Topos 110 - Mobility

to po s. no 110

2020

bil

mo

ity

30 JEFF SPECK – On challenges cities face and ways to make them more walkable and human-centered

42

TURNING STREETS INTO PARKS – How to recode urban space in Melbourne and redefine its streets as green areas BILL BAKER, SOM – On designing and building tall structures and the vertical mobility of elevators 98

to po s. no 110

2020

T H E I N T E R N AT I O N A L R E V I E W O F L A N D S CA P E A R C H I T E CT U R E A N D URB A N DE S I G N

bil

mo

ity

Contents

THE BIG PICTURE

CURATED PRODUCTS

Page 8

Page 102

OPINION

REFERENCE

Page 10

Page 106

TALE NT VS. MASTERMIND

E DITOR’S PICK

Page 12

Page 108

METROPOLIS EXPLAINED

Page 14

JEFF SPECK AND THE WALKABLE CITY

Page 30

GLIDING OVER CITYSCAPES

REVISITING AUTOPIA

More and more metropolitan areas are discovering cable cars as a means of transport in inner cities Page 18

How can we perceive the city of Los Angeles in the context of different types of mobility?

Page 62

MOVING FORWARD

BUS STOP LA

Page 110

It is high time to rethink our mobility.

The only question is how?

Page 24

Jackson Adair's long-term photo observation of a bus stop in LA reveals a microcosm of urban everyday life Page 68

ESCAPE PLAN

WALKAB ILITY AS A NEW URBAN MOVEMENT

"THERE IS AN INCREASING NEED..."

EDGE CITY

Jeff Speck and the walkable city Page 30

The future of mobility lies precisely in the fusion of mobility and logistics Page 72

Page 114

"WE NO LONGER NEED ANY ASSEMBLY-LINE CITIES"

FRAMING THE EDGES

How to create bikeable and walkable environments through active mobility all around the world?

Page 38

The potential to reinterpret and reorganize existing urban carpets as urbanes land Page 74

BACKFLIP

Page 112

IMPRINT

TURNING STREETS INTO PARKS

A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

How to recode urban space and redefine streets as green spaces in Melbourne?

Page 42

A critical reflection on the walkability term: Great City Chengdu and Masdar City Page 82

"(IS THERE) ANY ROOM FOR MICRO-MOBILITY...?"

MOVING BETWEEN UTOPIA AND DYSTOPIA

Mobility researcher Andreas Knie on the fascination and the controversy of new vehicles in urban spaces Page 50

A comparison between the utopian thinkers of the 1960’s and the corporate utopian innovators of today Page 86

NO WALK IN THE PARK

UP AND AWAY

Constant Cap on non-motorised transport in Kenya Page 52

Vertical mobility promises new types of aerial urban landscapes that can enrich the highrise way of life Page 92

MOBILITY: FACTS & FIGURES

Illustration by Steffen Kraft Page 58 IN CONVERSATION WITH PATRICK NATHEN OF LILIUM

The sky is the limit: The potential of urban air mobility Page 60

006

topos ISSUE 110

IN CONVERSATION WITH BILL BAKER, SOM

On the interdependencies between vertical transportation technology and highrise construction Page 98 CONTRIBUTORS

TURNING STREETS INTO PARKS

Page 100

Page 42

Photos: Photo by Royoji Iwata on Unsplash (above) ; bauchplan ).( (below)

Page 113

mobility

Mobility at the next level: More and more metropolitan areas are discovering cable cars as a means of transport in inner cities. Pioneers in this regard are conurbations in Bolivia and Mexico. They demonstrate how it is possible to move through urban areas, yet far removed from the noise and stress of the streets and traffic jams. Especially where cities are growing, numbers of commuters are increasing and existing transport systems are reaching their limits, cable cars could establish themselves as a new form of environmentally friendly mobility.

UTE STRIMMER

018

topos ISSUE 110

Photo: Shanti Hesse / Alamy Stock

Gliding over Cityscapes

City from a bird's eye view: La Paz's public cable car system Mi Teleferico operates with ten lines spanning over 30 kilometres across the city. More than 300,000 people use the lines on an everyday basis.

topos

019

mobility

Moving 024

topos ISSUE 110

forward The future of mobility has become an issue concerning countries, cities, municipalities, researchers, planners, companies and citizens all over the world. One could think that the world might benefit from an enormous global think-tank, yet there is no patent remedy, no one-size-fits-all solution that can be unleashed and applied to everything and everyone. Neither will there ever be one, since mobility is individual. We all want to be mobile and cover long distances quickly, avoid getting stuck in traffic jams, live in green and pedestrian-friendly cities and breathe healthy air. This will require rethinking our mobility, says our author. The only question is: how?

STEFFEN BRAUN

topos

025

mobility

In terms of design, walkable communities are not just attractive or foster communication.

They also save lives.

Car accidents kill a remarkable 1.25 million humans each year worldwide.

Walkability as a new Is the era of the car-dominated city over? If so, the era of walkability has begun, of a city that is far more human-centered and climate-friendly. However, communities and cities all over the world are struggling when it comes to improving urban realms by designing a more walkable city and strengthening the role of pedestrians.

