GEOG 346: Day 22
Fusing the Natural and Built
Environments
Housekeeping Items
Film on mining impacts
• Next Tuesday night,
there will be a film,
“Defensora,” on the
conflict between a
Canadian mining
company and an
indigenous Guatemalan
community. It starts at 7
p.m. on Tuesday, April 1st
in Building 200, Room
203.
Housekeeping Items
• I promised to show you some images of Barcelona architect,
Antoni Gaudi.
Can There Be A Peaceful Co-Existence Between
Nature and the City?
• Some resources:
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_pawlyn_using_natur
e_s_genius_in_architecture and
http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_biomimicry_in
_action.
Fusing the Natural and Built Environments
• There are a whole array of strategies:
Greenbelts
Greenways/ core and corridor systems in the city that
serve as habitat/ wildlife migration corridors and also as
alternative transportation pathways
Parks of varying degrees of wildness
Conservation subdivisions
Botanical gardens
Japanese gardens/ quiet oases in the city
Community gardens
Green buildings, green roofs, “living buildings”
Alternative stormwater management systems (swales,
etc.)
Living walls
Randall Arendt on Conservation Design
[See http://site.ebrary.com/lib/viu/docDetail.action?docID=10196536]
• He contrasts conventional subdivision design with
conservation subdivision design. Conventional design is “where
all the land is divided into houselots and streets, with the only
open space typically being undevelopable wetlands, steep
slopes, floodplains, and stormwater management areas” – or
SLOAP, Space Left Over After Planning.
• In these subdivisions, there are usually few places to walk, for
community events, or children to play.
•The Planned Residential Developments (PRDs)
of the 1960s were somewhat more flexible in
layout, but they didn’t provide better treatment
of open space.
Randall Arendt on Conservation Design
• In conservation subdivision design, at least 50% of the site is
reserved for open space, and half of that in a relatively natural
state. The other half can be used as playing fields or parkland
for picnics, etc.
•The half of the land that is developed contains as many units
as would exist in a conventional subdivision – that is, to say,
the development is “density neutral.” It achieves this either
through narrow, smaller lots and narrower
houses or through duplexes, townhouses, or
other denser forms of housing.
• The key thing is to select the conservation
lands first.
•See next page for contrasting examples .
Conventional Design
Conservation Design
Role Play
• Context: Vancouver, which is undergoing a high rate of
change, given its attractiveness as a world city and as a
profitable place to development and speculate on real
estate.
• Four Groups: 1)developers; 2)city officials (council
members and city administrators); 3)environmentalists;
4)neighbourhood groups alarmed by the pace of
change and concerned with affordability issues.
• I will randomly assign you to a group. Determine what
the goals and outlook of your group are. What is it you
want and why, and how do you justify/ rationalize
that?
• Try to negotiate a constructive solution that satisfies all
parties.