11.1 The sustainable city  (Page 8/20)

In the Pacific Northwest the International Living Future Institute has set up a Living Building Challenge to go beyond LEED and design and build triple net zero (storm water, energy, wastewater) structures. As of Fall 2010 there were 70 registered projects

http://ilbi.org/about/About-Docs/news-documents/pdfs/world2019s-first-living-building-certified-projects-unveiled , accessed 4/28/11

.

What about the neighborhoods where we live and raise our families? Many now recognize that our grandparents' mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods were more sustainable than today’s reality. The Congress for New Urbanism

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promotes mixed use in contrast to its predecessor, Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM), which promoted separation of use. CIAM, active in the first part of the 20th century, proposed that the social problems faced by cities could be resolved by strict functional segregation, and the distribution of the population into tall apartment blocks at widely spaced intervals.

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This view found its expression in Le Corbusier’s The Radiant City (1935). Separation of Use heavily influenced subdivision and building codes that, in turn, shaped Post World War II suburban expansion. In our suburbs zoning dictates mutually exclusive uses in each district so that Industrial use is exclusive of commercial, which is exclusive of residential. In the suburbs separation of use combined with the platting of superblocks to replace the traditional grid network gives us a lifestyle that produces 10 auto trips per unit per day, because you need one car per driver to get around where much of America lives.

CIAM’s view also formed the intellectual underpinning for large-scale high-rise public housing projects. Today we recognize that safe, sound and sanitary housing is not just indoor plumbing and more bedrooms, and that affordable housing is not just rent but includes utility and transportation costs and the right to live in a safe, mixed income, stably integrated neighborhood. Our sustainable city should stand upon the leg of social equity and include ethnic and income diversity. Neighborhoods should be sited at efficient locations

http://www.cnt.org/news/category/location-efficiency/ , accessed 4/25/11

with broad transportation choices. What will they look like? Most new urbanists think they will be similar to the diverse neighborhoods built at the turn of the last century. Other visionaries, such as Moshe Safdie, think it possible to integrate the variety and diversity of scattered private homes with the economics and density of a modern apartment building. Modular, interlocking concrete forms in Safdie’s Expo ’67 defined the space. The project was designed to create affordable housing with close but private quarters, each equipped with a garden. In a different vein, in outlying Grayslake, Illinois, cluster development that incorporates open space, wetlands, and a working organic farm enables residents to live (somewhat) sustainably in the country. Our future must recognize that we don’t want everyone to live in Manhattan or Brooklyn, and we must provide for diverse tastes and lifestyles.