LONDON SOUNDINGS- London Creative Communities Towards Sustainability

London Soundings is a new research project, which explores innovative and sustainable grassroots activi-ties by listening to the “soundings” of selected place-based initiatives throughout the Greater London and by revealing their ambitions and challenges. It aims at using the power of media to disseminate the re-search to a wider audience, through museum exhibition, artistic documentary film and a book to catalogue the exhibition and research. It expresses the challenges addressed by the communities and their respons-es, fostering a necessary platform for different groups to learn from each other’s experiences in synergy. In resonance with current citizen unrest worldwide, it is fundamental to understand such aspirations, which contribute to question and nurture the debate on sustainability and its complexity, through bottom-up lenses, at various scales, from personal, collective, local, and institutional, to national and global levels. The project identifies key social and ecological initiatives in different boroughs and then profiles the range of enterprises and social models they use in order to showcase London’s innovative capacity. Twelve community-driven initiatives have been selected, addressing separately or in a comprehensive approach, various themes such as local economy, food and greening, housing, local heritage and identity, energy and fuel poverty, sustainable education, liveability, social care, and safety aspects. More globally, it identifies the need for the transition to more fully sustainable local ways of living. From raising awareness on climate change and lobbying for environmental concerns to be operational at the local scale, battling to preserve a local identity asset or for more affordable housing, to simply planting trees and vegetable gardens, remov-ing weapons from the public space or knocking on the door of the most affected by the cost of energy, local residents combine grassroots creativity with local sustainability through a tremendous amount of en-ergy carried out by people, mostly on a volunteer basis. Such major commitment, however, can also be limited due to its specific social demography. This underscores the imperative to share learnings across London, as well as further afield, using a wide array of media to reach large audiences. Community projects we have selected for study and dissemination are collective human adventures, en-compassing all the complexity and states of human relationships. Given this, the researcher is systematical-ly sought, embarked on and engaged in local action, and hardly neutral. They highlight collaborative part-nerships with a wide range of actors from all sectors of society, and the necessity of strengthening the network to have an effective impact on the local community. The actions, among which are long term campaigns, constitute disruptions from the norm by challenging planning permissions, but mainly reflect the need for new processes and practices. Some collective enterprises are creative, and exhibit character-istics that enable their innovations to have broader impacts on society, by being scalable at local, London, and national levels. They also express the need for bottom-up approaches for sustainable place-making to be inspirational and duplicable, to balance private sector investments in London, and to be fairly addressed at the institutional level in order to have a greater and more efficient level of action

Visual connectivity of the everyday outdoors as a landmark in the dense vernacular fabric of central Tokyo: A morphological approach in Wakaba, Shinjuku

