Living Cities: Vision and Method, revised

LIVING CITIESVision and Method for Regenerative Design

RESOURCE POSITIVE ARCHITECTURE | WATERLOO ARCHITECTURE

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada.

Living Cities : Vision and MethodPublished by Resource Positive Architecture and Waterloo Architecturewww.resourcepositive.com

ISBN 978-1-926724-10-2

Edited by Philip BeesleyCopy Editor: Robin PaxtonDesign and Production: Victoria Beltrano

Living Cities is set in Archer

Second edition.

2011 Resource Positive Architecture.All rights reserved by the individual paper authors who are solely responsible for their content. All opinions expressed within this publication are those of the authors. Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions.

LIVING CITIESVision and Method for Regenerative Design

2CONTENTS

PREFACEERIC HALDENBYWaterloo Architecture

SYNOPSIS

THE CONNECTING THREADDOUGLAS MACLEODOkanagan College

THE VANCOUVER OLYMPIC VILLAGE EXPERIENCE: Engaging Innovation andLeading Edge DesignROGER BAYLEYRoger Bayley Inc.

This lecture will explore how a contaminated industrial site in the heart of a city was transformed into the Millennium Water Olympic Village project. The presentation will detail the creative process used to bring together the team of five architectural firms and more than 40 engineering and service companies to develop a common vision for a sustainable community that pushed the boundaries of green building design.

EMBEDDED RIGIDITIES AND MOMENTS OF CHANGE: Space, Institutions and the Evolutionary Potentials in Urban Form ANDR SORENSENUniversity of Toronto/Cities Centre

This lecture will examine institutional sources of inflexibility and rigidity in urban form, such as regulatory frameworks, zoning systems, property rights and development charges. Understanding patterns of inflexibility provides a window for understanding spaces and moments of openness to change and transformation.

LARGE BUILDING ENERGY SYSTEMSRELATIONSHIPS TO DISTRICT ENERGY MANAGEMENT: Cogeneration, Energy Storage and Demand/Load CouplingKEVIN STELZERB+H Architects

The presentation will demonstrate how buildings do not operate in isolation, and pursues understanding of urban interconnectivity. The unique energy demands

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3LIVING CITIES | Vision and Method for Regenerative Design

of individual buildings can afford the opportunity to optimize energy distribution within cities. Urban energy management can offer great economies of scale as well as energy load diversification across integrated energy loops. Creative use of proven technologies including cogeneration, energy storage and demand/load coupling can help us utilize waste heat for the betterment of the energy performance of our urban environments.

SCALE AND SCALABILITYAZAM KHANAutodesk Research

City visualization will be explored by focusing on a building visualization platform. In turn, the presentation will offer a methodology that scales from a single building to a full city, conceptualizing relevant dimensions for the complex topic of cities, living and sustainability.

SOFTWARE TOOLS FOR ENGINEERING AND DESIGN EXPLORATIONIAN KEOUGHBuro Happold

The presentation includes a focus on custom software tools created for engineering complex structures. Recent Buro Happold projects will be illustrated as examples of the process by which a tool is conceived, constructed, and utilized. In a second part, specialized software tools created for design exploration will be detailed. These tools allow for investigation of design concepts through parametric modeling, iterative analysis, and visual programming.

PLANETARY CITIES: Ecology and Design for TomorrowMITCHELL JOACHIMTerreform One/New York University

This presentation will focus on developing innovative solutions and technologies for local sustainability in energy, transportation, infrastructure, buildings, waste treatment, food, water and media spaces.

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4PREFACE

There is little dispute over the position that architecture must respond to the environmental crisis and pursue stewardship as a central theme in its theory and practice. At the same time, there is widespread skepticism that the present spate of accredited buildings actually represents the only or even the best way of achieving the goals of a carbon-neutral and environmentally responsible architecture.

Living Cities: Vision and Method provided an opportunity for architects and experts from other academic fields to discuss and debate alternate courses for the future of the North American city as it faces the need to achieve its post-carbon state. Most importantly, the conversation

took place in a school of architecture, in front of graduate and undergraduate students who will be the ones most responsible for charting the course of architectural research and practice in the future. While the discussion is still divergent and complex, it will only be refined by exposure and persuasive argument. For this reason we owe a great debt of gratitude to the sponsors, organizers and participants in the Living Cities colloquium.

Rick Haldenby FRAICODonovan Director, Waterloo Architecture


The papers within this publication are drawn from the colloquium Living Cities: Vision and Method, held at the School of Architecture at Waterloo in Cambridge, Ontario, on January 20th and 21st, 2011. Waterloo Architecture presented the event in partnership with the Resource Positive Envelope Design group and Okanagan College, supported by the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate and by Environment Canada. The event was oriented towards urban designers, architects, technologists and members of the public interested in the future of sustainable built environments. International designers and critics presented lectures and workshops focusing on design of sustainable future cities. The colloquium examined experimental and visionary projections of future urban forms that pursue social and environmental viability.

6In a very short period of time, the Resource Positive Envelope Design (RPED) project has produced a wealth of activities and resources that have the potential to change the way we think about architecture.

The intent was not merely to design new kinds of buildings, communities and cities, but to design a new meaning for these structures that is predicated on a new relationship with the environment. To fully realize this goal would require a lifetime of work, but it begins with the comprehensive exploration of architecture that is presented here. This exploration occurred through technological research, visionary designs and experimental installations that were founded on ongoing discussions, a willingness to share and a spirit of cooperation.

It was precisely this spirit of cooperation that allowed the project to accomplish so much. Over the course of the project, the project team held two conferences, the Mini-Summit on the Future of Architecture and Living Cities: Vision and

Method; participated in the Buildings and Appliances Task Force of the Asia-Pacific Partnership; organized a Green Building Exchange in Busan and Seoul, South Korea, and Shanghai, China, that included some of Canadas top architects and engineers; developed an extensive curriculum for sustainable construction management; carried out research in interactive and responsive design; built a detailed database of green buildings in a variety of countries; deployed networks of wireless sensors to measure building performance in Penticton, Canada, Busan, South Korea, and Tianjin, China; and conducted an international student competition with over 200 entriesall in the space of 12 months. Moreover, it is a measure of the cooperative spirit of the project that all participants in these activities have agreed to share their materials freely and openly through the project website at resourcepositive.com.

In addition, the project was able to forge key relationships with partners and organizations from around the world. For example, project funding was used to help

THE CONNECTING THREAD


members. The second is Living Cities: Vision and Method, which examines experimental and visionary projections of future urban forms. What ties these two publications is precisely the need to redefine the built environment. In both cases, this information is provided in digital form in order that it be freely and easily available to all.

The most powerful legacy of the project, however, may be the network of connections and partnerships that were built around the world.

Throughout the project we have had considerable moral, and financial, support from a variety of federal and provincial ministries and departments, for which we are very appreciative. Through their ongoing work with the Asia Pacific Partnership, Amanda Kramer and her team at Environment Canada provided the vision and impetus as well the major funding for the project. Elizabeth Tang and Glen Webb in particular at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation provided constant guidance and support as we built partnerships in other countries. Paul

Roger Bayley travel to Tianjin and work with the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City project, where they are now planning a Canadian Centre for Sustainable Innovation. Discussions with Sun Central led to the deployment of an extensive series of light guides in Okanagan Colleges new Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Building Technologies and Renewable Energy Conservation as well as the participation of project researchers in the Core Sunlighting Solutions Research Network, which is part of the Canada-California Strategic Innovation Partnership. Project members were also invited to participate in the inaugural meeting of the Sustainable Building Network organized by the International Energy Agency in Paris, France. Closer to home, project members also helped to form the pan-Canadian College Sustainable Building Consortium.

