How can we design cities that are useable for all?

The Seattle Public Library opened to much fanfare in 2004, designed by the famous architect Rem Koolhaas and his firm OMA. But, according to Future Cities Lab researcher Dr Saskia Kuliga, some users soon reported difficulty using the building due to the complexity of its design. Some even reported panic attacks. According to Dr Kuliga, this failure is a ‘building useability error”, and illustrates the need for better integration of way-finding and cognition research in the design professions.

Here in Singapore, the question of designing spaces for all uses is particularly relevant, given the rapidly aging population. The design of HDB, or Housing Development Board, communities, has evolved over the years. A recent design, Kampung Admiralty, won numerous awards for its creative integration of green space, facilities for the elderly, and other amenities all within one building. 

The question of how we design neighbourhoods for the elderly is also a question of how we design cities for all age groups and diverse populations. Not all residents have the same physical mobility of cognitive abilities, and thus their respective needs should be considered when we design buildings and also urban spaces.

Episode 7: Designing User-friendly Buildings and Cities

Social media can have many uses for research. Many urbanists have used data collected by phones and other devices to reveal patterns of cities. For example, showing where tourists are more likely to visit, revealing urban inequality, or as a tool for garnering citizen feedback on issues that need solving. Big data has powerful applications to urban planning. 
 
But what about nature? The natural world and the value of nature to humans is an increasingly important topic in urban research. Here at the Singapore-ETH Centre, Natural Capital Singapore is a multiyear project aimed at measuring and quantifying the value of Singapore’s green spaces. 
 
In this episode, Jahson Alemu, a postdoctoral researcher, discusses how social media is being leveraged to understand how we interact with nature. What sorts of spaces do people enjoy, and why? What specific features of open spaces (like interesting trees, rivers, or flowers) are people more likely to visit? And, how can this data be leveraged to help planners, designers, and policymakers make better decisions about preserving access to this vital resource? This is particularly relevant to land-scarce Singapore, where the need for development must be balanced to maintain the areas designated for open space and recreation.

Episode 8: Using social media to understand the relationship between human beings and nature

How are large iconic urban developments being used as a way for cities to build a brand, attract investment or tourists? 

The Grand Projet team, Dr Anna Gasco and Dr Naomi Hanakata at the Future Cities Laboratory examine the trend of urban megaprojects and what it means for contemporary urban development practices around the globe. Large-scale urban projects have become major drivers of urban renewal in cities around the globe. High-density, mixed uses and transit-connectivity are increasingly seen as positive attributes for liveable cities from a social, economic as well as environmental perspective. Notably in places where land resources are limited and/or the urban population is increasing expeditiously, large-scale, high-density, mixed-use projects are regarded as a viable way for advancing urban development. These large-scale, master-planned projects — here referred to as Grand Projet — hold answers to some of the emerging challenges related to the future of our cities.

The complexity of Grand Projets in their design, implementation and management processes presents several challenges to studying them. Their sheer size leads to organisational challenges as they are often completed in several phases, in which rearrangements, corrections, additions, and errors occur, frequently with cost overruns. This often leads to the perception of their planning and construction processes being opaque and that projects imply functional compartmentalisation and poor quality of public spaces, inhibit social and economic interaction, have negative impacts on their surroundings or trigger processes of gentrification among others. In their research across over 30 case study examples in Asia and Europe, the team addresses the multiple parameters involved in the social acceptance, economic success, as well as long- term sustainability and liveability of Grands Projets.

Episode 9: The Grand Projet – Towards Adaptable and Liveable Urban Megaprojects

Good cities are those that can serve the needs of everyone. Women and men experience their built environment differently, as they have different roles in life, hence they have different needs. How should planners address such differences? 

In this podcast, Dr Devisari Tunas and Dr Akino Tahir from the Gender Sensitive Urban Planning team at the Future Cities Laboratory discuss the challenges and strategies in making cities more gender-sensitive when it comes to urban planning.

The concept of gender-mainstreaming in urban planning has been increasingly prominent especially in relation to Sustainable Development Goal number 5 on Gender Equity. The general understanding of its meaning, approaches and translation in spatial planning, however, remains limited. 

The Future Cities Laboratory, through its collaborative project with Asian Development Bank,  proposed MAPS (Mobility, Accessibility, Participation and Safety/Security) as guiding principles that could be easily understood by city makers.

Episode 10: How can we make cities better for women?

Amidst public fear of data misuse and privacy breaches, how can we address the positive use of mobile phone data as a method to improve transport planning?

Massive amounts of data are being collected day-to-day by telecommunication companies. We’ve all heard how these information can be used to power location-based services apps or simply target audiences, but it has also drawn a lot of attention in the research community and has become a promise to make our transport system better. 
 