See attached documen

The East-West Arc, Re-thinking Growth in the London Region

The East-West Arc spans 30 local councils comprising the growth corridor from Oxford through Milton Keynes and Northampton to Cambridge. Its population of over three million is the fastest growing region in the UK . It forms the northern fringe of the greater London city region to which it is profitably tied, just north of the Green Belt. History, knowledge, technology, agriculture and nature combine in a rich tapestry that has long contributed to the commonwealth of the United Kingdom. In a globalizing world where distances of all kinds are slashed, the Arc is more than a key part of the greater London region. It is a gateway north to the Midlands and the Northern Powerhouse. The Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge Gateway is one of the most innovative and dynamic areas of the UK. Its potential is recognised by the government as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the region to become a ‘knowledge-intensive growth cluster, competing globally’. Yet that potential is capped by inadequate infrastructure and expensive housing, as well as ecological constraints. As HS2, along with the train and expressway linking Oxford and Cambridge become realities, this vital region can be seen better as a gateway in all directions, thus helping to rebalance growth across the UK. The day-long symposium on the East-West Arc held at the University of Westminster in June of 2018 addressed these challenges from a range of perspectives. Traversing the Arc from south to north is the proposed high-speed rail line HS2, as well as the planned east-west expressway and east-west rail line linking Oxford to Cambridge through Milton Keynes. These transport links, taken together, are intended to enhance connectivity, mobility and productivity across the region. This will further boost growth while presenting financing and environmental challenges along with its benefits. The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) report from 2017, Partnering for Prosperity: A new deal for the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford Arc, set out one vision and approach to infrastructure-led development linked to place making. It also set out new thinking on the housing challenge in the region that is equivalent to a new city the size of Birmingham. Other impacts of growth also need to be addressed, such as last mile connectivity and multi-modal transport, social inequities, land consumption of agriculture and forests, greater flood risk, pollution, and loss of ecological function and integrity of historical region including its villages and towns. These are but a few of the impacts that need to be addressed by an assessment of growth scenarios and their impacts, in advance of the foreseen major infrastructure projects. Government has long recognised the strategic importance of the Arc, and not just to the region itself, comprised of three recently-formed regional growth boards in Milton Keynes, Oxford and Cambridge. Central to the Arc is its relationship to London, the west of England and the synergies with the Midlands and further north. This greater London Region contains the UK’s primary transport hubs and corridors, including the main north-south road and rail routes, together with key international gateways such as Heathrow and Birmingham airports and the seaports of Harwich, Felixstowe and the Thames Gateway in the east. While the long history of this greater region has unfolded piece meal, it is now interconnected into a functioning mega-region that needs a coherent strategy founded by cogent analysis. In this context, it is critical to envision the East-West Arc as gateway that enables in all directions, and not merely as a self-contained sub-region or as a northern fringe of London

Exploring Participatory Design for Sustainable Landscape for Public Housing Neighborhoods in Singapore

Singapore’s reputation as a green city is largely achieved through political will, strong policies, and effective execution of policies. While greening Singapore for most of the past five decades can be generally described as a public-sector led approach, where citizen engagement was not necessarily the focus, in recent years the public sector is increasingly interested in engaging the community in the planning and design of public green spaces. As this is a nascent movement, there remain considerable gaps in the types, process, and efficacy of participatory design. In this paper, we describe a research project that aims to provide a sustainable landscape design framework—based on the concept of ecosystem services—through a participatory process. Our study focuses on public housing estates, locally referred to as “HDB” (Housing and Development Board) estates, which houses 80% of Singapore’s population in high-rise, high-density towns. We describe the research process, in which we include multiple stakeholders in the planning and design of HDB neighborhood landscapes. They include relevant public agencies, design professionals, residents, and NPOs/NGOs. We also discuss the lessons learned through such a process. Since a participatory approach to landscape design remains to be fully explored in Singapore, we anticipate that this research project could provide valuable insights into the adoption of participatory design in Singapore to promote a more bottom-up approach to the planning and design of public green and open spaces

Singapore, the renewal of landscape typologies in HDB public housing neighbourhoods