Because the project generated such a tremendous amount of material, it has produced not one, but two publications. The first is Explorations in Regenerative Design, which documents the innovative research and design projects conducted by project

8Finally, all those associated with the project owe their gratitude to the team at Okanagan College, who worked tirelessly to keep the project on track and on budget. As project manager, Michele McCready brought order out of chaos and she was ably assisted by Patti Boyd, Jennifer Heppner, Carla Whitten and Margaret Johnson. I would also like to thank Dean Yvonne Moritz, former Dean Dianne Crisp and Vice President of Education Andrew Hay for their support and patience for this project.

The issues raised by the Resource Positive Envelope Design project will not be solved overnight or by a single project, but the future of our planet depends on us addressing them now. In this sense, this project provided a critical first step in the right direction.

Douglas MacLeodAssociate Dean of Science, Technology and Health, Okanagan College

Irwin and his team with the government of British Columbia were a major sponsor and supporter of our Green Building Exchange, which would have been impossible without their help as well as that of their representatives in the countries we visited. Here we would particularly like to thank K. S. Kim and Injun Paek in Korea, and John McDonald and Sylvia Sun in Shanghai.

All of the work carried out during the project was very much a collaboration of friends and colleagues. Once again I had the privilege of working with David Covo of McGill University and Philip Beesley of the University of Waterloo and I look forward to doing so again. Their insights and collaborative approach were essential to the success of this work. Similarly, Davis Marques of Ryerson University was indispensable to the technical aspects of the project. Brian Lee of MGH Consulting contributed his expertise in wireless sensors. Alan Maguire of George Brown College helped ground the project in the real world. Robert MacDonald was instrumental in building our web presence and this publication.


ROGER BAYLEY

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Engaging Innovation and Leading Edge Design

Roger Bayley harnesses the skills of forward-thinking developers, planners, architects and visionaries to create innovative green buildings and master-planned communities. Bayleys experience spans 40 years of senior-level project design and management. As a founding principal of Merrick Architecture, which grew from 4 to 70 employees during his tenure, he was responsible for project design, engineering, quality control and project management. From 2006 to 2010 he was the design manager for the Millennium Water Olympic Village in Vancouver, Canadas first LEED-certified Platinum neighbourhood and the largest sustainable community in North America. Bayley is the Canadian representative to the Tianjin Eco-City in Tianjin, China.

The Vancouver Olympic Village Experience

ROGER BAYLEYRoger Bayley Inc.

13THE VANCOUVER OLYMPIC VILLAGE EXPERIENCE

What is so delightful about coming to a gathering like this is to talk to the new minds, those who are going to actually have to go out into our marketplace and deal with the issues that we in the tie-wearing generation have left you, which is a huge challenge for you as you move into the architectural profession. I have got a lot of information here today and I mean to go quite quickly. Ive had a request that I add a little bit of information about a project were doing in China onto the back end of this presentation, and Id like to do that just to convey to you some of the initiatives weve been working on.

So these are the things were going to talk about today: Climate, and its impact in carbon-related emissions issues. Planning, and the policy behind the

formation of the Olympic Village and False Creek development. Architecture, and the implications of passive design on building development and the ramifications on how that translates to resource savings. Ill talk a little bit about energy and the strategies we used for energy reduction on the project, and the technologies that were implemented, some of them quite new to Canada.

Ill focus a little bit on water. Water is going to become the petroleum of the next century as water resources begin to deplete in the universe. Australia, of course, doesnt feel that way at the moment, but water is a significant issue. A little bit on healthy living and on indoor space quality, air quality, amenities and social circumstances. Ill focus on the net-zero-energy building

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that was built for this project, which is really the future, I think, that you are going to have to bring into the work that you do as you move into the field of architecture.

Finally well talk a little bit about communication; because essentially all the pieces we just started with, the first seven topics, are of no value if you cannot effectively communicate what it is you want to achieve, and if you arent able to get that message out into the marketplace. You are the vehicle of change for this future that we are trying to engage, and if you do not engage it and you do not communicate about it, youre going to have a very complicated future.

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So we begin with climate; I always do this. I know you all probably dont want to hear about climate, but I like to remind myself of why Im in this game, and how I got involved in this. This is just some peoples predictions of what might happen with the temperature of the Earths surface. Greenhouse gas emission levels are increasing dramatically, which can have significant impacts on global climate conditions. The predictions are not very encouraging, and they confront you with significant issues that you need to resolve and work on, all coming out of melting ice, rising sea levels, burning of oils and fossil fuels, all the issues around waste and how we actually work in this planet and what we do with the resources that we have. (1)

Carbon dioxide levels have increased in the atmosphere, which is essentially resulting in climate change. You cant make this stuff up, its real; were at about 386 parts per million at the moment, and heading upwards. (2)

The sea level has risen over the last 100 years, and you can see that things are continuing to change. As the sea level comes up, it obviously has implications on the communities that we live in, particularly because something like 3040% of the worlds population lives on river deltas, which is the fertile land that feeds us all. Most of those river deltas are very prone to flooding, as we saw in Pakistan over the last year, and as were seeing in Australia. The implications of that can impact the worlds food supplies in a very serious way. That will have its own implications as we move forward. (3)

If you just look at the current sea level around China, it is clear that one metre higher would create a significant impact. (5) With seven metres of sea level rise, which a number of people have been predicting could maybe happen in a couple of hundred years, Chinas coastline would be impacted. It would place Shanghai as an offshore island, pretty much under water. (6)

So the ramifications are significant. British Columbia has gone through its own problems. Take the friendly pine beetle, which has eaten $90 billion worth of lumber in British Columbia, all

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Atmospheric CO2

Recent sea level rise

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because the winters arent cold enough for it to die off anymore. This is a pretty serious issue; you can see the extent that that beetle has consumed.

It all comes because we put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This figure charts the course; youve probably seen these graphs before, I dont need to go on about them. This is the kind of resource consumption that this industry deals with. (4)

As we came into working on the southeast False Creek project for the Olympic Village, the city of Vancouver was very cognizant of the climate change issues around this project. They asked, what can we do to influence how we move forward? These are just some of the points; if were going to have action we need both carrots and sticks to try and move forward. We need strong leadership. You are the leaders of tomorrow, you are the people who are going to lead us into the resolution of these issues.

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Emissions and consumption

Sea level near Chinaone metre higher

Sea level near Chinaseven metres higher


Collaboration is a significant part of any form of leadership that youre going to be involved in. So the ability to communicate and talk to each other is going to be key. There are significant incentives required to engage our communities in moving forward in this realm, and where those incentives come from has become a real issue. Our development industry is essentially not ready to do this. They are not ready to engage it in any real way. There will be pockets of people in the development industry and in the architectural and design professions ready to do this, but theres essentially a lack of urgency being expressed at the government level. If were going to make change, then you need to do it in a way thats fair to everybody, so that everybody is working within the same context. And thats actually quite difficult to achieve.

A little question: does anyone know how high the oceans were the last time we were at 500 parts per million? Well be there within about 100 years, pretty much guaranteed. I dont think were going to stop polluting the atmosphere. The sea level was 17 metres higher the last time the carbon dioxide level was 500 parts per million. So you cant tell me whats going to happen, and I cant tell you whats going to happen; but theres a fair amount of risk out there as to what might happen as we continue to pollute our atmosphere.

