What is it about Rome, Barcelona, Paris, Vienna, that makes it more attractive than other cities? Is it the exuberant streets, the elegant boulevards, the classical buildings, the high-tech transport systems, the lavish shopping complexes, or the stark towers that shroud the landscape?
The world is going through a new wave of change as urbanization is soaring across the globe. Through the impact of urban sprawl, cities are growing and expanding. With the majority of the world population living in cities, it has been hard for the planet to cope with the carbon impacts of modernization. Amidst the climate crisis, modernization has yet to find the remedy to heal Earth from the effects of greenhouse gasses.
Modern cities are dynamic, ever-changing, and highly adaptable to new technologies. But they aren’t ready to cope with the increasing temperatures. Today, cities are proficient in mass-producing housing and high-rise apartments. Rather than being socially connected, buildings are social condensers. People spend more time indoors, engaged in their phones and computers rather than outside, indulging in their local neighborhood. In the current epoch, the indoor lifestyle has made the masses highly reliant on artificial heating and cooling causing massive energy consumption.
Modern building blocks like concrete, glass, and asphalt do not adapt to rising temperatures. They play a dire role in the urban heat island effect. Glass reflects heat to its surroundings. Asphalt absorbs the solar rays and warms the local environment.
Modern cities are technologically advanced and have high-tech transportation and infrastructure. But they do not favor public transport, forcing the general public to buy their vehicles. As a result, city streets succumb to the heavy traffic congestion emitting pollution.
Today, the cities have become the driving force of economic growth and innovation. But what does it cost? The cultural identity used to be the most valuable aspect of the history of a specific region. Now, culture is dying slowly in the urbanized era of modern cities. It is irrevocable that cities now are dynamically growing, and the population of city dwellers is skyrocketing. Does that make modern cities more livable?
What makes a city livable?
When pondering the definition of a livable city, several factors arise connectivity, mobility, cultural events, nightlife, transportation, political stability, and quality of education. But to generalize the definition in terms of design, the factors of a livable city are as follows:
Order
Order in terms of design means balance, symmetry, and repetition. The city’s architecture needs to follow the same language in its buildings, in the sense everything needs to gel well with one another. A gabled roof next to a flat roof, next to a Dutch roof diversifies the style of the locality but exacerbates the regularity of the skyline. Houses with different heights and breadth look unplanned and visually disorientating. Those that maintain a height datum look ordered and pleasing to the eye. But it is also worthwhile to have some form of variation as too much order can be heart-wrenching. Too repetitive can be overwhelmingly boring and lacking character. A combination of variety and order is an ideal form of designing a city for example Telc, Czech Republic. Every house follows a height datum but the form and color of the exterior are different, maintaining balance and breaking the monotony through the freedom in design of the facade.
Life on the Street
https://theurbanactivist.com/idea/wohnstrasse-taking-ownership-of-the-streets-in-vienna/
A Street instills the life of the city and makes it comprehensible. A well-planned city needs to have streets that are easy to navigate. People need to feel comfortable traversing from one place to another as they should understand their place in the city. A Street is a public space that fosters social interaction and helps to revitalize the local life of a neighborhood. A street needs to be a conduit of a communal space. Mobility structures of a city need to limit the streets for traffic, freeing up the remaining spaces for recreational activities. Thus, having the life of a city displayed on the street. In modern cities, life is hidden away as everything has been condensed in high-rise glass towers, unaware and disconnected from the surroundings.
Compact
Neighborhoods that are closely connected and have compact planning save paramount energy as opposed to suburbs that have wide motorways and the residences feel isolated from each other due to distanced spacing from one house to another. Compact living invigorates the neighborhood, strengthening the connectivity with the community. A closely packed dwelling feels safer and more secure as there is passive surveillance always on the lookout regardless of time.
Cultural Identity
Cities manifest the culture, traditions, and uniqueness of a society. The modern cities that are uprising today are haunted by identical glass towers that represent neither character nor cultural context specifying its representation to a certain region. Cities need to reveal their sense of uniqueness through their architectural response to the site. Vernacular architecture should serve as a native language in terms of representing the contextual architectural design style, construction methods, and materiality of a specific region.
https://www.odysseytraveller.com/articles/rise-of-venice/
Lastly, a city is livable because of its people. They are the custodians of the land and help nourish them. If people foster their city, the continuum of the city is inevitable.
Reference List :
– Amin Al-Habaibeh, 2019, ‘UNESCO’‘, Architectural lessons for the future, via the past. Accessed on 10 Sep 2023.
https://en.unesco.org/courier/2019-4/architectural-lessons-future-past
– Good Housing Should Not Be Hard 2023, Archimarathon, online video, accessed 9 Sep 2023,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxGyk_8bHto&list=TLPQMDIwOTIwMjMXjqOhkZtyUg&index=18
– How to Make an Attractive City 2005, The School of Life, online video, accessed 9 Sep 2023,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy4QjmKzF1c&t=2s
– Neda Kostandinovic, 6 March 2018, ‘C40 CITIES’‘, The implementation of the Superblocks programme in Barcelona: Filling our streets with life. Accessed on 10 Sep 2023.
https://www.c40.org/case-studies/barcelona-superblocks/#:~:text=The%20Superblocks%20programme%20is%20a%20new%20way%20of%20organising%20a,modification%20of%20built%2Dup%20areas.
– Thet Hnin,18 Nov 2022, ‘NOVATR‘, Vernacular Architecture: Learning from the past for the future. Accessed on 10 Sep 2023.
https://www.novatr.com/blog/vernacular-architecture
– What makes a city liveable? 2019, TEDx Talks, online video, accessed 9 Sep 2023,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_e3T_eh7ko&list=TLPQMDIwOTIwMjMXjqOhkZtyUg&index=38