For many years city planner and urban designer Jeff Speck has advocated for the walkable city. His rules not only aim to create better places, but also inspire communities and cities to drive change.

urban Movement 030

topos ISSUE 110

Photo: Photo by Royoji Iwata on Unsplash

JEFF SPECK

topos

031

mobility

V I E W P O I N T

“We no longer need any assembly-line cities.”

What do Manila and Rotterdam have in common? Nothing, where human-friendly mobility is concerned: In Manila, bicycle-riding is a dangerous endeavor, whereas by contrast in the Dutch city, cycling is quite comfortable. How do we create bikeable and walkable environments through active mobility all around the world? The secret possibly lies in the realisation that no mobility challenge is solely one of mobility: It’s also about public space, social programs, climate change, employment, and housing. And getting rid of any sort of silo mentality. A plea.

walking nor public transit realistic options: Both would take one-and-a-half hours. We were stuck with the car.

Sitting in the slow-moving taxi in Manila, we saw no beautiful views of Luzon island – instead we saw a dystopia, traffic at a stand-still.

Towers and giant malls have been built, but the public space is dull and uninviting. Roads, bridges, and highways have been constructed everywhere, yet it’s clear they congest quickly.

The taxi driver told us that in recent years, driving in Manila has gotten much worse since so many people can afford to buy cars.

This is indeed an urban dystopia.

Economically, people are improving, yet they can’t buy their way out of the crisis. Just like us that morning, they lack a sustainable choice for moving around. The rich and middle class will buy more cars and every year, suffer worse traffic. The poor will walk or cycle alongside this disaster. A lose-lose situation.

Mobility is not only A to B, but creating C, D, and E

LIOR STEINBERG & JORN WEMMENHOVE

In a recent work visit to Manila in the Philippines, we had a morning meeting scheduled.

“The taxi will pick you up from the hotel one hour beforehand.” A full hour of driving? We expected a location outside the city, hoping to catch beautiful views from the car. When checking the destination, we were surprised to discover it took place in a nearby district, a mere seven kilometres away. “That’s ridiculous!” we thought. “Why sit in a car for an hour when we can cycle to the location much faster?”

038

topos ISSUE 110

Back home in Rotterdam, a seven-kilometre trip is a no-brainer; thirty minutes of relaxed cycling does the trick. This was one reason we went with the Dutch Cycling Embassy to Manila – to export the great quality of life that a cycling city can create.

Sadly, charting the route in Manila demonstrated that taking a bicycle would be a dangerous expedition; there’s hardly any bicycle infrastructure in Manila, and cycling on urban highways is a suicide mission. Neither were

Work on urban mobility is, generally speaking, divided into two lines. The first is, “How do you get there?” It mainly concerns the planning and building of infrastructure (sidewalks, roads, bike lanes), and the vehicles that use it (cars, buses, bikes, e-scooters, and of course, our legs and feet), allowing people to travel from A to B. To this end, we have seen progress.

More and more cities understand that car infrastructure takes up too much space.

Around the world, cities are introducing bicycle infrastructure, expanding sidewalks, and removing cars from city centers. But this is not enough, as it’s only one part of the urban mobility challenge. We already know that building more roads, updating bus lanes, improving traffic lights, or introducing e-scooters to the city won’t solve urban mobility issues. A

β mobility

city must work, in tandem, on the other challenge of mobility: “How do you group all destinations close together?” Streets, neighborhoods, and cities should allow the achievement of plenty without traveling far.

When streets are places to play, meet, shop, and work, driving becomes unnecessary. In essence, this is dense, mixed-use urbanism that combines residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, and entertainment use on small urban scales.

As many an inspirational Instagram page quote tells you, “It's not the destination, it's the journey.” In urban mobility, this is truly the case. Transit via sustainable and active mobility is achieved only when destinations aren't distant. That’s why cities like Amsterdam, Paris, and Tel Aviv have such a high share of walking and cycling compared to the majority of their counterparts in North America.

The former allow people to achieve a lot simply by walking around the corner, making it pointless to take the car out of the garage.

The complexity of planning such places is left to the “how to get there” professionals. We are fascinated by new mobility schemes, hoping they will save us from ourselves. We focus on the easier question because the “how to get all the destinations together” question is just too complex. But great urban mobility is only the result of both efforts. Let’s focus on the journey, rather than the goal. Densify neighborhoods, introduce new uses, and work with local residents and businesses to create better public space. True, it’s much more complicated work, but that’s the only way we can save existing car-oriented cities.

The silo mentality is a car mentality In 1913, Henry Ford and his then-young motor company introduced the assembly line.

The idea is simple, yet genius when it comes to

efficiency and production: Instead of having one employee responsible for building the entire car, why not let each worker specialize in a specific task? This way, making a car (or phone, laptop, or desk) is a rather simple process of progressively assembling the product. Unfortunately, it seems that city-making has also become an assembly line. Municipalities are divided into departments individually responsible solely for one element of a city: infrastructure, housing, commerce, mobility, social issues, education, etc. These all work in silos, rarely sitting together (unless, of course, there is a dispute over responsibility). How can we expect organizing along these lines to create a mixed-use, dense, lively city?

