To create a sustainable city, understand the needs of the people, says Copenhagen city architect

KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 10): One of the starting points in efforts to make cities, including in Malaysia, more sustainable is to be more aware of the needs of its citizens instead of just focusing on the space that can be built on.

Tina Saaby Madsen, the chief city architect of Copenhagen, Denmark, shared this at The 9th International Conference on World Class Sustainable Cities 2017 today.

“By understanding the people who are living here, the better you can start to learn [about how to make the city more sustainable],” she told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

The conference was jointly organised by the Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian Institute of Planners and the Malaysian Institute of Architects. It is endorsed and supported by Kuala Lumpur City Hall.

Madsen was one of the speakers at the conference. Her talk was entitled “Integrating Nature to Make Cities Resilient and Livable”.

During her presentation, she pointed out that nature is able to make people happier and healthier and the investment in urban nature is cheaper compared with the investment in blocks and bricks.

She said science and research are showing that people who let their hands work in the soil and in the ground will start to release endorphins in their brains, therefore making them feel happy.

“Science also shows that daylight is good for people and you will start to feel depressed if you don’t get enough daylight,” she noted, adding that humans have to accept the fact that we cannot control nature, thus we have to try to embrace and integrate it.

Hence, she urged stakeholders to recognise that nature is an essential complementary element to a city’s development.

“Then we have to start thinking holistically and working together across the sectors. We also have to ensure that landscaping has to be integrated [in the development] from the beginning,” she continued.

She noted that political ownership is very important, as without the support from politicians, it will be very difficult to have a holistic thinking in the development of a city.

She also suggested to have a separate budget for building the outdoor and indoor environment to avoid spending all the money solely on the design of buildings and omit the quality of the former.

TRX Lifestyle Quarter Lendlease Malaysia managing director Stuart Mendel, who also spoke at the conference, shared that the company is adopting three key sustainable visions — to be “healthy, green and connected” — at the RM8 billion project at Kuala Lumpur.

The developer is creating an environment across the 17-acre project where people can enjoy both the outdoor and indoor environments as well as facilities such as rooftop running tracks, playgrounds and gymnasiums to give them the best chance of being healthy, he said.

The project will also have a 10-acre urban park while it targets various green goals, such as zero waste by 2030, low water footprint and Gold in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and Green Building Index.

On the other hand, TRX Lifestyle Quarter will be partnering community organisations for community engagement while the public transport such as the mass rapid transit and the bike sharing services will provide good connectivity.