Our multi-disciplinary team partnered with the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore to provide a sustainable development framework and plan for Marina Bay and the adjacent Greater Southern Waterfront.

Features of the  long-term conceptual study include the addition of unique waterfront districts, incorporating a network of walkable public space, a new reservoir for rainwater harvesting, a continuous 30-kilometer waterfront pathway for walking and cycling, and an ecological corridor for people and wildlife.

We used our propriety Sustainable Systems Integration Model (SSIM) model to assemble and assess various development scenarios, so as to find the most optimal scheme for the project in terms of sustainability and cost.

Watch this video to learn more about this project to contribute to Singapore’s growth  as a major financial hub for Asia.

Scott Dunn (scott.dunn@aecom.com) leads 91Ӱ��’s operations in Malaysia.

The post Singapore’s centrepiece for urban transformation appeared first on Blog.

The questions of how we can find a sustainable balance between society and nature and how we design and manage our cities are of course very closely linked. As we at 91Ӱ�� thought about Earth Day for 2014, we decided that to achieve the most productive results, the former question could use some re-framing in the way that it often manifests in the popular dialogue.

We have seen the limits of the argument asserting that we need to act forcefully to protect nature. As one who personally feels a strong sense of connection to this argument, it was difficult to admit that this position lacks universal appeal and to accept the necessity of seeking a broader coalition to achieve the same ends. But the fact is that human society typically only mobilizes to effect change in its own economic, social and cultural interests. And we don’t need to see anything wrong with this. Because the other fact is that advancing those interests within the parameters of our planet will inherently involve finding a better balance with nature. It’s first a question of how we frame the objective, who our audience is, and what we are offering as the proposed benefits of action. It’s second a matter of understanding what progress looks like and the extent to which we can currently see it.

So on this Earth Day, despite our recognition of the magnitude of environmental challenges, we found reason for optimism, and despite our species’ propensity to accidentally destroy while we create, we found reason to celebrate human ingenuity. See what we mean in this presentation of Ideas and Innovations toward a Better Future.

Jake Herson (jacob.herson@aecom.com) is managing editor of the Connected Cities blog.

The post What should Earth Day mean? appeared first on Blog.

Bridges are of as much interest to the general public as they are to designers and engineers, particularly if they are iconic and notable. Their timeless appearance and monumental size unsurprisingly strike interest and fascination among us all. In the early 1900s the need for transportation infrastructure gave rise to a variety of innovative bridge types; over time construction methods evolved, giving way to a catalog of new bridges. Today bridges come in all forms, some tall, some short, some designed for vehicles alone while others are intended for pedestrians, bicycles and even horses.

The most common bridge that fills our landscape and often goes unnoticed is the conventional concrete vehicular bridge. These are built purely for function and designed to move large volumes of motorists from point A to point B, withstanding high amounts of vibration and structural load. The potential for bridges to become iconic gateways, beacons, and connecting devices between and within towns and cities is often overlooked. Alternatively these monumental structures can be seen not only as bridges but as places – places for connecting people, places for viewing, places for gathering and celebrating. This view provides opportunities to bring new value to existing communities, not only through a piece of infrastructure but through a holistic design approach involving disciplines including architecture, urban design, transportation, engineering, landscape architecture and hydrology.

Tongzhou Canal Bridges: conceptual linkages diagram.

In 2010 91Ӱ��’s Los Angeles Urban Design team completed a waterfront master plan and sustainability guidelines for the city of Tongzhou, China. As a result of the two-year design and planning effort, local city leaders announced an international design competition for two bridges and a waterfront park. After being asked to participate in the competition, our multidisciplinary design approach and methodology was selected. We choose to build on our key concepts established during the master planning stage and leverage these ideas to develop the new landscape and bridge elements.

Tongzhou Canal Bridge and waterfront.

The site is located at the confluence of four rivers; the design calls for two bridges along an arterial loop road connected with a waterfront promenade and park. The key design drivers were pedestrian connectivity and access from the central business district and adjacent neighborhoods to the waterfront for recreational activities. The two bridges include programmed space where the structure meets the landscape; this becomes a transitional space where landscape becomes bridge and buildings become landscape, blurring the lines between the public realm and architectural elements.

