Reimagining Suburbs for the the Post-Carbon City
Tags: carbon footprint, competition, reburbia, suburbs
Finalists have been announced at the Reburbia Suburban Design Competition! Cast your vote for the best idea before midnight tomorrow (Monday, August 17).
Currently leading the vote count is Galina Tahchieva’s Urban Sprawl Repair Kit. It offers design solutions for integrating existing suburban prototypes like drive-through restaurants into a more diverse, cohesive and walkable urban fabric. The “T-trees Social Housing Project” has the second-greatest number of votes – it proposes nifty-looking modular towers topped with windmills that supporting prefabricated social housing units.
Meanwhile, an article in yesterday’s Edmonton Journal describes the fierce community resistance that stands in the way of proposals to modestly densify Edmonton’s older single-
Parking lot at the IKEA in South Edmonton - one of many big-box stores that serve new suburban development on the margins of the city. Photo by author.
family neighbourhoods with duplexes and triplexes. As a result of neighbours’ vehement protests of inner-city infill, developers and builders find it simpler and more economically feasible to provide yet more sprawling greenfield developments. The situation in Edmonton demonstrates that any successful approach to retrofitting suburbia will need to address the persistent cultural ideal of the single-family house in a low-density neighbourhood.
What do you think is the best approach to retrofitting suburbia for the post-carbon future? Winners of the Reburbia design competition will be announced on August 19 on Dwell.com and Inhabitat.com to inspire sustainable suburban transition.
Ken H said:
Aug 16, 09 at 5:24 pmI have to admit a preference for the Urban Sprawl Repair Kit. What it allows is an incremental and scalable approach to the densification of suburbia. Most other attempts have led to a radical change of the built environment all at once. The Repair Kit actually allows for an organic growth pattern to emerge in the suburbs akin to what has worked for the eternal cities such as Rome and Paris. Economically it also allows for growth to happen without having to extract the “highest and best use” for the property in order to obtain financing.
Further, the level of density can actually increase over time. As the strip mall evolves into a true town center the drive-thru restaurants can move to true storefronts. The property of former fast food building can then be built up with commercial or residential with the liner building remaining as a podium.
We attempted to do something similar along the Avenue of Champions and are awaiting the funding of the project. It has the potential to be built in multiple phases. Completing the street by building along the frontage line, renovating the existing building, then building the mid-rise to complete the project.
Vanessa said:
Aug 19, 09 at 1:28 pmWhile I agree with Ken that the Urban Sprawl Repair Kit is a pretty fantastic idea, one issue would be that in order for some suburban areas to densify and became functionally urban like the Repair Kit suggests, the increased population would be relocating from somewhere… perhaps less successful suburbs. For some suburbs to become more urban, others probably need to become more rural.
This brings us to the winning idea for the Reburbia competition – “Frog’s Dream: McMansions Turned Into Biofilter Water Treatment Plants”:
http://www.re-burbia.com/2009/08/05/the-frogs-dream-suburban-eco-water-management/