As Vancouver moved forward into the planning and infrastructure development of the Olympic Village, those were the key issues it was conscious of in terms of the development. If you look at the original city of Vancouver, around the late 1800s, the site for the Olympic Village is located

in what we now call False Creek. (7) Vancouver is a resource city, and you can see how the city looks now. They love this slide in China because its all about the quality of the atmosphere, which is quite phenomenal. You can see the location of the city, and how its laid out. (8)

We have maps that show the city about 100 years ago, or a little bit less than that, 80 years ago (9) and how the development has occurred over time. (10) As we move forward into the discussion of how False Creek developed, this is typical of the approach that Vancouver has been taking towards the development of residential

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City of Vancouver, late 19th century

City of Vancouver

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City of Vancouver, early 20th century

City of Vancouver

False Creek area

City of Vancouver


space within the city, with high rise development on a podium. (11 and 12)

As we moved into the Olympic program, there were a number of people who felt that how this overall plan should be developed should respect a different set of design parameters. So they began to look at the European model of tighter streets, lower buildings, waterfront edges, the kinds of conditions that you find in Amsterdam, or other cities such as Paris and London. (13)

The approach to development is a little bit different from whats been going on in Vancouver for a period of time. The European development model became the influence that drove the development planning from the top model, which is the early design program of high-rise buildings typical of whats been developed in the

inner core of the city, and moved it towards the bottom design parameters, which are these lower-rise courtyarded European-style buildings. That was very strongly supported by the industry, by the professionals and planners and landscape architects, and then supported by council.

As the project moved forward, the centre portion of that overall site became designated as the Olympic Village. This was a projected school building, and the restoration of the salt building which well talk about a little bit. One of the key issues for the overall development plan, and well probably talk about this as one of the questions about social housing within the context of an urban market program: the city was very anxious to have a number of facilities built into this project for low-cost, affordable housing. At our recommendation the developer added these rental blocks

13 Southeast False Creek Official Development Plan

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into the project in order to provide a wider variation of accommodation in the overall program. (14) That resulted in the rezoning model. (15)

So during that process, what did we learn about how that form of development might be included in the urban framework? Increased density requires a mix of urban amenities to create livable environments. If youre going to increase the density inside a city, you need to add amenities in order that people have places to enjoy themselves, to relax, to meet and greet and spend time with each other. Community integration, in terms of being able to bring these sorts of communities together, really begins with your approach to how that infrastructure develops, long before you get to think about buildings.

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False Creek development plan

False Creek development plan


I think the lesson here for all of us is if youre going to work in sustainable community development, it really starts long before you get to the buildings. Most of us can understand how to build a net-zero building, but actually building a community that depends on fewer resources is really the critical task. So whether mixing affordable housing with market housing was the right decision became and continues to be a question about the Olympic Village.

The last item here is about how to actually go through that planning process in terms of setting goals and principles for yourself, and then work together as a collaborative team to achieve those objectives. I ask this question because I think its pertinent; the City of Toronto is about to build a village thats twice the size of this for the Pan-American Games in 2015. My question is who should actually be paying for that Olympic program? Is it really the developer and the buyer of the unit, or should it actually be a governmental cost? In the case of Vancouver, the buyer of the unit paid for the Olympics. I think thats not appropriate, that it should really be paid for as a global cost that all taxpayers participate in.

This is the question Im left with: will this European form of development actually deliver a more integrated and livable neighbourhood? The question is on the floor still, for us to come back and see how the Olympic Village actually works and functions and whether weve been successful in achieving the objective.

A little bit about architecture and talking about the issues around how the architecture of this project was developed. From the very beginning everybody set out to say, were going to use passive architectural design as a key element of resource management and energy management. Rather than look for technical solutions to reduce energy use such as more efficient motors, better fans or better ways of distributing resources through the project, can we actually begin by designing and building buildings that dont require those resources? Can we work with a more passive approach to the design of the project?

In the early modelling of the project, you can see that external shading was used to reduce incoming energy, stairwells were moved to the outside of the building so people would actually use them and let light into the centre of the building and evaporative ponds were used for cooling the airflows flowing through the project. A lot of attention was paid to the fundamental question of form of development as a way of managing energy and resources.

Looking down on the overall project, you can see the overall development program. We walked around it to see some of the ways that architecture was expressed. At one end theres a school site to be built, and at the far end, Science World. The rest of this area is now under development as part of the original overall development plan. (16) As you go down and start looking at the buildings, you get a sense of the level of articulation, the use of green roofs, how

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energy spaces support the activities of the project and how the streetscapes are used to create public amenity that really is about social behaviour and social well-being. (17 and 18)

Looking into the heart of one of the projects, you see an interesting relationship between the units on the left-hand side, which are small-scale 500-square-foot rental units, and the units on the far side that are $1.5-million, larger-scale units in the private marketplace. These courtyards are like inner sanctuaries within the project. (19)

Looking across that courtyard you can get a sense of what those relationships would be like. Quite different from living in a high-rise building. You have a relationship between people within the block of space. If you live in one of these units youve got probably 20 visual neighbours who you can actually see, you can be part of that community. (20)

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False Creek area

Detail of False Creek area

Detail of False Creek area


A number of people comment on the levels of privacy that may impinge on, but I think the truth of how this actually works is a social experiment. Were all interested to see how it plays itself out. A lot of time was spent on elements through the project that are about private space, contemplative environments, places to go that are kind of away from the hubbub of the area generally.

Three of these pictures are affordable housing and one of them is market housing. Theres no real differentiation being made between the kinds of housing being provided in the affordable range to the housing being provided in the market range. That was a decision of the city of Vancouver. (21)

This is Arthur Ericksons last project, parcel four on the waterfront. Its quite a complicated form; you can get a sense of that. Its got a curved faade; its twisted like a stack of cards, which makes for a quite complicated faade. I think there are a number of different opinions about its success as an architectural icon. (22)

Looking down across some of the streets you can see a program which we put in place to create a system of streets in the sky. You go up on the elevator, you come out of the elevator onto a street at level seven, and your front door is actually on that street in the sky. Again it creates a different environment and different relationships among the people living along that edge. (23)

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Courtyard

Courtyard

Details of housing. Bottom right: market housing.

Parcel four, False Creek development

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This is a very generous open plaza for public events that was created at the centre of the project. (24) You can get a sense of the street scale here. On the right-hand side is the community centre. Market houses and units look over the top with retail space below. (25)On the opening day I think there were 15,000 people on site. It was kind of an interesting, engaging environment where people were, I think, pretty impressed by the work that had been done. (26)

Im looking at the architecture and wondering, what were the lessons? This form of development has a really significant impact on the level of social integration that youre going to see across the project, the European model versus the high-rise tower thats typical of other areas of the downtown core. Incentives are required in order for developers to take on some of these more aggressively passive strategies, because they end up adding capital cost to the project. If youre going to really achieve a reduction in resource use, you need a strongly integrated approach to the building systems that are in the project. Particularly, if youre dealing with integrated hydronic heating systems, you need to look at what the heat loads are in the building itself and how they relate to the kinds of heating and cooling systems that youre providing.

So architecture begins well back in that process in terms of looking at the overall resource use that a projects going to take, and how that impacts the form of development. If youre going to work with these kinds of innovative concepts, we need leadership, as I said earlier on. You are the leaders of tomorrow. You are going to have to step up and build the

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Detail showing streets in the sky

Plaza

Entranceway

Opening day


capacity of the industry to deal with these kinds of issues. There will need to be very significant change. Its quite evident in this process weve been through that in some ways the development industry is now pulling back even further from the commitment to building green projects. The public is still not on board and willing to pay a premium to have those kinds of initiatives and development programs. This is the question Im left with: what are we going to do as an industry, and as a profession, to encourage developers to adopt these kinds of design strategies in the development of their projects? I think the school of architecture is the place where this needs to begin as we move forward.