Aerial Rendering: Alternative 2 of Sixth Street Viaduct competition over the Los Angeles river.

More recently we were shortlisted to one of three design teams for the Sixth Street Viaduct competition in Los Angeles, a highly visible competition that featured some of Los Angeles’s most respected architects. Constructed in 1932, the Sixth Street Viaduct (also known as the Sixth Street Bridge) is an important engineering landmark in the City of Los Angeles.  It is the longest of 14 historic Los Angeles River crossing structures. Located in a densely urbanized area just east of downtown Los Angeles, the bridge is a critical transportation link between �����Ի���. A 1986 Caltrans bridge survey found it to be eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places; however the bridge must be replaced due to a form on “concrete cancer” that is rapidly eroding the structure.

View from 5^th Street Bridge over the Los Angeles River: Alternative 1 is a cable stayed bridge with pedestrian ramps to a restored river bank and bike paths.

The new bridge is to span the Los Angeles River as well as multiple rail lines, functioning as a “gateway” to Downtown LA from the east. This multimodal bridge allows for vehicular traffic, bicyclists, and pedestrians with future connections to a restored LA River and future bike paths. The team included 91Ӱ�� architects, landscape architects, urban designers, computational designers, transportation and structural engineers, all working together to come up with the optimal solution. The design team explored multiple alternatives varying from cable stayed pylons to a modified arched scheme that reflects elements of the old bridge. In addition to the bridge structure, a network of open spaces and plazas were incorporated to improve local pedestrian connectivity and community gathering spaces. We used our parametric design capabilities to help both our team and the interview panel visualize the design.

Sixth Street Viaduct: Hanging pedestrian and bike path over the LA river connecting Boyle Heights to the east arts district.

This design effort is ongoing and the team is continuing to explore a variety of structural elements and aesthetics.

Stephen Nieto (stephen.nieto@aecom.com) is an urban designer in 91Ӱ��’s Design + Planning practice.

The post More than a bridge appeared first on Blog.

Bridges are of as much interest to the general public as they are to designers and engineers, particularly if they are iconic and notable. Their timeless appearance and monumental size unsurprisingly strike interest and fascination among us all. In the early 1900s the need for transportation infrastructure gave rise to a variety of innovative bridge types; over time construction methods evolved, giving way to a catalog of new bridges. Today bridges come in all forms, some tall, some short, some designed for vehicles alone while others are intended for pedestrians, bicycles and even horses.

The most common bridge that fills our landscape and often goes unnoticed is the conventional concrete vehicular bridge. These are built purely for function and designed to move large volumes of motorists from point A to point B, withstanding high amounts of vibration and structural load. The potential for bridges to become iconic gateways, beacons, and connecting devices between and within towns and cities is often overlooked. Alternatively these monumental structures can be seen not only as bridges but as places – places for connecting people, places for viewing, places for gathering and celebrating. This view provides opportunities to bring new value to existing communities, not only through a piece of infrastructure but through a holistic design approach involving disciplines including architecture, urban design, transportation, engineering, landscape architecture and hydrology.

Tongzhou Canal Bridges: conceptual linkages diagram.

In 2010 91Ӱ��’s Los Angeles Urban Design team completed a waterfront master plan and sustainability guidelines for the city of Tongzhou, China. As a result of the two-year design and planning effort, local city leaders announced an international design competition for two bridges and a waterfront park. After being asked to participate in the competition, our multidisciplinary design approach and methodology was selected. We choose to build on our key concepts established during the master planning stage and leverage these ideas to develop the new landscape and bridge elements.

Tongzhou Canal Bridge and waterfront.

The site is located at the confluence of four rivers; the design calls for two bridges along an arterial loop road connected with a waterfront promenade and park. The key design drivers were pedestrian connectivity and access from the central business district and adjacent neighborhoods to the waterfront for recreational activities. The two bridges include programmed space where the structure meets the landscape; this becomes a transitional space where landscape becomes bridge and buildings become landscape, blurring the lines between the public realm and architectural elements.

