Building Love
Is it more important for a city to be smart, or healthy and happy?
A couple of months ago, when vapour trails still criss-crossed the sky, a video clip from a US flight was posted on Twitter demonstrating the fallout of over-efficient spatial design. The clip shows a furious man repeatedly punching the backrest of the passenger in front, after she reclined her seat on a daytime flight. The cabin crew apologised and served a free drink — to him. Twitter also sided with him. In a failure of self-restraint, he did what many fantasise about doing when someone nicks the diminishing rectangle of space afforded by commercial airlines to their passengers.
It’s not only at 35,000 feet that humans reside at ever-closer quarters. The UN anticipates that by 2050, nearly 70% of the world’s population will live in cities, up from about 55% today. The global coronavirus pandemic shows us that, despite the stereotypical city-dweller’s individualistic attitude and avoidance of neighbours and eye contact on the daily commute, we share more than we think we do, and can have a profound effect on one another.
To transform this moment into an opportunity to create a positive legacy, how about we try to balance the interests of efficiency with those of well-being? One would hope that our embrace of technology to drive ever-greater efficiencies in the places where we live and interact can be challenged by an equal concern with promoting health and happiness.
With the rise of the smart cities movement, IT and AI are becoming increasingly important tools to allow us to live safely and sustainably together. Sensors monitor and algorithms analyse the way we interact with our surroundings, allowing integrated government departments to agilely focus resources where they are needed. With their emphasis on sustainability, mobility and healthcare, smart cities could improve the environment and some vital aspects of our lives.
Asia and the Middle East lead the smart cities movement. Two notable examples — Masdar City in Abu Dhabi and Songdo in South Korea — have impressive environmental credentials and technical efficiencies. But both Masdar City and Songdo have been criticised for being characterless, with Masdar City seriously struggling to attract residents. Continuous streamlining can strip the soul out of a place.
Set to break ground in 2021, a new development near Mount Fuji in Japan might have greater appeal. Here, renowned architecture practice BIG is designing a “prototype city of the future” for Toyota, called Woven City. The Toyota press release states that it is, “Envisioned as a ‘living laboratory’… home to full-time residents and researchers who will… test and develop technologies such as autonomy, robotics, personal mobility, smart homes and artificial intelligence in a real-world environment.”
The smart cities movement is a lucrative one, but there is a glaring need for democratic processes and grassroots involvement, primarily to safeguard human rights and freedoms and, most of all, to prioritise well-being; defined as the state of feeling healthy and happy.
There is also a role for organisations and businesses with positive legacy values and an understanding and sympathy for human nature to influence the future cities movement. Playfulness, creativity, joy, compassion and even democracy itself can seem messy and inefficient, but all are crucial to our quality of life.
An alternative to the top-down approach is for smart cities to develop around open-source innovation. An open-source city would see citizens choosing and creating the products and technologies that enhance city living. Community-run workshops would offer equipment and education, putting the power into people’s hands, giving them an opportunity to influence their surroundings, and to express their creativity.
Cities that aspire to calling themselves ‘smart’ need to look beyond technological innovation, co-designing spaces for positive social interactions that nurture individual joy and community well-being. This is the rightful domain not of technology companies but of architects, sociologists and psychologists in consultation with residents.
In comparison to statistically-evidenced environmental and economic benefits, spiritual messages of empowerment, creativity, community and happiness risk failing to find an audience among the planners of smart cities and urban extensions. But as the world pauses in response to the coronavirus outbreak, perhaps right now is our chance to reconsider the shape of the future city. Arriving at a time of divisive politics, the pandemic has underlined our global connectedness and interdependence. It is also proving our willingness to cooperate and restrain ourselves to protect one another. We look forward to celebrating together once more, but hopefully with a deeper appreciation of our shared humanity, and of the humanity of the spaces we create and share.
