Tag: urban sustainability

Mangrove Forests: A Path for Urban Sustainability in Asia

An important part of urban sustainability is being able to utilize all available resources in a way most beneficial to the environment, to society, and the economy. In Asia, mangrove forests, or plants including trees, palms, and shrubs and are found by swamps, riverbanks, and coastal areas in tropical or subtropical climates, have been unfortunately neglected and even destroyed for coastal development of cities. However, urban designers have begun to pay more attention to the usefulness of mangrove forests as natural capital, to not only help the environment, but also to utilize the resources these forests provide.

It was found that mangrove forests are actually carbon-rich environments that provide natural storm and monsoon protection, help prevent soil erosion, provide a habitat for many different species of animals, and absorb almost eight times more carbon dioxide than any other ecosystem. These facts present a compelling case to preserve mangrove forests, as many large cities in Asia have begun doing, including Shenzhen in China, Hong Kong, and Mumbai in India. City planners in these areas have created solutions to restore the lost mangrove forests, incorporate them urban planning, and properly protect them into the future. The change of practices of these large bustling cities gives us the perfect example of the importance of understanding and utilizing the resources in our environment to become more sustainable by helping the environment, urban society, and the economy from the benefits provided by mangrove forests. We would be wise to pay attention to the resources and natural capital we have in our environments that we must protect and utilize sustainably to aid our own urban areas in America.

What Should Our Future Cities Look Like?

Even being in the year 2017, a year that represented “the future” in the past, humans continue looking forward to further improve and progress. One area that this thought process is employed in would be urban design. Architects, designers, and urban planners create plans for how our future cities should look like, taking into account the strive towards urban sustainability. ABIBOO Studio is an international design firm that focuses on innovation in architecture, urban areas, and interior spaces that allows for the integration of “arts, engineering, economics, sensorial experiences, and technology” (ABIBOO). In this article from ABIBOO’s Think Tank, Juanjo Ortega discussed the different aspects necessary to create an ideal future city, emphasizing urban sustainability as the key to the future. He presented a new strategy, hybrid urbanism, that offers programs for a city population involving projects to preserve natural landscape with architecture and urban planning that will help promote culture and the environment.

A couple of ideas and focuses presented by Ortega include buildings designed to clean the air through a series of green houses that work as filters and creation of terraces for collection of rainwater and agriculture or to bury organic residues to produce power, fertilizers and biogas. The main concept of his ideal future city is to have a “network of effective infrastructures in small areas with mainly touristic buildings where visitors and workers share the resources and the facilities” (Ortega).  The ideas he highlighted in this article involved solutions and innovations that will reform cities to make them more sustainable and more efficient for the future populations to come.