Architectural Policies for Sustainable Urban Growth

Urban Green Growth within Planetary Boundaries, at BI 22.05.19

Per Gunnar RøeProfessor in Human Geography

Will cities save us?Or will we save our cities?

• Cities are diverse, innovative and potentially sustainable, but they are also increasingly inequal and segregated

• The dominating receipt has been to develop compact, multifunctional and livable cities

• But how has this been translated into actual policies, and how may it transform urban landscapes and the actual living conditions for city inhabitants?

Talent

Technology

Tolerance

Outline

• The arguments and research supporting the compact and livable city policy

• The transformation and design of the waterfront of Oslo (case)

• The role of urban architecture in the making of these places

• The implications for social sustainability

The main argument: Reduce urban sprawl and car use

Barcelona

Newman & Kenworthy 1989

Oslo (2018)

Atlanta

Car travel and modal split according to residential location(Throndsen 2017)

The narratives of the compact city

The compact

and livablecity

Environmentalism-less transport demanding-transit oriented-resilient

Urbanism-mixed and co-habitated-vibrant and creative-liveable and attractive

Rationalism-effective-smart and innovative- economically viable

Houston Oslo

Barcelona Hong Kong

The arguments for increased densityand architectural compactness:

• Increased (population) density correlates with decreased transport per capita

• It reduces infrastructure cost• It increases innovation when the new inhabitants

belongs to the creative class• It reduces the distance between inhabitants and

thereby enhances possibilities for contact• It increases the probability of economic gain for

developers and builders

The entreprenurial role of architecture

• …representation of a decontextualized office architecture is part of a shift in urban political strategies (Grubbauer 2013)

• …economic imaginaries might be installed more efficiently if they are discursively connected to and visually represented by buildings in urban space, as this enhances their plausibility and visibility (Grubbauer 2013)

• …corporate and state actors and institutions, mobilize architecture as one way of making political economic strategies meaningful (Jones 2009)

The case ofOslo:

From the«Harbour City»

to the«Fjord City»

Timeline

«Fjordbyen» is launched

2000

2003 Architectural

competition and adopted

developmentplan for Bjørvika

Planning starts 2005

2008«Fjordbyen» is

adopted

Final trans-formation?

The Barcode concept

The representation of functionalism and sustainability

The representation of social urbanism

The Fjord City architecture• Urban architecture is increasingly transnational in form

and organization• Architectural competitions are partially disconnected

from planning• Urban projects are connected to plans symbolically,

through representations, and less with plans as guidelines for practices

• Architectural representations provide imaginations of future functionality and livability in the emerging compact city

• The representations do not provide an account of actual living conditions and social implications

LondonStockholm

Oslo

Helsinki

Malmö

Copenhagen

Hamburg

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Mean savings

0100000200000300000400000500000600000700000

Mean net income

Socioeconomic and demographical data

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Children & youth (0-19)

Elderly (67 plus)

Public space or socio-cultural enclave?

Explanations• Competitive entrepreneurialism: The

compact/livable/smart city is part of a competitive strategy to attract capital and people

• Regulation: There are strong forces that regulate the work of architects/planners , and how buildings are embedded in a local context, both transnational and local

• Cultural political economy: Urbanism and architecture has an political-economical meaning

• Symbolic capital: The city and architecture is constructed in relation to the preferences and aspirations of the creative class

Conclusions and implications• Representations of urban architecture

provides symbolic power to compact, livable and smart city policies

• A need to problematize the role of architectural representations and projects– as if real social practices doesn’t exist– disconnecting the projects from the wider city – underscoring social implications

• Architectural policy should be informed by – a critique of the role of architecture in large

scale public-private projects– research on the social implications of urban

development, at both macro and micro level – socially inclusive and sustainable theories for

urban development and change

Literature:

Andersen, B. & Røe, P. G. 2017. The social context and politics of large scale urban architecture: Investigating the design of Barcode, Oslo. European Urban and Regional Studies. Vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 304-317.

Røe, P. G. 2014. Analyzing Place and Place-making: Urbanization in Suburban Oslo. International. Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 498-515.