Aerial Rendering: Alternative 2 of Sixth Street Viaduct competition over the Los Angeles river.

More recently we were shortlisted to one of three design teams for the Sixth Street Viaduct competition in Los Angeles, a highly visible competition that featured some of Los Angeles’s most respected architects. Constructed in 1932, the Sixth Street Viaduct (also known as the Sixth Street Bridge) is an important engineering landmark in the City of Los Angeles.  It is the longest of 14 historic Los Angeles River crossing structures. Located in a densely urbanized area just east of downtown Los Angeles, the bridge is a critical transportation link between �����Ի���. A 1986 Caltrans bridge survey found it to be eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places; however the bridge must be replaced due to a form on “concrete cancer” that is rapidly eroding the structure.

View from 5^th Street Bridge over the Los Angeles River: Alternative 1 is a cable stayed bridge with pedestrian ramps to a restored river bank and bike paths.

The new bridge is to span the Los Angeles River as well as multiple rail lines, functioning as a “gateway” to Downtown LA from the east. This multimodal bridge allows for vehicular traffic, bicyclists, and pedestrians with future connections to a restored LA River and future bike paths. The team included 91Ӱ�� architects, landscape architects, urban designers, computational designers, transportation and structural engineers, all working together to come up with the optimal solution. The design team explored multiple alternatives varying from cable stayed pylons to a modified arched scheme that reflects elements of the old bridge. In addition to the bridge structure, a network of open spaces and plazas were incorporated to improve local pedestrian connectivity and community gathering spaces. We used our parametric design capabilities to help both our team and the interview panel visualize the design.

Sixth Street Viaduct: Hanging pedestrian and bike path over the LA river connecting Boyle Heights to the east arts district.

This design effort is ongoing and the team is continuing to explore a variety of structural elements and aesthetics.

Stephen Nieto (stephen.nieto@aecom.com) is an urban designer in 91Ӱ��’s Design + Planning practice.

The post More than a bridge appeared first on Blog.

I recently had the opportunity to present at the “Meeting the Urban Challenge – Smart Cities” conference. In attendance were H.E. Hans Peter Manz (Austrian Ambassador to the United States), Matt Peterson (Chief Sustainability Officer of the City of Los Angeles), Michael LoGrande (Director of Planning Department for the City of Los Angeles) and many others.

This one-day conference focused on the challenges of urbanization. City planning experts from California and Austria joined together with policy makers, architects, building professionals and researchers from academia to share their experiences and ideas on how to create an urban habitat that caters to the diverse needs of its inhabitants while being resource-efficient and protective of the environment.

As part of the panel titled “Innovative Policies for Smart Cities,” I presented a city information modeling approach that allows users to visualize complex city data from typically disparate sources, and encodes design principles taken from multiple disciplines into a unified urban design strategy.

As part of this approach, 91Ӱ��’s sustainable systems integration modeling (SSIM) software, specifically the SSIMd module, was used to calculate a range of quantitative indicators to help clients determine the most cost-effective, smart and sustainable measures. Key metrics visualized include cooling/heating demand, peak energy/water demand, annual energy/water consumption and carbon emissions.

Peak electricity demand visualization for Christchurch, New Zealand.

Annual gas consumption visualization for Christchurch, New Zealand.

Carbon footprint visualization for Christchurch, New Zealand.

This approach offers an alternative to a more traditional urban design approach, allowing for streamlined, connected planning and design that integrates land and building, ecology and economy. This capability allows 91Ӱ�� to quickly and accurately evaluate varying urban design, engineering and planning scenarios early in the process. By structuring our knowledge of cities across diverse disciplines we are able to advise clients on the impact of decisions on buildings, precincts and cities.

German Aparicio (german.aparicio@aecom.com) is a computational design specialist with 91Ӱ��’s High-Performance Building group.

The post Meeting the urban challenge appeared first on Blog.

