Climate Change is probably single largest global challenge faced by us all. To do it's part., the RTPI has recently launched Planning to Live with Climate Change - Our 7 Commitments, which are: 

1 Promote behavioural change
2 Adapt existing places
3 Work towards responsive legislation and policies
4 Improve current practice
5 Celebrate best practice
6 Compile a compendium of best practice
7 Develop climate change education and skills.

To help achieve these aims, the RTPI Networks have established a cross-Network Climate Change Advisory Group. With fellow members from across the Networks, the Champions will press widely for change and adaptation. 

Individual champions have equally important roles within their own Network, exploring and providing good practice examples and articles to feature on the website and in the media and generally promoting discussion amongst Network Members.

On this page:   

• Key issues...Urban Design & Climate Change (Scott Elliott Adams, RTPI Climate Change Champion and director of Urban Design Skills)
• Contribute to the Network's climate change question: How do you think we can create successful places that endure the test of time?
• Urban design and climate change – a primer (Stephen Lorimer of UCL Energy Institute)

Key issues...Urban Design & Climate Change Overview - Scott Elliott Adams, RTPI Climate Change Champion and director of Urban Design Skills

Until recently, climate change, energy and food security, and peak oil were issues some or many of us didn’t discuss, debate or even understand. The awareness of these global issues has risen in our collective consciousness quite quickly, not only in our personal lives but also – and maybe more importantly – in our professional lives.

I remember leading the design of a large-scale masterplan just a few years ago. These issues didn’t seem to play a big part in its development, and subsequently, I have searched the sizable document that promoted development over the next 20 years and found the words ‘sustainability’ and ‘green’ weren’t even used in the document! Today these words are used so often and in such a wide context they often seem useless without further explanation. Now I often ask what is so sustainable about the proposed sustainable community, or what specific elements make this building an example of green architecture (and can it even be considered a pale shade of green)?

Often it is difficult to understand how climate change (along with associated issues of peak oil and energy and food security) can be addressed, especially as new information can be found everyday online, which can often conflict with previous beliefs or findings. It is obvious that we are in a stage where we are just beginning to understand the problem, yet we want (and need) to solve it as well. Because of this, it is often frustrating. One day I feel I want to change the world and see how a scheme could truly promote walking and cycling or how we can significantly reduce our carbon footprint. The next day I may feel discouraged or overwhelmed at the issues we face, especially as the environment often receives token mention, especially in context of economic issues that seem to dominate policy, action and spend.

The RTPI’s Planning to Live with Climate Change is a framework for change. Its seven points will not only focus on urban design, but on all networks throughout the RTPI and throughout the planning profession, which is one of the few professions that has an impact on how we all live together everyday. We will be looking for your thoughts, responses, questions and insights on how the place agenda will be affected by environmental concerns and how the process we create (and regenerate) places can in turn address climate change in a proactive way.

Addressing climate change through Urban Design (Go back to top)

How do you think we can create successful places that endure the test of time?   

We welcome your thoughts, comments and insights on how the place agenda will be affected by environmental concerns and how we can address climate change in a proactive way through urban design.

I would like to contribute to the Network's Climate Change Challenge

Urban design and climate change – a primer (Go back to top)

Written by Stephen Lorimer of UCL Energy Institute

Issues discussed:

• Urban design as a driver of greenhouse gas emissions reduction by enabling behaviour change
• Urban design as a driver of emissions reduction be enabling resource demand reduction in construction and logistics
• Using urban design to be resilient to changes to the earth, water, and the atmosphere

Introduction

Urban design is a major long-term response to both try to limit and to adapt to the consequences of climate change. The role that urban design can take has been neglected – it is harder to quantify, existing patterns and structures taken as a given, and is a complex set of dependent parts by its very nature. Understanding urban design and climate change means looking beyond the merely technical solutions that deliver energy to meet demand with less carbon emissions. Urban designers must provide a re-assessment of the patterns of living and building – the patterns that have made an energy-hungry modern world into a physical reality.

