Declining resources, climate change and growing urban populations will transform the cities of today and tomorrow.
Arup is using its sustainable planning and design expertise to consider how these future cities can thrive in the ecological age.
Building successful cities - whether from the ground up, as is often the case in developing nations, or retrofitting existing urban centres - will require a harmonisation with natural surroundings and biodiversity.
Speaking in the latest issue of A2, Arup’s business magazine, Peter Head, Global Leader of Arup’s planning teams, argues that development and urbanisation require a new economic model with resilience and efficient use of resources at its heart.
Head asserts that changes in economic thinking are required: rewarding green living and penalising waste, and ensuring renewables and local services are both efficiently used and accessible to all.
As well as examing a decentralised, 'cluster' model for new cities, Head considers how these principles could influence the retrofitting of existing cities by introducing new public transport nodes, urban agriculture and renewable energy capture. These and other solutions feature in the Infrastructure in an Ecological Age film, illustrating how the city of Manchester could look in the future. Everything in the film is feasible today.
David Singleton, Chairman of Arup’s Global Infrastructure Practice, believes future cities need to combine increased public transport provision with flexible building design in order to reduce heavy traffic and promote healthier, more sustainable environments. He lays out what life would be like in a city built using these principles in an future cities podcast.
"Designing buildings that accommodate multiple possible uses will respond to rapid changes in demand and cater for the requirements of different tenants, thereby maximising efficiency and value", he says. "You can envisage apartments that become offices and vice versa."
"Taken with a greater focus on walking and cycle routes, cities of the future will be much quieter than the contemporary metropolis."
For more views from Arup and its clients and partners on the future for cities - from climate change action planning to inspiring changes towards sustainability - read the latest edition of A2 magazine.