was the brief that was given for the Pavilion design.

“The theme of Expo 2010 is Better City, Better Life, representing the common wish of the whole humankind for better living in future urban environments. This theme represents a central concern of the international community for future policy making, urban strategies and sustainable development. In 1800, 2% of the global population lived in cities. In 1950, the figure raised to 29%, in 2000, almost half the world population moved into cities, and by 2010, as estimated by the United Nations, the urban population will account for 55% of the total human population.

The quest for a better life has run through the urban history of mankind. Through different sub-themes, Expo 2010 will create blueprints for future cities and harmonious urban life styles, providing an extraordinary educational and entertaining platform for visitors of all nations:

Blending of diverse cultures in the city, Economic prosperity in the city, Innovations of science and technology in the city, Remodelling of communities in the city, Interactions between urban and rural areas.” (source:IDI)

Better City, Better Life – how I feel that is relevant to the cities of Scotland?

The whole country has fallen on hard times and to turn things around doesn’t just require windmills and energy saving lightbulbs, we need bold urban visions. It is an urban vision that many cities throughout the world are looking at, reinventing what cities should be and how they should affect the lives of the people that live in them.

In Nicolai Aououssoff’s article, Reinventing America’s Cities: The Time Is Now, 2009, www.nytimes.co, he mentions their pitfalls and benefits and how several US cities are tackling new urban planning.

Parts of old Detroit

“With their crowded neighbourhoods and web of public services, cities are not only invaluable cultural incubators; they are also vastly more efficient than suburbs. But for years they have been neglected, and in many cases forcibly harmed, by policies that favoured sprawl over density and conformity over difference. Such policies have caused many of our urban centers to devolve into generic theme parks and others, like Detroit, to decay into ghost towns. They have also sparked the rise of ecologically unsustainable gated communities and reinforced economic disparities by building walls between racial, ethnic and class groups.

Correcting this imbalance will require a radical adjustment in how we think of cities and government’s role in them. At times it will mean destruction rather than repair. And it demands listening to people who have spent the last decade imagining and in many cases planning for more sustainable, liveable and socially just cities.”

Poor social housing in Glasgow

Highways drove through the centres of cities and split areas into ghettos where a multi cultural society could live, but in isolation from each other rather than mixed together, learning and developing together through cross cultural experiences.  Poor social housing and the split in economic status between areas made some city centres areas of vast wealth and massive poverty, all in close proximity.

Urban regeneration in many major cities, where developers refurbish parks and old historic quarters can sometimes create sanitized versions of real cities organized around themed districts, massive retail complexes and cultural and sports complexes.

This investment in traditional large-scale infrastructure projects is increasingly being coupled with serious thinking about the future of cities themselves. The Swedish government recently began a promising competition for a design that would replace a decrepit 1930s-era bridge in the heart of Stockholm with a seamless system of locks, roadways and shops. In Madrid the government is completing a plan to bury a four-mile strip of freeway underground and cover it up with parks and new housing. And only a few weeks ago the French government concluded a nine-month study on the future of metropolitan Paris. The study, which included some of Europe’s most celebrated architects, is the first phase in a plan to create a more sustainable, socially integrated model of “the post-Kyoto city.”

At the 2010 Expo, national pavilions have addressed the theme Better City, Better Life, in many different ways.

The UAE Pavilion

The UAE pavilion shows a film exploring the creation of better cities and better lives in the UAE. Through a series of interviews with prominent Emiratis and international figures, and featuring some of the world’s most iconic development projects, the film reveals how Emiratis are building the Emirates and designing cities to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Harnessing education, culture, tourism, urban planning, trade, industry, heritage and environment, this young country is embracing the future in the most innovative of ways. The pavilion will showcase projects such as the Masdar Initiative, a new 6 million sq m carbon neutral, zero waste community in Abu Dhabi, intended to become a centre for the development of new ideas for energy production. (www.worldarchitecturenews.com) Many countries have used the theme to showcase sustainable building practice or the comparison of urban and rural life.

