The Future of Cities: Urban Regeneration in a Time of Crisis

This depends very much on the community and the individual project; however, in many urban regeneration projects involving the residents, creating residents’ councils, and organizing public hearings are an important part of the project.

Answered by Mirella A. Vitale, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Communication and Public Affairs, ROCKWOOL Group.

I think successful sustainable and holistic solutions are very often based in local culture, technologies, politics, user patterns and economies. At the same time developing economies can benefit from industrial designs and technologies developed for a global market. The marriage between local realities to address global challenges and large volume global investment holds much potential and could result in some developing economies moving faster towards a green transition than many developed economies. It all relies on creating the necessary local political stability and vision to ensure global investments.

Answered by Dan Stubbergaard, Founder, Architect MAA, Cobe

The challenge of heat islands is complex – a factor of what currently exists on a site and what the development is that is replacing it. It is better to replace a parking lot than a park, but much of the heat island effect can be mitigated on the level of building design.

Answered by Matthias Altwicker, Associate Professor, School of Architecture, New York Institute of Technology (New York Tech).

Building energy modelers use different techniques to deal with such uncertainties (e.g., using sensitivity analysis). Using values recommended by guidelines and standards (e.g., ASHRAE 90.1) also helps with initial designs. After the design phase and during the building’s operation phase, data collection devices and techniques (e.g., sensors) could be a great asset to better understand occupancy rates and concentrations.

Answered by Ehsan Kamel, Assistant Professor, Energy Management, New York Tech.

The engineers and professionals still make important decisions because computer models still require information on the target functions, boundaries, and decision-making criteria. The design phase of these systems is more important than the operation phase. It is essential to make such systems reliable and easy-to-use when they are being designed.

Answered by Ehsan Kamel, Assistant Professor, Energy Management, New York Tech.

This is a huge challenge and this is one of the reasons why the ROCKWOOL Group and C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group formed a joint research effort to demonstrate the climate and other benefits that building renovations can generate and to assist cities in making cost-efficient investment decisions. The toolkit was launched last year and assists cities in measuring this broader range of benefits that energy and related building renovations can generate.

Please read below report and with the extract from C40’s homepage including links to the case studies. Report cited.:

This report introduces the methodology and the results from the cities which have piloted it. It covers:

• The need for retrofitting in the building sector. Energy retrofits of existing buildings are particularly relevant in cities that have already experienced high rates of urbanisation, population growth and economic development.
• The approach taken in this methodology to calculating benefits. The benefits modelled in the tool include greenhouse gas emissions reductions, health benefits, employment creation and more. To read more about how the methodology was developed read Appendix A.
• The city retrofitting programmes which were the subject of the pilot studies. Milan’s pilot study assessed a programme for residential building retrofits, while portfolios of school buildings were the focus of the retrofit programme assessed in Copenhagen and New York.
• The results, which are indicative of the metrics and evidence you could build for retrofitting programmes in your city. These results are also available as two-page case studies for Milan, Copenhagen and New York City.

You can find the tool itself, and more guidance on how to use it, here.

Answered by Mirella A. Vitale, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Communication and Public Affairs, ROCKWOOL Group.

We are working on few different office projects, projects that have started up both before the covid-19 pandemic started and also ones that started after. You could say that workspaces have been hit especially hard due to open office plans. Looking at Cobe’s own office space, an adaptively reused warehouse, we try to incorporate the same qualities into the projects that we design, robustness, flexibility. This means trying to work with spaces that are not necessarily programmatically defined or driven. Higher ceiling heights, flexible structures can ensure adaptability.

Answered by Dan Stubbergaard, Founder, Architect MAA, Cobe

I was wondering if there are specific challenges/reasons reported by the Sidewalk Labs in that project. If you can share a link for myself and the audience that would be great. Or, you can give us some examples especially related to the technological burdens they faced. I’d be more than happy to discuss what solutions could be available for such challenges.

Answered by Ehsan Kamel, Assistant Professor, Energy Management, New York Tech.

Piece Cited: https://www.archpaper.com/2020/05/sidewalk-labs-cancels-quayside/

I confirm that adopting the ‘blank slate; approach doesn’t work with NYC and similar cities with legacy systems almost everywhere. However, I believe it would lead to more operational/financial challenges rather than technological. I think researchers and technology companies have shown remarkable adaptability and flexibility against similar challenges. Significant operational preparation is needed, no doubt!

Answered by Ehsan Kamel, Assistant Professor, Energy Management, New York Tech.

It is our aim to build more sustainable and to strategically build more with wooden constructions. Nevertheless, there are limitations to the use of wood; programmatically, building regulations, scale and of course budget constraints. As with all projects it is our role as architects to be persistent, to be persuasive and at times to be more insistent. To achieve sustainability goals, we rely on finding a balance between these points so that a client does not feel they are being forced into someone else’s agenda, they have to feel ownership and also be driven by the same goals. Some of the key points that we emphasize are: durability, longevity of materials, lifespan operational cost and maintenance so that a client is not only focused on building costs, but the holistic approach to a buildings lifespan.

Our most ambitious clients are starting to acknowledge that sustainability and particularly timber construction is becoming a market parameter, and that investments are needed at this point, to be able to compete in the future.

Answered by Dan Stubbergaard, Founder, Architect MAA, Cobe

The aesthetic of open buildings is not limited by the ideas. A good place to start getting an overview is https://councilonopenbuilding.org/ or http://open-building.org/site/map.html. This approach to architecture is not one that ignores a client’s immediate demands, rather, it works from the idea that changes will always happen and that building a responsive architecture will add value to a client’s property.

Answered by Matthias Altwicker, Associate Professor, School of Architecture, New York Tech.

I think I kind of addressed the question. Basically, a combination of all the expertise/majors such as engineering, policy, environmental sciences, biology, etc. would be a great inter/multi-disciplinary filed for the students. Personally, I believe multidisciplinary ‘projects’ are more effective than asking all the students to go through the same programs.

Answered by Ehsan Kamel, Assistant Professor, Energy Management, New York Tech.