Im going to go on and talk a little bit about energy. The city of Vancouver implemented the district energy system

that feeds energy to this project, which comes from the community energy system centre. (27) This is the main sewer line that runs out of the east end of Vancouver, and we capture energy from that sewer. Lots of people talk about the energy crisis. Its not really an energy crisis; its a form-of-energy crisis. There is a ton of energy around, but it happens to be in the form of thermal energy, as hot water, as waste energy in sewers and as sunshine. Its not electricity, and its not petroleum, which have high levels of energy. There is a crisis in those areas. (28)

But in terms of waste energy, youd be staggered at how much energy is in your sewer system. Were capturing energy using a massive heat pump system. We pull about 70% of all the energy needs for this project off that sewer line, and were only taking about 5% of the

27 Thermal energy distribution

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energy thats in that sewer. Were only recapturing about 5% of that energy. So a huge percentage of that energy is wasted pouring out into the ocean and available for anyone who wants to use these kinds of technologies.

The other approach that we took on this project was to use radiant heating and cooling. The strange thing about radiant energy is that nobody seems to understand it. Whenever I talk about what we did, people always tell me that hot air rises, the system shouldnt work; because all of the radiant systems that we put into this project are mounted in the ceilings. What we do is run hot water through our ceilings to heat our ceilings up, and that creates a radiant exchange with you who are in the space. Alternatively we run cool water through the ceiling and cool you down. (29)

So, about 4050% of your experience of comfort comes from radiant energy. Thats not hot air; that is just radiant energy that is coming off the walls and

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surfaces of the spaces that you are in. This is the technology that was used throughout this project, and when you combine that together with a resource measurement and management system that looks at all the resources coming into this projectheating, cooling, water and electricityand you combine that with the passive design elements that were instigated on this project, and the recapture of sewage waste energy from the sewer system, this project globally reduces its energy consumption by close to 50%. So, significant gains made in terms of how energy is used and managed on the project. (30 and 31)

What did we learn about all of that in terms of energy use on the project? The first thing is that there are a variety of options available for district energy systems. Some of those need to be looked at in terms of ambient distribution versus high-temperature distribution. An interesting thing was that at the Olympic Village they used high-temperature distribution, which we, the building designers, did not want. What we wanted was ambient temperature distribution so that we could either take energy out of the system or put energy back into it depending on whether we were heating or cooling our buildings. But there was a commitment made very early on that we would use a high-temperature loop. There was an interesting dichotomy between what the City of Vancouver wanted to do and what the engineering fraternity working on the project were doing.

On to this issue of sewer heat recovery and where the thermal energy is. There is a lot of technology being developed at the moment to take thermal energy directly out of the air and turn it into

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Radiant heat transfer

Metered comfort

Detail of system

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hot water. The air has energy in it; even down at -10 degrees, the air has energy in it. You can extract that energy directly from the air and stick it into a hot-water circulation system with some of the new technologies, and you can do that with air temperatures as low as -10 degrees. So significant advances have been made in gathering thermal energy and using it, and essentially its a free source of energy.

The efficiency of the overall systems focused on the implementation of integrated building systems. We achieved a 50% reduction; our energy costs are very comparable and essentially inflation-protected because were just using a waste energy resource, were not confronting increases in gas or electricity prices. In order to achieve this, though, we need municipal leadership. Youll hear that word over and over again, in terms of how we collaborate, how we integrate, and how we provide leadership. Thats the challenge for you, those three words. Collaboration, integration and leadership; those are the drivers that youre going to engage.

So, I ask this question: why are we not prepared, as a community and as a kind of social entity, to use district energy systems, gather the energy from waste sources and put it into play? Its really because our community is essentially focused on individual issues. I am an individual, I own this property; I will solve my own individual problems rather than stepping back and looking at a collaborative approach to the development of infrastructure. Again, leadership, collaboration and integration of those systems make up how youre going to approach the future of living cities, which is what were here to talk about.


Water and landscapewe talked briefly about this. The landscape architects opted in their green roofs to build these motifs of the Olympic legacy, so in the roof structures themselves there are these planted areas that remember the various sports that were held at the Olympic village. Its kind of nice, just a memory of what was done. (32 and 33)

The city spent a lot of time and effort on the development of the area along the waterfront. This was in an absolutely hideous state when they began. On the bottom is Hinge Park, which is not only a park; its essentially the storm-water management system. All of the storm-water that comes onto the Olympic site and into the southeast False Creek development zone goes through this storm-water management system before its discharged. This significantly reduces the pollutants that are going into the ocean. (34)

One part of the development plan was Habitat Island. Its always nice to occasionally stop and remember that youre not the only species on this planet, that you have a responsibility not only for building your communities, but for building the communities of other species. So Habitat Island was deliberately developed in order to provide habitat for fish spawning along the edge here as well as for insects, animals and birds. (35) This has been very successful. Herring came back into False Creek this year and lay roe all the way along the edge for the first time in 60 years. This is really home to rats and mice and horrible things that we supposedly dont like, but are really all part of our urban environment. You can

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Green roof design

Green roof

Waterfront development

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see here that it didnt take long for the ducks to arrive and recognize that this was going to be kind of a special place, which it has become. (36)

A lot of effort was spent throughout the project on developing a kind of serendipitous place for community, with a focus on the children. When they built Hinge Park and did the entire village, one of the lines in the original development plan was that the project should celebrate water. So a lot of time and effort was spent on doing just that, recognizing and educating around the use of water and its role in our social fabric. (37)

In some ways, we kind of take it all for granted. We turn the tap on and the water comes past; we brush our teeth and never even think about where it came from, how much energy it took to get to us, how much energy it takes now to get it out and reprocess it and stick it back in the ocean. Those are all

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Habitat Island

Detail of Habitat Island


issues that were celebrated and looked at in the development of this project. A real effort was made to develop gathering spaces and places where people can communicate with each other, and build neighbourhood. (38)

Heres a wonderful set of steps that they built down to the water. The notion of getting you down to the waters edge, particularly where youre on an ocean and you have rising and falling water from the tides, is always an issue, to make sure you actually feel youre part of the water. (39)

The other thing that we did was use rainwater throughout this project. We captured rainwater on the roofs of this project and circulated it through the buildings for toilet flushing. Of course a number of people were very concerned that in Vancouver everyone drinks from their toilets, so we had to put little signs on the toilets that say please dont drink the toilet water (and then we translated that into cat and dog). (40)

So what did we learn about that? If youre going to tackle these kinds of issues and use rainwater effectively, how do you do that in a multidisciplinary environment, getting everybody involved in those kinds of initiatives? How do you get approvals for those approaches to resource management? Can you manage storm-water on site? Yes you can, instead of dumping it into the sewer and sending it to someone else to look after. In this case, the innovation throughout the project reduced the potable water consumption by about 50%.

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Hinge Park

Waterfront steps

Waterfront steps

32 ROGER BAYLEY

In British Columbia it rains all the time, so who cares. But the reality is that water is energy. It takes money to gather it, to filter it, to pump it, to circulate it, and it requires a substantial amount of infrastructure to do that. If you can reduce your water consumption you can reduce your need for infrastructure. That has significant impact on construction-of-infrastructure costs, which all flows all the way back to carbon-related issues, what it takes to actually build that carbon in terms of its contribution in an emissions cycle.

Children love water, and anything you can do to bring water into an environment, kids are going to love. Im still waiting for the first lawyers to phone me up and say, thats all got to be fenced off because Mrs. Jones son got mud on his boots. Im just hoping that we dont get into that kind of thing. I mentioned Habitat Island: as I say, were not alone. I think the great tragedy of our role on this globe, this piece of

40 Rain water harvesting system


dirt hurtling through space, is that we seem to have absolutely zero regard for our fellow species. Were quite content to see them go extinct one after another at an alarming rate, without even so much as a breath of consciousness about it all. Anything that is evolved, that is living on this world, probably took a million years to get that way, and weve spent a hundred years destroying it. Quite frankly I dont think thats right. As a species we have a responsibility that goes beyond ourselves.