Assessing climate change is largely a quantitative exercise; urban design is largely evaluated using qualitative criteria. Urban designers must take care to link planning policies to desirable reductions in energy use and/or carbon emissions. Urban design is an enabler for other disciplines to reduce energy and material consumption – making the job of campaigners, architects, and engineers easier and in some cases even possible at the sharp end of the fight to limit climate change. Finally, urban design will need to allow the built environment to adapt to climate change that will occur based on our previous activity on the planet.

Behaviour change

Urban design in current policy and practice pairs itself with indicators of quality of life, and this is the most natural space for urban design to have an impact on climate change (Department for Communities and Local Government 2007). The form and spatial pattern of settlements – where people live, work and shop, and the available choice of how they move about - is a fundamental driver of demand for energy and consumption (Council for European Urbanism 2008). These drivers are evident in the objectives of urban design promoted in England and Wales: character, continuity and enclosure, quality of the public realm, ease of movement, legibility, adaptability, and diversity (DETR 2000).

The most visible change is one in transport modes – the layout of any good urban structure that connect places to each other and integrate land use and transport, specifically public transport, walking, and cycling (Department for Transport 2007). These urban design principles were written down before considerations of climate change and reducing carbon emissions, and are still true today. Security is often cited as a reason for illegible and impermeable streets and spaces, but guidance still holds that natural surveillance and designing routes that are overlooked and busy enable the design of housing layouts to make a major contribution to both the prevention of crime and reducing the fear of crime(Association of Chief Police Officers 2004). Clearly, legible and accessible spaces contribute greatly to the job of campaigners to promote green travel, and for transport planners to increase the amount of services and convenience for taking public transport, cycling, and walking.

Reducing resource consumption and demand

Emissions from transportation is a major contributor to climate change, but it is far from the only consideration for an urban designer. Urban design can also lessen resource consumption - effects of infrastructure, embodied energy, building operation energy, locational inefficiencies, lost ecosystem services, lost opportunities for cogeneration, and urban settlements that induce more demand for energy, resources and emissions-producing activities (Council for European Urbanism 2008).  Higher urban density can promote shorter road lengths, higher intensity public transport options, and a range of uses that can be collocated; hyperdensity can increase dependence on mechanical ventilation systems and high building material consumption (Owen 2009).

Urban design can help reduce the dependence on energy to heat and provide electricity in the building stock. Good use of aspect ratios and street trees can allow solar gain for heat and prevent it when the air is warm are more desirable than energy-hungry climate controls (Baker and Steemers 1999; Homes and Communities Agency 2007; Dunster 2008). Designing streets that allow architects to design groups of buildings with more common parts, from just a party wall to green spaces or even services can be a great contributor to saving both energy for running a building and the resource consumption of building it at the start of its life cycle (Williams 2002). Retaining the concept of block and plot with some basic rules on cores encourage diversity and adaptability of the urban form, and save energy in the long term by allowing new individual solutions for incremental growth instead of one complex system that is not easily upgraded using new advances in renewable energy technologies (Steadman 1979; Owens 1986; London Renewables 2004; Mayor of London 2009). Suburbia and low density uses can be also redesigned to make possible lower energy and resource heavy lifestyles (Dutton 2000). The approach of urban design as an enabler for reducing resource consumption in construction and running energy cost of our domestic , work, and leisure lifestyles is valuable and should be encouraged as a prerequisite before investing in new technology in renewable energy generation or green roofs and walls.