Singapour, perspectives sur les formes de nature et le renouvellement des typologies d'espaces publics au sein des HDB, quartiers de logements publiques. Au sortir de son indépendance, Singapour a subi de profondes mutations. Sous l'impulsion de l'ancien premier ministre Lee Kuan Yew, les divers plans pour le développement urbain visaient à la construction du nouvel Etat, avec la volonté forte et réussie de loger l'ensemble des habitants . Cet accroissement rapide du parc immobilier public va de pair avec les premiers efforts pour verdir la capitale et créer de nouveaux espaces publics au sein des quartiers de logements publics - HDB (Housing Development Board). Le climat tropical fait de la nature, un matériau abondant et propice à un façonnage multiple. Elle devient un emblème et un outil majeur de l'attractivité de la nouvelle nation, qui se proclame très tôt cité-jardin à sa manière. Cette stratégie, support de la vision du premier ministre, n'a de cesse d'évoluer et accompagne les transformations successives du paysage urbain, avec des typologies d'espaces publics variées, et une volonté affichée d'exposer la nature urbaine en de multiples territoires de l'innovation. L'idéologie "verte" répond à une volonté d'abord politique d'organisation de l'espace, pour l'attractivité du pays à des fins de rentabilisation du marché immobilier et des capitaux étrangers, mais aussi à une demande intérieure de diversification du paysage monotone hérité des deux premières générations de quartiers de logements publics. Singapour entend se placer à la pointe du développement durable dans l'aménagement public paysager à l'échelle internationale et affiche sa singularité en multipliant les dispositifs de mise en œuvre du vert jusqu'à clamer plus récemment son statut de cité biophilique. Se juxtaposent alors, plusieurs typologies paysagères planifiées et des étendards végétalisés tels "Garden by the bay", aux côtés de formes héritées de la période coloniale, des parcelles de forêts ou des premiers développement des années 60. L'espace public est constamment façonné avec de nouvelles propositions d'HDB toujours plus denses, grignotant davantage dans les réserves de forêts secondaires en attente de redéveloppement. Cette panoplie d'espaces publics, aux allures innovantes, multiplie des organisations spatiales (verticalisation des espaces publics entre autre) et fonctionnelles de la nature, à l'aide de nouvelles thématiques (culturelles, environnementales, symboliques, etc.), des transactions de la masse végétale, et une évolution dans la perception, les pratiques et les guides d'aménagements paysagers, afin de générer peut-être de nouveaux usages auprès des habitants, consultés en fin de chaine. Singapour, nature urbaine manucurée certes, mais aussi financiarisée, 'esclave' de la technologie, parfois un peu 'sauvage' et encore bien d'autres images et formes. Une telle entreprise, dans le spectre d'un nouveau paradigme environnemental, questionne profondément les dimensions socio-culturelle et proprement écologique et durable des projets à l'œuvre, aux différentes échelles du territoire. Elle interroge également la perception et l'appropriation faite de la nature urbaine, alors même qu'elle est l'objet d'une quête de sens et d'une relation nouvelle au territoire, médiateur d'un idéal soutenable; et ailleurs, un instrument de régénération urbaine par le bas, pour beaucoup de communautés de quartiers attachées à maintenir ou améliorer la qualité de leur environnement quotidien

Nature of the city, nature within city: a few perspectives on the forms of nature through the landscape typologies of Singapore public estates

Urban nature is facing social and ecological challenges to target the sustainable ideal, in which nature would associate the idea of human and ecological well-being. Worldwide, are increasing the citizen ecological awareness and their participation to the shaping of urban greening, portraying nature as a powerful instrument for the regeneration or the planning of qualitative public space in urban neighbourhoods. It is the emergence of a sensitive relationship toward landscape, in which nature became a key mediator on the individual and social search for local meaning and sense of place. In the globalizing context of megacities, this relationship is extended from the urban neighbourhood to the regional scale. Since its independence, Singapore successfully went through the tremendous challenge of accommodating its citizen in decent and affordable housing. The increase of public housing number has been the opportunity in parallel to challenge the neighbourhood landscape for more than 50 years, from monotonous typologies inherited from the two first generations of public housing neighbourhoods, toward the implementation of new prototypes more recently. In the city-state nature became a national emblem by serving both a political vision and economic interests. The “technicizing” of nature through the prism of innovation questions its intrinsic value. Nature enslaved? Within urban contexts, the perception of nature is denatured. Whether planned or fortuitous, nature has various appearances ranging from highly manicured to informal or even "wild" forms, which reflect its socio-cultural level of acceptance and understanding. This article will present an historical overview of the landscape typologies in the public housing of Singapore, proclaimed garden city by the former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. On the new environmental paradigm spectrum, it will depict and question the evolving status of nature within public housing neighbourhoods, which is the object of diverse experimentations of the landscape of the public space, from the vertical green to the biophilic city ideal