A mixed-use, dense city is anything but siloed: It’s different people from all walks of life living together. It’s many individuals, in all their complexity, moving within a small footprint and creating harmony. It’s a “complex order,” as Jane Jacobs described great streets: “This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance – not to a simple-minded precision dance with everyone kicking up at the same time, twirling in unison and bowing off en masse, but to an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole.”

The silo mentality from which our municipalities suffer reinforces further siloing. And silo cities are best for cars. Automobiles succeed where separation exists: houses on one side of town, offices on another. Pedestrians on sidewalks, cars on the road. Any potential surprise must be removed so that separation is absolute. We cannot undo this paradigm using these organizational strategies. As Albert Einstein said, “We can't solve problems by using

the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” This is probably the biggest challenge in today’s city-making, and it requires true leadership and mental strength.

Dismantling silos will mean that all of us must have less ego and decision power, but we’ll all benefit in the long run. During our own work, we see how difficult this is, but also how rewarding to get specialists from all across a city to work together.

We recently contributed to the bicycle vision for Rotterdam. The project dealt, of course, with bicycle infrastructure and promotion, but beyond that, the vision was about promoting quality of life in the city. We acknowledged that the city had to invest more in infrastructure at the same time that different domains needed to become part of the narrative. The bicycle, as it touches so many aspects of life – mobility, health, public space, and sustainability – can bring all these domains together. All departments in the city should work to promote cycling and take advantage of a place that is built for active, sustainable mobility. The creation of local mobility hubs was proposed, to be built in neighborhoods and act as a new type of neighborhood center. The hubs will be places to meet neighbors, try new mobility options, park bicycles, learn about the neighborhood, develop professional and business skills concerning the bicycle, and much more. Imagine how many municipal departments, organizations, residents, and businesses could be affected by such a hub. So the best way to create urban change and promote active mobility is to break up silos. No mobility challenge is solely a mobility issue: It also involves public space, social programs, climate change, employment, and much more. We must create a shared vision within cities and bring together departments to work on these visions. No more assembly-line cities.

topos

039

mobility

Turning Streets How to recode urban space and redefine streets as green spaces? The landscape architects of bauchplan envision Melbourne's streets turned into parks.

Their entry for “The Future Park Design Ideas Competition” held by the University of Melbourne and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects reflects this utopian vision. But how utopian is it?

If cities redesign streetscapes and rethink mobility for pedestrians and bikers, the greenness and democratic spirit that come with such reforms might be rewarding.

BAUCHPLAN ).( TOBIAS BALDAUF, RUPERT HALBARTSCHLAGER, MARIE-THERES OKRESEK,

into Parks 042

topos ISSUE 110

Illustraion: bauchplan ).(

TATJANA OSHIMA, FLORIAN OTTO

Climatic structural axes: activated streetscapes supplement urban open spaces, creating a woven climate-conducive network.

topos

043

mobility

Revisiting Images of Los Angeles are known to a global audience. Despite its origins as a city shaped by public transport, the automobile has long since defined these images. Despite this fact and given the diversity of available modes of transport, how can we see the city, and what do we actually see when doing so? A student experiment offers insights and views of everyday urbanism.

EMILY SCHLICKMAN

Autopia 062

topos ISSUE 110

Photos: Copyright/ownership: SWA Group

Depending on mode of transport, views of the city can differ greatly; a departure from the Los Angeles known from popular media.

topos

063

mobility

Bus Stop LA Typically, bus stops are places where people don’t intend to stay longer than necessary. As a result, the impressions gained there are – at best – fleeting, transitory, ephemeral.

Photographer Jackson Adair, however, does exactly the opposite, as his long-term photo observation of a bus stop in Los Angeles shows.

His study reveals to us a microcosm of urban everyday life. As viewers, we become part of it.

JACKSON ADAIR

068

topos ISSUE 110

I have lived in Los Angeles for three years now and spent the first two driving past this bus stop on the corner of Santa Monica and Vermont.

Contrary to most, I loved getting stuck at the red light. This momentary pause gave me time to observe the colors, shadows, and interesting mix of commuters. Since then, I have visited and documented the bus stop over fifty times, using a fixed frame in the same location as a platform for observation. In the beginning, I focused primarily on photographic composition , but as time went by my attention shifted to the people occupying the space and why they were there.

In Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, the French philosopher Roland Barthes unpacks the effects of photography on its viewers.

One concept that he develops is the studium – the idea that the cultural interpretation of a photograph is a discovery of the operator, who is the

mobility

Up Elevators and vertical transport technology offer a way to move up and down in tall buildings. They can also address current challenges of urbanization, if the only direction left for sustainable development is upward. Elevators are the key to doing so, based on innovations in both skyscraper design and in vertical transport technology. Recent solutions promise new types of aerial urban landscapes that can enrich the highrise way of life.

and Away 092

topos ISSUE 110

Photo: thyssenkrupp Elevator

MARK KAMMERBAUER

Security is key for elevator systems.

Testing serves to minimize risks and demonstrate reliability to the public. The thyssenkrupp Elevator test tower in Atlanta begins operations in 2021.

topos

093