Healthy living: this is just about evaporative cooling and the use of air. With cross-ventilation and the use of independent ventilation in individual units everybody is a master of their own health, and you dont get this transmission of airborne allergens and other diseases from one unit to another. (41)

Efforts were made in restoring the salt building, a wonderful structure that was built in 1930 which will become a brew pub and focus of the community. It opens onto a square. These light elements are a reflection of the historic significance of the site, which was used for the ship-building industry. Somebody decided to put all of this coloured lighting into it; I didnt even know about this until the slides were sent to me, but its kind of interesting. (42)

41 Using airflows

34 ROGER BAYLEY

The community centre and boating centre: a 30,000 square foot LEED Platinum building built for the city of Vancouver, the first Platinum project in their community program. There is some very innovative technology in that particular project.

Of note, the US Green Building Council gave the overall village development a LEED Platinum designation, which was the highest designation given in North America. I think it was a really good opportunity to demonstrate the issues that make up the sustainable community. (43)

This was a piece of artwork that was installed into it. A lot of people had lots of questions about this one. Its all about the sparrow, who is English, of course. Hes an immigrant just like most of Vancouver, so this is about diverse species that now make up the fabric of the community and the city, and a celebration of that. We are a very diverse community as I look out into this audience; I think theres probably about 20 different nationalities sitting here in front of me, all with different cultural backgrounds, all with different experiences, all coming together to build community and build neighbourhood. We all contribute our unique understanding of human development to that process that were in, as the sparrows become a bit evasive. (44)

Talking about public space and healthy space, how do we challenge conventional thinking? How do we develop unique engineering solutions? Its leadership again, and a kind of

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Salt building and plaza

Community centre

The Birds. Myfanwy MacLeod, 2010


progressive approach to planning. This afternoon and for the rest of the day youre probably going to hear people who are going to talk about the future, right out there, which is really where the inspiration lies. Its about recognizing that public spaces make a significant contribution to sustainable community development. Without good public spaces, its very hard to develop good neighbourhoods and good community. So what makes living communities, what makes a vibrant community? This is the question, this is the challenge for you, what you need to bring to the work that youre going to as you go out into the industry, how do we support and foster that.

This is a little bit on the net-zero energy building. This is just to recognize that if we go on doing what were doing, this is the impact on the CO2. This is what Planet Action Plan wants from us, and this is about where we are now. Were continuing on with our old behaviour. If we actually want to do what our political leaders say they want but dont act on, we have to make very significant changes. (45)

Here are some examples of net-zero buildings: Bized in London, (46) and the planning for the Seuze building in Vancouver. (47) We typically look at a normal project in terms of how much energy it consumes; if we make it green we improve it a bit, if we move to net-zero can we reduce it further and then actually generate some energy to add to that on the site. (48)

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Bized, London

CO2 levels over time

Seuze, Vancouver

36 ROGER BAYLEY

This is the project that was chosen on the site, this building here; these are the early design models for it. (49) At the end of the day, we reduced its energy consumption from 687 to 374. This building has about 40% better performance than any other building on the site, it generates its own thermal energy and it ends up with a net-zero energy profile in terms of dollars spent on energy over the year. It recovers energy from the grocery store below and generates its own energy which it sells off to other projects on the site. But in terms of its system performance its about a 40% improvement, with a significant cost premium associated with it. (50) Because we have a thermal system we can in fact sell that energy back into the system and use that to purchase electrical power for plug loads and lighting on the project. (51)

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The net-zero equation

Design model for Net Zero Building

Net Zero Building


In order to achieve net zero as a goal, you need a lot of collaboration within your team, and leadership, and commitment from the parties that are setting up those objectives. There was a cost premium associated with this building, it was around 20%. That, I think, will fall as everybody moves forward into this realm. Can you achieve it with a medium-rise building in an urban environment? Yes, you can. Its a lot more difficult with high-rise and easier with lower buildings because of the density-footprint ratio. Essentially, to make a net zero program work you need this kind of shared energy resource thats servicing a wider community that allows you to move energy around effectively within the overall program. Industry capacity has to be built, and a kind of universal commitment is required as we move

forward with this technology. What would it take for us to influence our government to take on this kind of challenge and move forward? We dont yet see that leadership coming from our government groups, and we dont see that demand yet coming from the public who buy the units.

Ive talked a lot about communication through this program. I know that there will be someone who asks me this question if we have any time, so Im going to talk about the project costing which is what got this project into a lot of trouble; and theres no doubt the project is in a lot of trouble at the moment. Its now gone into a receivership. The city has waived their connection to the project and handed it over to the lawyers to deal with. The project has confronted a wide

51 Energy transfer diagram

38 ROGER BAYLEY

range of issues in the marketplace. It has some significant premiums that were driven by the circumstances at the time; construction escalation, the form of development, the delay in starting it and the Olympic deadline issues. There were some financing questions, what the Olympic program cost people who are buying it.

The sustainable features probably cost 68%, and yet people are pointing at the project and saying, see how much the overruns on this project came to, they all came from sustainable design. That is simply not the case; they came from this whole range of other issues. Its important to understand that when looking at the performance of this project. However, LEED Platinum

52 False Creek LEED awards


and LEED Gold for the buildings and the overall development program; it is the greenest community and most sustainable community in North America. (52)

This was documented through the Challenge Series, a very successful record of the projects development, which is accessible on the web. Its just now gone over 100,000 page views from 150 countries around the world, people who have looked at and read the history and background of the decisions that were made on this project.

This image shows the sequence of construction. My friend, who actually shot this material during the development program set it to Mission:

Impossible, but its an interesting reflection of the kind of activity that went on in the project. (53)

Finally, one of the things that weve been looking at is the Canadian Centre for Sustainable Innovation. Its a program that were looking at in the Eco-City in Tianjin, China, which is a new development of 350,000 people. This city is a strategic engagement between Singapore and China to look at how to bring sustainable innovation and green buildings into the Chinese marketplace.

For those of you familiar with China, Tianjin City is about 20 minutes away from Beijing by fast train. The program is being developed here. (54) There would be a number of people who would comment

53 False Creek development

40 ROGER BAYLEY

that this plan isnt being done in a way that is particularly sustainable. I would agree; but it is the way it is. (55)

The project were working on would be located on this site. Essentially what were putting together is a showcase program for Canadian technology and Canadian design, to be able to go in there and demonstrate approaches to be taken towards this kind of building initiative. Within that, this is our building site. We will build a custom-designed, net-zero building to go on that site. Part of that program will include educational facilities for Canadian universities and Canadian technical institutes to participate in bringing sustainable community development and green building messages into China. (56)

Facilities that will be in that project include: the Global Green Science and Technology Centre, Global Environmental Education Theatre, the Canadian Sustainable Policy Centre, the Sino-Singapore Technology Leadership Program, and Materials Testing. There will be opportunities for Canadian suppliers to showcase their products in that project.

This is the CIRS (Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability) building in Vancouver. I use this just as an illustration of the kind of modelling thats being undertaken for this development to celebrate and engage the community in the application of sustainable innovation. This will probably be an opportunity in the years ahead to build bridges across to Asia, where substantial change in urban population is taking place with huge impacts on the global condition. (57)

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Tianjin Eco-City diagram



I just have a little piece of inspiration for you, as you contemplate your future: Robert Kennedy said, Recognize that it is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a ripple of hope.

Really, this is the challenge for you: what is your life going to be about, in terms of the influence that it has and the degree of change that you can bring about as you move forward into your professional career? There are probably more opportunities for change and more challenges in this building industry, I think, than at any other time in history.

I know you have much more engaging and exciting presentations; this is the reality section of your two days. After this you can go into flights of fantasy and have a wonderful time looking at what the future might be. I simply go back to this notion of collaboration, integration and leadership, and thats the challenge to you all, to provide that leadership for the future.