Adaption and resilience

Urban designers will need to make existing and future designs resilient to the consequences of climate change that already is on its way due to previous greenhouse gas emissions of rising water levels, soil quality, and heat.  Technological advances have helped increase the safety and security of urban inhabitants and, to a large extent, have in recent years divorced the urban area from local environmental constraints. An idealised urban form can be made for a flood-resilient city that takes into account geographical constraints and in small areas sustainable urban drainage systems can be utlised (Department for Communities and Local Government 2008; White 2008). Care should be taken when designing urban areas that are near viable farmland as ariable land reduces due to climate change to limit resource consumption in producing food. Finally, urban heat islands are getting bigger and hotter due to climate change. It makes cities warmer than the countryside as heat stored by hard surfaces, roads, roofs and walls is only slowly released. Green infrastructure consisting of parks, water, and greenways included in masterplans can help reduce energy use by reducing energy demand for cooling buildings and keep surface temperatures at from rising further despite climate change (CABE 2009; LUCID 2009).

Conclusion

The evidence base available to planning and urban design is clear: the principles of urban design that promote legible, adaptable, diverse, permeable settlements hold and grow stronger faced with the challenges of slowing down and adapting to climate change. Energy generation and transport modes are easily spotted by the general public, but there are underlying complex and less obvious urban structural issues that planners and urban designers are able to use their skills to de-construct, analyse, and propose innovative solutions. Only then can society maximise the skills and opportunities proposed by the range of specialist professionals that are trying to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions demand and make our cities resilient to change.

References

Association of Chief Police Officers (2004). Secured by Design Principles. London.

Baker, N. and K. Steemers (1999). Energy and environment in architecture : a technical design guide. New York, NY, E. & FN. Spon.

CABE (2009). "Sustainable Cities." Retrieved 09 October 09, 2009, from http://www.sustainablecities.org.uk/.

Council for European Urbanism (2008). "Oslo Declaration on Climate Change and Urban Design." Retrieved 09 October 2009, 2009, from http://www.ceunet.org/oslodeclaration.html.

Department for Communities and Local Government (2007). Planning and climate change : supplement to Planning Policy Statement 1. London, TSO.

Department for Communities and Local Government (2008). Planning policy statement 25 : development and flood risk : practice guide. London, Department for Communities and Local Government.

Department for Transport (2007). Manual for streets. London, Thomas Telford Pub.

DETR (2000). By design : urban design in the planning system; towards better practice, Thomas Telford Publishing.

Dunster, B. (2008). The ZED book : solutions for a shrinking world. Abingdon, Taylor & Francis.

Dutton, J. A. (2000). New American urbanism : re-forming the suburban metropolis. Milano, Skira.

Homes and Communities Agency (2007). Urban design compendium 2: Delivering Quality Places. London, English Partnerships.

London Renewables (2004). Integrating renewable energy into new developments: A toolkit for planners, developers and consultants. London, Greater London Authority.

LUCID (2009). "The Development of a Local Urban Climate Model and its Application to the Intelligent Design of Cities." Retrieved 09 October 2009, 2009, from http://www.lucid-project.org.uk.

Mayor of London (2009). London Housing Design Guide: Draft for Consultation. London, Greater London Authority.

Owen, D. (2009). Green metropolis : why living smaller, living closer, and driving less are keys to sustainability. New York, Riverhead Books.

Owens, S. E. (1986). Energy, planning and urban form. London, Pion.

Steadman, J. P. (1979). Energy and patterns of land use. Energy conservation through building design. D. Watson. New York ; London, McGraw-Hill: 246-260.

White, I. (2008). "The absorbent city: urban form and flood risk management." Urban Design and Planning 161(4): 151-162.

Williams, J. (2002). "Shared Living: Reducing the Ecological Footprint of Individuals in Britain." Built Environment 28(1): 57-72.

NETWORK CLIMATE CHANGE CHAMPIONS

This page was written for the Network by Scott Elliott Adams, director of Urban Design Skills and Stephen Lorimer of UCL Energy Institute.

More information on climate change and planning can be found here:

RTPI Policy & Practice - Climate Change: click here

RTPI climate change research papers: click here

Networks and climate change: click here

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Author:

Nicola Gough

Publisher:

The Royal Town Planning Institute

Date:

27-Nov-09

Categories:

 

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