I recently had the opportunity to present at the “Meeting the Urban Challenge – Smart Cities” conference. In attendance were H.E. Hans Peter Manz (Austrian Ambassador to the United States), Matt Peterson (Chief Sustainability Officer of the City of Los Angeles), Michael LoGrande (Director of Planning Department for the City of Los Angeles) and many others.

This one-day conference focused on the challenges of urbanization. City planning experts from California and Austria joined together with policy makers, architects, building professionals and researchers from academia to share their experiences and ideas on how to create an urban habitat that caters to the diverse needs of its inhabitants while being resource-efficient and protective of the environment.

As part of the panel titled “Innovative Policies for Smart Cities,” I presented a city information modeling approach that allows users to visualize complex city data from typically disparate sources, and encodes design principles taken from multiple disciplines into a unified urban design strategy.

As part of this approach, 91Ӱ��’s sustainable systems integration modeling (SSIM) software, specifically the SSIMd module, was used to calculate a range of quantitative indicators to help clients determine the most cost-effective, smart and sustainable measures. Key metrics visualized include cooling/heating demand, peak energy/water demand, annual energy/water consumption and carbon emissions.

Peak electricity demand visualization for Christchurch, New Zealand.

Annual gas consumption visualization for Christchurch, New Zealand.

Carbon footprint visualization for Christchurch, New Zealand.

This approach offers an alternative to a more traditional urban design approach, allowing for streamlined, connected planning and design that integrates land and building, ecology and economy. This capability allows 91Ӱ�� to quickly and accurately evaluate varying urban design, engineering and planning scenarios early in the process. By structuring our knowledge of cities across diverse disciplines we are able to advise clients on the impact of decisions on buildings, precincts and cities.

German Aparicio (german.aparicio@aecom.com) is a computational design specialist with 91Ӱ��’s High-Performance Building group.

The post Meeting the urban challenge appeared first on Blog.

With more people living in cities than ever before, we are faced with new challenges to design efficient urban infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing population and changing climate. This shifting dynamic implores us to rethink the way we plan and design our buildings and our cities. They must be sustainable. They must be high-performing. And they must be places where people want to be.

High-performing places result from a streamlined, connected planning and design approach integrating land and building, ecology and economy. I have been part of a process to develop a software application that can quickly and accurately evaluate varying urban design and engineering scenarios early in the planning process to improve overall performance of systems, reduce cost, and allow architects, planners, city officials, and residents to make informed decisions about our future environments.

Design rendering for Tianjin, China.

Para-Form combines the existing technologies of 3d Modeling Software (Rhino), Parametric Modeling Platform (Grasshopper), and Microsoft Excel to evaluate building and community performance in real time. The application links specific design parameters directly to 3d models, allowing users to effectively manage data and consider various design options along with their greater implications at the building and city scales. Beginning with a set of design parameters, the application uses advanced built-in calculation tools to evaluate performance criteria such as floor area ratios, gross floor area, building heights, population, number of dwelling units and parking. The performance evaluation happens in real time as the design team makes changes to the 3d model, which allows for quick and informed choices about the project’s design. Unlike traditional geospatial tools, this application has the ability to assign land use functionality to the 3d modeling environment. By keeping track of land use information we can optimize for land use distribution and achieve ideal urban design.

By developing a software application based on existing technologies, this tool allows for multiple iterations of a new building or city design to be explored, evaluated and modified during the early stages of the urban planning and design process. Bridging the gap between our design and evaluation tools, the city-form application is used alongside other sustainable modeling tools to generate multiple development alternatives, each rated across a range of sustainability key performance indicators, to help determine the most cost-effective sustainability measures. Used in conjunction with an integrated design and planning approach, this application helps to reduce costs, elevate performance and clarify the environmental, social and aesthetic complexities inherent in each project.

Design rendering for Tianjin, China.

German Aparicio (german.aparicio@aecom.com) is a computational design specialist with 91Ӱ��’s Architecture practice in Orange, California.

The post Parametric future cities appeared first on Blog.