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Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability


ANDR SORENSEN

44 ANDR SORENSEN

Space, Institutions, and the Evolutionary Potentials in Urban Form

Andr Sorensen is Associate Professor of Urban Geography at the University of Toronto Department of Geography and Program in Planning. He has published widely on urbanisation, land development and planning history. His book The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and Planning from Edo to the 21st Century won the Book Prize of the International Planning History Association in 2004. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the University of Tokyo School of Engineering in recognition of his research on Japanese urbanism and urban planning. He is the editor of Towards Sustainable Cities: East Asian, North American and European Perspectives on Managing Urban Regions (with Peter J. Marcotullio and Jill Grant), Living Cities in Japan: Citizens Movements, Machizukuri and Local Environments (with Carolin Funck) and Megacities: Urban Form, Governance and Sustainability (with J. Okata). His current research examines the processes and institutions that generate urban form in the Toronto region.

Embedded Rigidities, Moments of Change:

ANDR SORENSENUniversity of Toronto, Cities Centre

45EMBEDDED RIGIDITIES, MOMENTS OF CHANGE

This talk draws on a research project that I started last summer with a colleague at the University of Toronto, Professor Paul Hess of the Department of Geography and Program in Planning. In presenting the regional context, I also borrow heavily from the outstanding research of the Neptis Foundation, and I am happy to see Tony Coombes, Executive Director of Neptis, and Marcy Burchfield, their Geomatics Research Program Manager, here today. Thank you to Neptis for all their wonderful research that has helped us enormously in understanding how the Toronto region is changing.

My current research examines path dependency in the institutions, the structure and the development of urban areas, and how certain types and processes of change are prevented, and other patterns are encouraged. It is

important for the discussion today to note that while there are many path-dependent aspects of urban form, this research also points to areas within the urban fabric and urban institutions that are more open to change and incremental adaptation. The point that I wish to make is that an understanding of such patterns of rigidity or resistance to significant change, and their opposite patterns of greater openness to change, can help us focus on those parts of city regions that are most likely to yield the greatest opportunities for transformative change to more liveable, sustainable cities.

This talk has four parts. First, I look at the regional context. Second, I outline the idea of path dependence and continuities or rigidities in urban development patterns. Third, I will reverse this picture, and look at the areas where there is less

1 City of Toronto

46 ANDR SORENSEN

path dependence and more openness to change. And finally I will focus on a few of those areas where I believe it is possible to push the envelope a bit toward more sustainable cities.

I will argue that while the micro scale of buildings that is the primary focus of architects is important, the regional patterns of change and urban function are also a fundamental aspect of how our cities must change, in the ways that Roger Bayley has just been telling us about, towards greater energy efficiency, greater walkability and greater sustainability. I believe that understanding the patterns of rigidity and path dependence in the way we build cities today is useful for city-builders and urban designers, as it will help you to understand, for example, where youre going to run headfirst into a brick wall of opposition to change. That could be useful in preventing concussions! But I will also look at the opportunities for change that exist within this structure. The approach of looking at rigidities in the form and institutions of city development gives an insight into the sweet spots where significant change can occur.

The regional scale is, I believe, one of the most critical pieces in this whole picture of building more liveable cities. The problem is that we are still building radically unsustainable cities. Canadians consume more energy per capita than any other large country in the world (excluding small countries such as Qatar and Bahrain, that is). Building heating and cooling, and the way urban form is built, is a huge contributor to that, and its estimated that we can save 4050% of all of our current energy consumption just by using existing technologies in


better ways. The focus here is primarily on automobile use and automobile-dependent cities, as transportation is a major energy user at about 20% of total global energy consumption, and automobiles are much more energy intensive per kilometre traveled than other modes. In the Toronto region, even though weve been talking about urban sprawl and other problematic patterns of urban form for the last 30 years, weve been utterly unsuccessful in changing to a significantly different pattern of development. Vehicle kilometres travelled per capita is still increasing; energy use per capita is still increasing; congestion is still increasing. Even flattening those trend lines is going to be incredibly difficult, and reversing them is going to be even more so. It is widely agreed that for cities to be more sustainable, we need to build less automobile-dependent places that encourage walking, bicycling and public transit for a much larger share of all trips. (1)

I would like to start with a very brief portrait of the region, drawing on the work of the Neptis Foundation. An important report that the Neptis Foundation sponsored and published in 2001 called the Business As Usual report (BAU) included this figure. A major conclusion of the report was that continuing current patterns of development would result in much higher infrastructure and maintenance costs over the long run than changing to either more compact or nodal patterns of development; but also that continuing the way were building cities currently would result in enormous increases in automobile congestion in the region.

4 Name of image here

2 Congestion in Toronto region by year. Neptis Foundation

48 ANDR SORENSEN

The top figure shows 2001 congestion in the Toronto region, with red showing high levels of congestion during the weekday morning peak travel period. The middle figure shows the projected congestion in 2031, showing that if we continue the way were building cities today, we will have increasingly serious gridlock by 2031. And the bottom one shows the difference between the first and second ones. Increases of congestion are seen primarily around the outer fringes of the built up area, where people basically have no choice but to use cars for all types of travel. (2)

The BAU report, particularly the congestion analysis, was very influential in convincing suburban politicians, the provincial government and some of the electorate that we needed to change the way we were building our cities, and in particular that we needed to be much more serious about improving public transit systems. This analysis also seems certain to have contributed to the current Ontario provincial governments important regional planning policies for the Greenbelt, Places to Grow Plan and the major investments in regional public transit through Metrolinx. I believe that congestion, much more than the problem of global climate change and carbon emissions, has been a huge factor in terms of changing priorities for the way we build cities. In future it is likely that rising energy costsand the imperative to create urban regions that are less vulnerable to rising energy costswill also become a big factor, but at the moment it is congestion that is a primary policy driver because its going to become more and more problematic if we continue the pattern of automobile-only transportation in the city region the

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Congestion in Toronto2001

Congestion in Toronto2031

Congestion in Toronto given infrastructure investment


size of Toronto. Virtually all analysts are now agreed that is impossible to solve congestion problems such as Torontos by building more roads.

This is a more detailed analysis. This shows actual patterns in 2001, of peak hour congestion; red is highly congested, yellow is congested, turquoise is uncongested. This is the existing road system. The business-as-usual model of future congestion in the region includes continued building of roads, and in fact massive continued investment in road infrastructure. (3) This is projected congestion in 2031, given existing urban growth trends, and shows a congestion nightmare in terms of trying to get around by car. (4) And this is even if we continue to invest billions of dollars in the road system, including completing the 427 to Barrie, completing the 407 to Peterborough,

widening of other major expressways and continuing to build the arterial road network. (5) So even with this vast investment in new road space, business-as-usual patterns of continued automobile dependent growth are predicted to result in gridlock over the whole region. Toronto is already one of the most congested urban regions in North America. (6)

One of the amazing things about the Toronto region is how carefully we have planned to produce an automobile-dependent region. We have been phenomenally successful in building out the vision of the urban region that was conceived in the 1950s. We are still today building the ideal urban form, the utopian vision of a new urban future that was conceived in the 1940s and 50s, and we are still chained to that idea of an ideal urban form for the auto age.

