paragraph 7::Eco-City Concept and Its Implementation

Hey peeps!

How is it going? I apologized for the inconsistency in deliberating my idea with you guys. Hope that you understand that I've been all day busy with my final year project while doing some freelance jobs. Then once I've finished my final year project I am undergoing my last internship in Singapore. 

I straightly being offered a position as a landscape architect there once i've finished my internship with the company... Anyway, I would have to give you something after all this while right? 

Okay! Let us warm up a bit! This is the 7th paragraph of Sustainable Seni People.. which gonna be discussing a tiny movement in urban design and planning which regard to the Eco-city concept and Its implementation.

Let's give a hit to this video before we run the discussion!

So.. What would be the words and paraphrases that come in your mind when we talk about Eco-City?

Let me tell you something peeps!

Richard Register was the first coined the term "ecocity" in his 1987 book, Ecocity Berkeley: Building Cities for a Healthy Future. Other leading figures whom had envisioned the sustainable city concept are architect Paul F Downton, who later founded the company Ecopolis Pty Ltd, and authors Timothy Beatley and Steffen Lehmann, who have written extensively on the subject.

Eco-city or Sustainable City is a movement of concerns among urban design professionals including urban planner, landscape architect, architect and so forth. It is a concern of stabilizing the urban ecology with its overpopulated in-habitants in achieving an optimum run of economic activities. If you browse through most of recent development of city of world, we are all running through it.

As far as my concern as a landscape architect, it is a vital movement that should be considered as part of every development of world in reducing carbon footprint issues and so on. In promoting a low carbon footprint community, an integrated smart pedestrianize system should be created. It also should be inculcated with an efficient and holistic public transportation system. Despite of our cravings in industrializing the urban area, we somehow should recycle all the wastage so that it could be purified before being returned back to the mother nature. 

How could it be achievable?  

Yeah, again that's the question. I throw you some examples of successful eco-city patch-up works on existing urban areas;

1. Bilbao, Spain The country faced economic turmoil following the decline of the steel and port industries but through communication between stakeholders and authorities to create inner-city transformation, the local government benefited from the increase in land value in old port areas. The Strategic Plan for the Revitalisation of Metropolitan Bibao was launched in 1922 and have flourished regenerating old steel and port industries. The conversion from depleted steel and port industries to one of Europe’s most flourishing markets is a prime example of a sustainable project in action.

2. Belo Horizonte, Brazil The city was created in 1897 and is the third largest metropolitan in Brazil with 2.4 million inhabitants. The Strategic Plan for Belo Horizonte (2010–2030) is being prepared by external consultants based on similar cities infrastructure, incorporating the role of local government, state government, city leaders and encouraging citizen participation. The need for environmental sustainable development is led by the initiative of new government following planning processes from the state government. Overall, the development of the metropolis is dependent on the land regularization and infrastructure improvement that will better support the cultural technology and economic landscape.

So let us go in details of another piece of idea implementing eco-city in one of site in Malaysia. As I remembered, its quite a fruitful project for me. This project require you to understand the sustainability concept in macro before we deeply going to discover how to sustain a city. First you would have to go through the city get the smell, recognize the color and people before you are able to digest the identity of the townscape.

Located in Malacca City, this project exercise run through for several weeks. Malacca is 148 km south east of Malaysia's capital city Kuala Lumpur, 235 km north west to Johor's largest city Johor Bahru, and 95 km north west to Johor's second largest city, Batu Pahat. This historical city centre has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 7 July 2008.

The idea of those sketches was to develop basic understanding on the issues and problems which happen on site. This is a basic practice of any urban design project. Zooming into just a small location of Malacca Historical City, this project supposed to respect all existing public realm and human  dispersal movement in town.

Respectively the design plays around with patterns and forms which allocate some interpolation of greeneries respectively to current site activities. Despite of its historical ambiance, this site was used among youth to meet before getting through the victoria square, jonker st and so forth. Located by the river of Malacca, the design also considerate the idea of inviting the natural wildlife to come into the river. I know it sounds ridiculous, but this is where it comes the role of environmental engineer to segregate the existing sewerage system a part of the river it self. It should be channeled somewhere, purified before being released back into the river. In the madness of Malacca in self-claiming as a heritage city of Malaysia, there are a lot unnecessary 'accessories' claim to be 'returned back on site' such as the water wheel! Dush I cant go further to elaborate that, but salvaging the water wheel, I somehow proposed it to be cycled based on solar panel+river flow and generate electricity that will move it respectively while increasing the oxygen capacity in the polluted water to activate the bacterias to eat all the toxic wastage (ambitious) that reduce the bad smell and so forth. 

Yes, it is achievable and possible but of course it requires you a holistic modules and design sensitivities before we start the design in detail. Okay am gonna let you guys think. I leave you with some good references. Please retrieve from those links I stated below;

http://www.academia.edu/1725089/Eco-cities_concept_and_reality

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10630732.2012.756202#preview

http://www.ecocompactcity.org/City/Eco_Compact_City.html

http://ecotraveller.tv/green-city-guide-bilbao/

http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/the-two-big-conferences-in-brazil-continued/

This project had been used for a exemplary images for a paper presented on 24th to 25th February 2011 entitled Innovation in Teaching Urban Landscape Design Studio by respective academicians from Department of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia's Paper presented during 5th South East Asian Technical University Consortium Symposium, Hanoi.

 Take Care! Chiao!