JDS is starting a new section of our newsletter where JDS will discuss and invite others to discuss critical ideas on urbanity.Their first edition is entitled:

A Post-Urban Agenda

2014: half of the world’s population lives/work in cities
2050: 75% of the world’s population lives/work in cities
Rightfully, urbanity has been on the agenda for decades.

Market Reverse
There is an absurd anomaly/discrepancy in the Urban vs. Rural condition of the market: today it is more expensive to live an urban life than to live in the suburbs or in provinces with low urbanity and large amount of free space. The idea of moving out of the city to save money (which is often the case) outlines a basic paradox and crisis of our system: the immediate costs of living are in no way comparable to the burden that provincial settlements impose on society, worldwide. We feel this collapse everyday in our lives: Too much time spent in traffic, too much pollution, too little free-time left to appreciate life. What we don’t see is the absurdity of the burden it creates on our urban environments: yes more and more people live and work in our cities, but more and more also work and don’t live in the city. This is particularly true in small countries, like Belgium. The commuting burden is costly to all and the cities don’t seem to cope to the demand as their tax income only increases with their inhabitants. It’s a catch 22. Cities don’t upgrade due to their lack of means while the burden increases since people (mostly poorer people) move out just to be able to afford a decent home, but remain working in the city. If you zoom out, put on your sustainable expert glasses on and look at this situation globally, it becomes obvious: to pseudo urbanize our land out of our cities is something that should only happen sporadically and be controlled ie. regulated… and taxed. The reason why it continues to happen is because of the virtual financial savings and because of the lure of nature, which is equally virtual: Belgium for instance is 97,5% urbanized according to the World Urbanization Prospects (2011 edition). Our European nature is entirely manmade. And there’s no problem about that. It still is dominated by natural elements such as vegetation, soil, fauna and flora. The only partial obstruction to this are cities, where the biodiversity link is ruptured. A lot of our citizens who decide to move out of the city they work in, to live a cheaper life, closer to nature, do not understand the consequences of an act that seems rational at first. If we accept to over-urbanize a nature that is already urbanized, even that amount of nature will be quickly lost. The paradox is that our cities are both the problem and the answer. We should encourage people to move strictly to cities by making their future urban homes competitive with the prices of the suburban/rural market. But most importantly: we should design and implement policies that force urban developments to recreate biodiversity and imbricate nature into architecture so that those attractive ingredients return to the urban pallet.

Continuous Biodiversity
We’re currently developing urban typologies that allow and encourage vegetation and outdoor spaces to become part of architecture. We believe that we should make cities capable of integrating nature so that the continuum of biodiversity is re-established through our cities. By offering nature back on the urban housing market we might naturally attract more of our future population to our cities.
We need to establish a chart on how nature should integrate architecture to be able to discuss these ideas practically with decision makers.
A wrong rational has taken over our profession: A rational that says that in order to be environmental you should live in a prison-like home. We believe the case of sustainability is far from being resolved by premature regulations (such as imposing passive housing) and should maybe be redirected towards bigger concerns than only the living unit. Yet we cannot neglect it. We just believe that it needs to be connected to its environment rather than fearing its environment. The current trend towards ‘passive’ housing is revealing: on a social and urban dimension its solutions are definitely not active, interactive or performative.

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