6 insert caption here

50 ANDR SORENSEN

This is the plan of the Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board, published in 1966. The yellow is residential, purple is employment lands, red is commercial centres. You can see already in 1966 that highways 407, 401, 427, 404 and 400 are planned. That major skeleton of infrastructure was planned in the 1940s and 50s. Of course, you can see the downtown core, the high-density mixed-use area. Most of this area is designed as a new type of urban fabric of planned low-density segregated use, with exclusive residential areas, commercial nodes and very large exclusively employment areas. (7)

This is a map that I created that shows what weve actually built as of 2001. What I think is extraordinary is how faithfully we have built out that concept from 1966. We have grown a little bit more in Brampton

7 Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board plan (1966)


and Mississauga than was imagined at the time, but basically the whole structure, and the details of it in terms of how neighbourhoods get planned, how transportation works, are still faithfully building out the vision of the 1950s. (8)

A big change has come since 2003 partly as a result of this congestion analysis and the dire consequences predicted in the Business as Usual report, and a change of government to the Liberals in 2003. (9) After a period of very little regional planning we have the new green belt at two million acres, including the ORM and the Niagara escarpment which were already protected, the largest green belt in the world, ever. As a result, we are seeing a significant shift towards more intensification in the region. Land prices are going up, and thats actually hugely important and beneficial in

terms of promoting intensification in the region, as we substitute capital investment in building floor space for land area.

The other provincial policy piece is the Places to Grow plan that the province put into place, which more stringently defines the designated urban area and how it can be expanded. So the urban growth boundary is no longer a continuously expanding line which is meant to always include 20 years of future land supply and ensure that land prices dont go up. Now the province has promised to slow down rolling out the urban growth boundary, has mandated that all municipalities must achieve 40% of new housing units as intensification, and has set minimum levels of density in new developments, with a goal of creating complete communities in

8 Plan showing Toronto growth patterns2001

52 ANDR SORENSEN

new developments. Again, this is a very good policy, as intensification will focus investment into the existing built up area, will create a lot of possibilities to create a more liveable, sustainable urban region. We, and especially all of you young architects, have a huge challenge ahead, as just intensification by itself is no solution. It must be well designed, and contribute to more walkable urban areas, more vital streets and neighbourhoods, and better connections between buildings, public spaces, and transit connections, for intensification to yield more sustainable cities.

The final piece is the Metrolinx Big Move plan, which was initially going to be a $50 billion investment in public transit over 25 years. (10) Part of the investment has been delayed because of the global financial crisis, but the government is clearly committed to a major investment in public transit for the region. Unfortunately in Toronto we have a new mayor who doesnt really believe in things like light rail lines, because he thinks that they will get in the way of his car when hes driving around. That has put a question mark under whether we will actually build the Toronto part of the plan, Transit City, the first really significant piece of transit investment in Toronto in 30 years. While I think that subways are a very good idea in high density urban areas, it is a terrible waste of money to build subways in low-density suburbs. I believe that the Transit City plan was the most efficient in terms of delivering greatly improved public transit throughout Toronto, and it will be a major setback for Toronto, and for the region, if it is not built.

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Plan showing green lands

Plan for Regional Rapid Transit

Plan showing Toronto growth patterns


This is a huge and very positive change of direction in terms of recognition of the importance of regional planning, and a significant investment of political capital in terms of changing the trajectory of development in the region. Toronto is seeing significant amounts of intensification, as shown in this analysis of intensification in the Toronto region from 19912001. The analysis of the Growing Cities report shows that theres lots of intensification, and this has almost certainly accelerated since then. These are indicating the high-density mixed-use nodes which are well served by public transit, and where you could expect that people would be willing to shift out of using cars as a primary mobility strategy into things like public transit. (11)

The challenge is how we move towards intensification that actually contributes to greater sustainability, both in terms of significantly reducing energy consumption, but also in terms of shifting the modal split towards public transit, walking and cycling, all three of which consume vastly less amounts of energy than using cars on a daily basis, and also generate lively and dynamic streets and street life.

The current research project that were doing is a long-run analysis of urban form patterns at the parcel scale, individual buildings, measuring the amount of floor space, the amount of land devoted to things like parks, residential buildings, commercial areas, road space, community facilities like schools, all land uses over the whole of the Greater Toronto Area. (12)

12 Greater Toronto Area urban form

54 ANDR SORENSEN

We are particularly interested in the institutional structures that shape the kinds of development that occur, and how those have evolved over the last 50 years. We ask which aspects of this regulatory and government structure have become particularly path-dependent or difficult to change, in terms of the built form, but even more in terms of the rule sets that regulate change.

Rule sets are often even more difficult to change than actual built form, because they develop constituencies of political or public support; for example residential zoning for single family detached homes. But also a lot more invisible stuff, such as municipal government dependence on property taxes for core revenue, or the boundaries of municipal areas, that tend to be very hard to change. Were looking at the institutional sources of inflexibility and rigidity in urban form, examples being regulatory frameworks, zoning systems, property rights and development charges.

13 Burlington-Oakville urban form


Were also looking at areas of opportunity for change. Understanding the ways in which institutions generate continuity and become difficult to change over time helps to understand those patterns and institutions that generate inflexibility, and that in turn should allow an understanding of the gaps in the system where there is more openness and opportunity to change. Such gaps could either be regulatory or spatial, as long as they prevent change or allow more flexibility to change.

Were actually looking at patterns over the whole of the Greater Toronto Area, but I wanted to take one little piece as an illustration of what were trying to do. So this areadoes anybody recognize where we are here? This is Oakville, and Burlington is over there. This is the QEW. This is Dundas, the 407, this is a hydro corridor. This is undeveloped land. The North Oakville secondary plan for this whole undeveloped area to the north has recently been approved. (13)

When I show this to people in Japan, or to Americans, they are astounded at this line dividing the built up area from the undeveloped area. If you look carefully at the pattern of development in the Toronto region, you can see the control obsession that we have with actually making contiguous urban development. A primary goal has been efficiency in terms of how we build sewers, and cost-effectiveness is an enduring priority of the Ontario government in how we build our cities, which is not a bad thing. We have indeed been extremely efficient in building our major infrastructure systems, which are of very high quality.

The ability to do that is quite rare around the world. In the Megacities book that I just edited, we have chapters on Bogota, Mexico City and Bangkok, places like that. There, the authors are saying when five-sixths of all of your development is illegal, what opportunity do have to actually shape patterns of metropolitan development?

14 Ontario government MTARTS Plan (1966)

56 ANDR SORENSEN

In Ontario we do, we actually can and do make choices about what we build and how we build it.

So this is the Burlington-Oakville urban pattern, and it is a highly planned urban form. This figure is from the MTARTS (Metropolitan Toronto and Region Transportation Study); also done in 1966, in parallel to the Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board Plan. (14) But if you just jump back, (13) you can see the corridor, its a little bit different from the one planned in 1966 but not much. If you notice the employment lands, the residential areas, again the QEW employment lands, highway 407, its all there. This is the parkway belt scheme; it was called a corridor city, a linear corridor. This is a bit larger scale, but heres that big employment area, theres the QEW.

15 Oakville zone diagram


One of the big differences between what we actually built and what was planned in 1966 is the older commercial centres did not continue to grow. Instead we built shopping malls, and retail growth then went out to the suburbs to shopping malls. Oakville North didnt happen as a high-density mixed-use centre. Streetsville and the central business district, the planned high-density mixed-use centre for Erin Mills new town that became Mississauga, was not built. In practice it got built out as low-density single-family homes with a few apartment towers on one edge.

You can see Highway 407 in its parkway belt, which in practice ended up essentially as a highway corridor and a utility corridor. Most of that route has the parallel infrastructure of high-capacity electrical transmission lines. One quick last thing is this concept of the employment zones, the single-family detached residential, and higher-density housing zones; again, we have been following that absolutely diligently for the last 60 years in quite a remarkable way.

I next want to talk in a bit more detail about the urban form that we have produced; and its useful to look at three zones here. (15) The first zone is the area south of the QEW and the employment lands along the railway. Some of this is pre-second world war, but most of the area was built up during the 40s and 50s. Moving north, zone two is the area between the QEW and Upper Middle Road, mostly developed in the 60s and 70s; and zone three between Upper Middle Road and Dundas Street, is largely built out

during the 80s, 90s, until the present. Just so you can read this, the maps are colour coded by land-use, with the dark brown representing undeveloped land today, purple is employment lands, yellow is residential, red is schools, this darker purple is churches, this bright yellow strip is the expressway, orange is commercial/retail, tangerine is townhouses in these higher density areas. Green is parks, dark green is a golf course. Here we have Oak Park, which is a New Urbanism style of development that Ill talk about in a minute. That turquoise area is a cemetery.