Foster and Partner's Slussen redevelopment design

In Europe there are big urban plans to create better city environments. For example, a joint project between the Swedes at Nod Landscape Architects and Danes at BIG Architects is set to transform Slussen, Stockholm’s city centre, with a massive pedestrian-friendly makeover. Currently Slussen is an interwoven mess of roads with no room for pedestrians or cyclists. The proposed project will transform the area into a multi-layered, multi-use intersection allowing walkers and bikers access to waterfront strolls and gas-free travel. The layered design will also incorporate shops and cafes, reviving Stockholm’s main artery. The plans are to create a connection between the neighbourhoods on each side, moving transport links underground, creating areas for bicycle lanes, strolls through the park and cafe culture.

Olympic Park development in London

In the UK we have big urban regeneration and build projects, focused mainly round the Olympic Park developments for the games of 2012 in London and the Commonwealth Games sites for the 2014 games in Glasgow, which has already seen huge urban change. The Olympic Park development will regenerate one of the most disadvantaged areas of Europe, East London, and will see not just buildings for the athletes and visitor, but also the infrastructure to support the games, roads, bridges, rail links etc.

Flower house by A J Burridge

Acclaimed British fashion designers, turned bastions of urban regeneration and social design, Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway will be helping to create the future of community living at the UK’s first ever eco-housing fair, which is to be held in Scotland. The founders of Hemingway Design have been appointed to design key elements of Scotland’s Housing Expo, by the development phase co-ordinator, Highland Housing Alliance. The Expo will take place in the heart of the Scottish Highlands this summer. As a result of the couple’s passion for creating safe and open play areas for children, Hemingway Design has been commissioned to create 12 gardens and a children’s play area. The areas will be designed to help promote a better social living environment and forge a greater sense of community in keeping with the ethos of the whole development, which also incorporates shared surfaces and remote parking to encourage greater community interaction.

Open to the public throughout August 2010, Scotland’s Housing Expo in Inverness will provide a vision for the next generation of Scottish housing. The cutting-edge sustainable houses will showcase the best of the countries architecture and design, and place Scotland firmly at the forefront of European housing design.

Scotland’s Housing Expo will be based at Balvonie Braes near Inverness and hopes to attract around 300,000 visitors. Fully supported by the Highland Council and a consortium of agencies, the Expo is a result of an architectural competition for the cream of Scottish architecture to design unique and state of the art homes. Based on an innovative master plan for the whole site, the winning designs offer a view of future living for both affordable and private housing, using high quality design, demonstrations of sustainable technologies and new construction methods. (http://www.hemingwaydesign.co.uk/)

Knockroon artists impression

Even Prince Charles gets in on the act, with his plans for a new town in Scotland, which he called Knockroon. The Prince is concerned about the rising obesity epidemic in the UK, caused partially by poor diet and lack of exercise and he believes that where people live and the transport options available have a big influence on their health. Knockroon will incorporate a range of features to discourage residents from using their cars, and lead them to adopting a healthier lifestyle, with every home no more than five minutes walk of shops, workplaces and other amenities.

The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment—the organization charged with developing Knockroon—will be listening to locals’ input in order to create living, working neighbourhoods that emphasize bicycling lanes and pedestrian walkways, all while taking maximum advantage of the idyllic surroundings. Even the housing will reflect traditional Scottish tenements and small houses, though they’re not exactly cutting edge designs.

City planning and regeneration should provide an opportunity for the inhabitants have a say in its crafting. Through interviewing the residents, shop-owners and visitors of a city, planners and architects can find themselves as first hand recipients of oral knowledge and history of the area, which can help to maintain cultural and historic diversity.

There should be a continuation of the live, work and play mantra that has been championed by many over recent times. Perhaps, most importantly, the designs should also consider an important aspect of living in a built environment, that of identity and heritage.

Edinburgh during the Festival

In Richard Sennet’s essay, (2006) The Open City, (http://www.urban-age.net/0_downloads/Berlin_Richard_Sennett_2006-The_Open_City.pdf) he explains the closed and open city systems and notes that the cities we live in today are not always clean and safe, with efficient public services, supported by a dynamic economy, able to provide cultural stimulation for all and are unable to heal the divisions of race, class and ethnicity.

However the aims of all the pavilion exhibitors at Expo 2010 were to show that these failings can be redressed, we just need government support and unfortunately the cash to implement the changes.