In this episode, Cuauhtemoc Anda, PhD researcher with the Engaging Mobility research group at FCL, discusses how we can create a city of digital twin travellers to assess changes in the transport policies, infrastructure, and evaluate the introduction of new modes of transport. These digital twin travellers are generated from user-aggregated mobile phone data, which makes it a privacy-by-design approach, and a way in which smart planning applications can leverage on urban mobility Big Data without compromising users privacy.

Episode 11: Digital Twin Travellers

With the advent of ride-hailing apps and multiple players in the ride-hailing market, we have more transportation options than ever before. How can we optimise coordination between mobility provider platforms while reducing fears about data privacy and security?  
 
As an increasing number of ride-hailing companies join the market, each maintains its own database of demand and supply information. Information about both the supply and demand for transportation is locked up in various silos, making data exchange and interoperability difficult. The advent of blockchain technology could be a way toward a shared mobility database that could optimise performance across ride-hailing companies. With the increase in consumer reliance on such online platforms, organisations such as TravelSpirit and IoMob have lobbied for the development of an international standard that will finally break down the silos between mobility provider platforms and advocate for a blockchain-enabled meta-platform for transportation. 
 
In this episode, Dr Pieter Fourie, Senior Researcher of the Engaging Mobility project at FCL, and ASEAN chair of TravelSpirit foundation, introduces the concept of ‘Distributed Ledger Technology’ and goes on to share the vision of how this technology will enable other emerging technologies like Mobility-as-a-Service and the machine economy for autonomous vehicles and IOT.

Episode 12: Blockchain Technology in Transportation

In September last year, the UN announced a pledge by 66 countries to achieve net zero carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2050. What does this mean and how do we get there? 

Presently, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) only holds nations accountable for emissions produced locally and not through means such as trade imports and air travel. As countries pledge to reduce human-induced climate change, achieving a balance with the ecosystem where all emissions produced are offset or reduced requires multi-level strategies by governments, companies and individuals. What are some of these efforts that can be taken in this drive towards carbon neutrality?

In this episode, Dr Jimeno Fonseca, Senior Researcher and Principal Investigator of the Multi-scale Energy Systems for Low Carbon Cities project at FCL discusses the way towards a carbon neutral future, and shares the various ways in which it can be achieved through concrete policy plans, support for innovations in clean energy technology, and through individual changes in lifestyles and behaviour.

Episode 13: Carbon Neutrality – An achievable goal?

The spatial fabric of rural India is transforming, particularly, by the modest, at the doorstep, primal infrastructure – the road. As India extends its national road infrastructure, it catalyses its predominantly rural areas to transform into quasi-urban territories. However, this vast territorial transformation remains understudied and is misunderstood as being only a by-product of the urbanisation processes radiating to and from the city. This partial understanding misrepresents such territories in regional development policies, creating unintended consequences.

In this episode PhD researcher, Tanya Chandra examines four typological urban-rural sites in Bengal, India – the almost urban, the periphery, the in-between zone and the almost rural through the lenses of national infrastructure planning and local construction methods. How do such policies, agencies, stakeholders and spatial configurations catalyse the types of spatial transformation trends in a region and how can they contribute to the socio-technical understanding of regional and territorial relationships?

Episode 14: Fieldwork in Global South: Where rural is plural

FCL and the UNDP Global Centre for Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development presents a three-part series on 'Smart City Responses to COVID-19 pandemic' from the perspective of technology, governance and planning.

Pandemics are not new, and cities have battled several of them time and again. But this time around we have a new tool in our arsenal – digital technologies that are helping smart cities to detect, diagnose, monitor and respond to the COVID-19 virus.

In the first episode of the series, Calum Handforth, Advisor, Smart Cities and Digitalisation in the UNDP Centre shares his insights on how technology can facilitate COVID-19 response and recovery. Beyond the employment of technological advancements, how can cities around the world maximise the use of digital tools to improve pandemic response?

Episode 15: Smart City Responses to COVID-19: Digital solutions

FCL and the UNDP Global Centre for Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development presents a three-part series on 'Smart City Responses to COVID-19 pandemic' from the perspective of technology, governance and planning. 

Pandemics are not new, and cities have battled several of them time and again. But this time around we have a new tool in our arsenal – digital technologies that are helping smart cities to detect, diagnose, monitor and respond to the COVID-19 virus.

In the second episode of the series, Dr Devisari Tunas, Research Leader of ‘Archipelago Cities’ at the FCL and Fabien Clavier, Former Project Coordinator of the Big Data Informed Urban Design and Governance group at the FCL, explore the role of governance in the successful adoption of smart city solutions during COVID-19. In ASEAN, governance arrangements have traditionally supported the implementation of smart city initiatives, including for example ad-hoc steering committees at the local level, innovative partnerships with research labs, introduction of civic technologies or policy and regulation experimentations. Such governance arrangements equip cities with the necessary support and tools that can be adapted and tweaked to respond to various future challenges, such as pandemic crises.

Future Cities Laboratory

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