Zone one is the oldest area, south of the QEW highway/railway corridor. (16) Basically, 1950s and 60s development: filling out the existing grid, and changing the pattern of development from the tight existing grid of the old Oakville town centre to a modified grid of development along existing roads, and some new-style looping roads with a few cul-de-sac infill developments. Of course, its important to realize how long the pipeline is on a lot of urban development in this region. Usually 10 to 20 years in advance developers are seeking permissions and looking for and negotiating approval for their subdivision plans. So almost everything thats being built today was approved 10, 15, 20 years ago, and the form, in terms of the road layout, park, major infrastructure, was all set in place before you were born. And certainly the raw land, like the whole green undeveloped area north of Dundas Street, was bought by development companies back in the 1960s and 70s.

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Then for zone two, the 1960s and 70s. (17) This is the full-blown modernist pattern of suburban development, with complete segregation of uses, and the four-tier road hierarchy of local streets to access homes, distributors within superblocks defined by arterial roads, the big arterial road grid based on the old concession roads of the rural land surveys of the 18th century, and the 400 series limited access expressway system at the top of the hierarchy. This pattern became absolutely dominant, and were still building out our region based on this model, with large areas of purely residential land use, very large scale employment districts, and big shopping malls, all connected by a robust road system.

A big change from the 40s and 50s is much more significant protection of green space. We are able to protect it, and this is not a bad thing, its actually one of the significant achievements in the Toronto region. We designate buffers on each side of creeks and small rivers, and we arrange parks and schools along those corridors. These green areas are not habitat preservation, as they are fairly highly manicured park spaces, but they allow a much better treatment of stormwater, as it stays on the surface instead of being drained through sewer pipes. In principle it should be possible to prevent storm water from flowing directly into creeks and rivers through the use of such buffers, and by creating systems of ponds and catchments that will allow water to drain slowly into creeks. This is potentially a much more ecologically sensitive of city building. So thats a major shift: much more green space is protected.

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Oakville zone one

Oakville zone two

Oakville zone three


Next, zone three, the most recent, which is basically developed from the 1990s to the present. (18) Basically its the same pattern, with a few modifications. Weve continued the very disciplined separation of land uses, so that virtually all trips must be by car. One significant shift is towards more high-density townhouse-type developments. In these study areas the tangerine areas are all condominium townhouses (a.k.a. Strata developments). There are other townhouses and semi-detached housing areas, but people own the land underneath those houses. I am currently doing another research project on Strata townhouses, on the distinctive aspects of land ownership and property management in these developments, and how this differs from single-family homes. The higher densities do not make these areas any more walkable, however, because of the road patterns and the separated land uses. You cant really do any utilitarian trips without getting into your car. Theres continuing increase in the share of land devoted to green space.

In the north-east corner of zone three is a new urbanist development called Oak Park. You can see it follows quite a different pattern of urban design, with a grid of streets focussed on a commercial centre. There are much smaller parcels, mostly of townhouses. The hope is that this will be more walkable, which it probably will be. Certainly a better urban form, but it still has a clear separation of

land-uses. The new town centre is being built out as big-box stores with large-surface parking lots. Its not a high-density mixed-use town centre in any conception of the term. The pattern of streets and this area does lend itself to adaptation in the future, potentially resulting in a more walkable community.

So what can we say about this pattern? (19) My belief is that most of these areas, especially zone two and zone three, will see very little intensification in future, and will be hard to adapt to more mixed uses, higher densities, or more walkable places. The urban form is deliberately frozen in terms of the patterns of land uses and property ownership patterns, and the expectation when people buy into this area is that nothing will ever change. The inflexibility to change is deliberately designed; and has been the overriding value in building suburban residential areas since the Second World War. Its an idea that started to gain currency in the 1920s and 30s with covenants and deed restrictions in suburban areas, promising that these areas would never have employment uses, that you would never have an ugly factory or a cinema next door to your house, or a Tim Hortons drive-through.

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You are protected as a property owner, and your property value is protected against any change. That is a dominant value either as a housing investment or as a property developer, ensuring that that promise is being made to the new property owners. And thats probably the biggest factor that is going to prevent any kind of meaningful change in areas that are designed in this way. A second major factor is the pattern of streets and property divisions, which mean that there are not enough people on the sidewalks for a commercial use to be viable, even if the zoning was changed to allow commercial uses. These areas are carefully designed to be utterly inflexible. In terms of thinking about how our cities will adapt and change in the future, probably our first conclusion must be that we shouldnt be looking at these places.

I think were going to build less and less of this, primarily because land values are going up, but also because of current attempts to build complete communities that are less car dependent. But I do think

19 Detail of Oakville plan


we can afford to protect these areas as quaint relics of the mid20th century idea of city building. They will probably become very desirable as places to live, because there are single-family homes on large lots, and possibly as a society well be able to afford to preserve this extravagant pattern of urban development as a kind of historical legacy of the 20th century.

(20) So the question is where is the opportunity in this picture? If almost all of these suburban areas, almost everything that weve built in the last 50 years, are designed to be unchangeable in the future, how will we intensify and create more transit oriented and walkable cities? It seems clear that the big opportunity is the employment lands along the railway line. So far we have been very careful and largely successful in preventing conversions of employment lands to residential lands.

What makes this a huge opportunity, of course, is the railway corridor. The GO commuter trains along this corridor are

the most frequent of all the GO system, currently running as long-distance diesel trains. The system is basically designed as a way to get from the suburbs to central Toronto and Union Station. Commuters drive to parking lots near the go stations, park their cars, and ride to central Toronto.

I believe that there are enormous opportunities in linear corridors like this to actually build high-density mixed-use nodes, or linear corridors, with clusters all the way along at the stations. Metrolinx recently released their electrification study, basically saying that it makes sense to electrify the GO rail system in stages, and they expect to be able to complete the process by about 20 years from now.

I think that the electrification study missed the biggest opportunity inherent in electrification: the possibility of creating express/local rail services. The Metrolinx electrification study basically examined the feasibility of electrifying the existing long-haul commuter rail system

20 Oakville plan

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with a destination in Toronto. But with electrification, you have the opportunity of a very different rail-based public transit that includes both the express system, which weve got now, which offers fast long-distance trips, and also a local service to three or four more stations between each of the express stations that exist now. This is only possible because electric trains can speed up and slow down extremely quickly. With diesel trains, you must have stations this far apart, because it takes so long to speed up and slow down.

With local stations, and local train service, the rail corridor becomes more like a subway system in terms of the level of transit service and the pattern of development and land uses that it can support. And you have a much better transportation system than either a subway or a regional rail system because if youre going long-distance, you use the next express, and for the local service you can use the slower local trains. This arrangement is used all over the world. The local service would have stops every two kilometres or so, and nodes of high-density mixed use can be created as transit hubs at each one.

Now the employment lands have been protected because we want to have low-cost land available for inward investment by employment uses. Its would not be hard to plan for redevelopment of nodes at each GO train station with a re-zoning that says you can convert to mixed-use as long as you have a net gain in the number of people who are employed in some defined land area. So youve actually developed much higher-density mixed-use, as long as you can incorporate some sort of an employment land use.


So the question is: how do we build those high-density mixed-use nodes? We dont really have any institutional structures that could create new high-density mixed-use nodes. Even if we put a local subway along this line, we actually dont have either the private or the public land developmen

Documents

Living Cities: Vision and Method, revised