Look on the back of an envelope for response to flood scare
100ha urban farm to feed Shanghai
Tracking ideas is a Bob Dey Property Report section devoted to ideas on property questions such as urban strategies & design, many from overseas but with relevance to Auckland.
Look on the back of an envelope for response to flood scare
I read the heading, Flooding forces overhaul of building rules, and thought: Is there another way?
And then: Of course there is another way. There is always another way.
The immediate response is to say “No, you can’t build there”. Alternatives would encourage inventive architects, such as:
- Change the design of houses so flooding doesn’t get inside
- Do, as the owner of a house I pass every day on my way to the beach did, acknowledge that the land was once swamp and remained subject to some flooding, especially on the tide, and build garage & workshop downstairs, living quarters upstairs
- Build on stilts, as many communities through Asia do
- Alter coastal landscapes so rising seas are forced to take less invasive paths
- Produce barriers that can be raised on threat of flooding – mechanical sandbagging.
The beachfront of grand unused baches
I swim at a beach where every shoreline house is a bach, or the multi-million-dollar equivalent, none occupied more than a few days/year so no homelessness there in the event of a flood, but a resthome and houses on the drained swamp would be affected.
Those grand beachfront baches are an example of changing lifestyles. The grown children don’t have time to look after the bach and are more likely to want to go on overseas holidays, the grandchildren might enjoy it for a week or 2 but are also getting used to grander escapades further afield. And the parents/grandparents don’t turn up because they’d be rattling round on their own.
Some of these baches have enough space around them for the games which no longer get played, but the question is there: Why does beachfront have to be so exclusive that nobody occupies it?
For the owners of these individual sections there is capital gain (though some have been held by the same families for generations), but there can still be capital gain if occupancy is more effective, such as apartments used year-round.
2 beaches up the coast, at the top of Orewa, it’s been done. 30 years ago, a group of investors bought a large site between the main road and the beach, built 2-storey units in a resort style with the intention of using some of the units themselves – and were sent bust through bank inflexibility & outrageously high penalty rates in the 1987 crash. All but one of the 8 were bankrupted, the other saved by investing through a trust.
From my drive-by observations, a development launched in good times, completed in hard times, has had variable success but these days is well used.
Saying no to coastal development for fear of occasional flooding or long-term inundation resulting from climate change cannot be a New Zealand answer: innate ingenuity should see to that.
Where do people want to live? And how to do it
I had a conversation about intensification last year with a property professional, who asked me: “Where do people most want to live in Auckland?” We both answered: “On the coast.” Then he posed a second question: “Where do authorities [government & council] want to see housing built?” He answered: “In places like New Lynn.”
Now I happen to think that New Lynn and many suburban villages like it have a tremendous future if new intensive housing is accompanied by the right kinds of other development – businesses, community amenities, education – and if transit lines encourage 2-way travel to suburban work beyond the standard shopkeeping.
But, in the current climate, the pressure to provide housing first comes way ahead of the social & occupational infrastructure (a wider range of jobs than is traditional in suburban centres), making for desolate suburbs & long commutes.
And the coastal side of the argument? Build apartment blocks & townhouses where individual palaces have dominated, we agreed. Expensive? Probably. Worth doing? Yes.
What about Edgecumbe?
Would these simple answers work for Edgecumbe, a whole Bay of Plenty town submerged when the Rangitaiki River burst its banks?
A torrent like that hitting Edgecumbe will defeat even the greatest optimist – today. Tomorrow, we need to search for answers because New Zealand is primarily a coastal country.
100ha urban farm to feed Shanghai
International architecture firm Sasaki Associates Inc (Boston & Shanghai) unveiled plans last month for a square kilometre (100ha) urban farm in the midst of Shanghai’s skyscrapers. Design writer Nicole Jewell wrote on the Inhabit website: “The project is a mega farming laboratory that will meet the food needs of almost 24 million people while serving as a centre for innovation, interaction & education within the world of urban agriculture.”
Fast Company named Sasaki’s proposal for the Sunqiao urban agricultural district, intended to have vertical farms next to office towers, as a finalist in its World-changing ideas awards.
Sasaki principal Michael Grove said at the awards: “Sometimes an idea that can have a big impact is so obvious that it’s a bit strange to think it hasn’t been done already. With leafy greens accounting for about 56% of the typical Shanghainese diet, the fact they are the ideal crop for hydroponic growing systems, and the cost of land driving buildings up instead of out, Shanghai is the ideal environment for the vertical farms that make up Sunqiao.”
The award winners included Hillary Fellowship’s global impact visa
Fast Company announced 12 winners in March out of 192 finalists & over 1000 entries for its first world-changing ideas awards.
I’ve just realised I did see these awards at the time but skipped by quickly after looking at the first of the finalists, which was an edible 6-pack ring. One of the winners was the Edmund Hillary Fellowship’s global impact visa (link below).
Links:
Inhabitat, 13 April 2017: Shanghai is planning a massive 100ha vertical farm to feed 24 million people
Sasaki, 20 March 2017: Sunqiao named one of FastCo’s world-changing ideas
Sasaki, Sunqiao urban agricultural district
Fast Company, 20 March 2017: Announcing the winners of the 2017 world-changing ideas awards
Earlier story:
Tracking ideas Sun26Mar17 – Melbourne plan review, value of transit, world-changing ideas
Attribution: Inhabitat, Fast Company, Sasaki.
Regular leads: Planetizen