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Cities: new design strategies to revolutionize the concept of cities
The city must be built for humanity,
To build a happy world you don't need a lot of money, but you need to give importance to the little things that make us feel good.in harmony with nature.
And not for nature, forgetting the needs of humanity.
Because if there were no humanity,
there would be no need for the city.
Think about the architecture
as a curvature of technology,
that envelops humanity
creating harmony with nature
to achieve happiness.
1) Thinking and designing differently to create something truly new
1.a) Evolution or revolution of construction
The city in history is two-dimensional.
New York: two-dimensional cityThe cities built in the last two thousand years are based on a road system distributed over a surface, therefore two-dimensional.
Various cubic buildings with different functions are placed between the various roads, between which some green or cemented spaces are left.
This two-dimensional development of the city creates major limitations for traffic and travel in general.
The recent solutions of subways and elevated roads try to contain the problem, but do not solve it.
1.b) Purposes of cities in history
Medieval cities had mainly defensive structures and were often developed within defensive walls.
Defensive castle cityOther cities were developed for different purposes, for example commercial like Venice and Genoa, productive like Turin, industrial like Milan, government like Rome.
Among modern cities we can classify New York as a business city, Washington as political, Chicago as productive, Dubai as an image city to show economic power, etc.
Even recent green cities have specific purposes, to seek or at least show a balance with nature.
All these cities have in common the fact that they have as their main purpose an objective that, even if in different ways, is not the well-being and happiness of the people who live there.
1.c) The city and the lack of space
The surface occupied by large cities is a very small part compared to the habitable surface of our planet.The reasons why there is a lack of space in large cities are:
City: increasing the size increases traffic by becoming congested- The city is not 100% green and so it takes away space from nature, therefore, we try to limit its size.
- The two-dimensional structure of transport offers very slow travel. Increasing the size the situation worsens exponentially.
- Cities are monocentric and have anonymous suburbs. Outside the main center there is generally an anonymous suburb where people live but always aspire to move to the center for shopping, dinners and anything else.
For these reasons, large cities almost always develop by increasing the height of buildings.
City without greenery and without sky. Zero nature.Every square meter of surface is precious.
Moving away a few kilometers from the center can mean spending hours every day to reach the center, the only point of value in the city.
Designing a completely green city that does not consume the territory, but is in harmony with it, can eliminate the problem of space.
By creating a city with many interesting centers, you prevent people from concentrating all in a too small area.
1.d) Freedom and happiness
A city where people are not well and are not happy, risks remaining an empty city, as unfortunately happened to some prototype cities.
City and freedom: a possible combination!The city must be green because people are part of nature and needs nature, but it must be designed for the people, not just for trees.
In the city, people must feel free, because the feeling of freedom is a basic element of happiness.
Free to move.
Lying on the grassFree to look far away without being closed between tall buildings that obscure the sky.
Free to walk and stroll in places with a human dimension, where walking in a few minutes you can have everyday things: the bar with friends, the shop, a walk in nature.
A lawn where you can lie down or sit on a bench or at a table in a place to drink or eat, in the sun.
Free to park under the house to get to your car with the elevator.
Free to have your own privacy in an apartment with a private green space from which you can see the sky, the sun, and you can see a panorama of nature.
But also free to meet people in serenity, without dangers.
Safe as in a club where you enter because you are a member, because you live there or because you share interests, passions.
The serenity that you have when meeting a person at the golf club, or at the sailing school, or dance school, or in a gym.
The city must be a collection of small open groups, that you can choose based on what you like, but that are not masses of thousands of strangers.
Free to go out on foot or with light and slow vehicles, to move around in peace without the risk of being hit or attacked.
Free to go where you want, calmly and relaxed, or quickly with suitable vehicles, on dedicated routes, not among those walking.
Free to use public transport that does not resemble livestock transport, but where you can sit in comfortable spaces where you can chat, eat, work and distract yourself during the journey.
A public mobility that is more comfortable than cars, safer, more relaxing.
1.e) Privacy and sociality
Often the search for privacy has led to isolation, to the loss of sociality.
Privacy turned into anonymous isolationTo avoid this, it is necessary to have different levels of privacy to move between based on what you want at that moment.
Your home must allow you to isolate yourself from the rest of the world but at the same time it must be able to open up to welcome friends, or to interact with neighbors, like in a small square.
The home must also have contact with public areas, like a square or a street.
This openness to the public is present in small villages where the front door overlooks the square or the courtyard, and often remains open.
Opening up to the public like when you are sitting at a table in a bar in the square.
In small villages there has always been great sociability, but too much privacy was lost.
A new city must find the right balance between privacy and sociability, thinking of the home not as a closed box, but as an openable and modular space between private and public.
This modularity of privacy is important to be able to give us the advantages of having the privacy we desire, without always being isolated.
1.f) Objectives and methods
The design of homes and cities can offer all this by giving different forms to architecture and breaking away from the rigid patterns of always.
City as part of nature, rather than pieces of nature in the cityNo more a road to park and a door to our house that opens only the moment we enter and closes immediately.
A house that can be closed, but with different access methods, to allow different levels of privacy and sociability.
Direct access from the parking lots via elevator, a nice door on a pedestrian street to go out on foot, walk, do small daily purchases and meet people.
A small private garden that can be opened to the green area, whether it is near the sea or in an open area.
A house that is not a box, but a dynamic environment that can be opened to common spaces.
There are some urban areas that come close to this model.
Some small squares in Italian villages where people still live with the front door wide open.
But also the residential areas of some American cities where you enter as if it were a tourist village, with a gate and a reception.
A shared swimming pool and gym, as well as a very large living room for common use, which can also be booked for private parties.
Pedestrian paths and shared greenery between the villas, spaces in which to move safely because they are positioned within the small residential area of ten or twenty houses.
Human-sized spaces that allow you to move from family privacy to the sociability of small groups.
It is also ideal to have a connection that can be opened directly with public spaces, such as a street, a square, a course.
In today's cities there is no space to achieve this because they are imprisoned in the two-dimensional model, where a lot of space is wasted and costs increase a lot.
Optimizing the design in a multidimensional way allows for better use of volumes and not just surfaces.
2) Psychological impacts of architecture
We design a city where the happiness of those who live there comes before everything else
Creating happinessArchitecture and urban planning have a huge psychological impact on people.
Stress and the desire to escape the city on weekends and during holidays arise from situations of discomfort and psychological tension.
Psychological tensions that affect the quality of life and that sometimes favor the onset of episodes of violence.
A truly happy person does not commit crimes, because he does not need and has no urgent desire to change his situation.
To understand how to make people who live in the city happy we must examine how architecture affects people.
2.a) Narrow streets and wide streets
The width of streets has historical and political reasons.
Excessive size is often a symbol of powerWide streets like those in Turin mark the power of large industrialists, or very strong political powers.
Walking along a very wide street, or crossing a very large square, makes you feel like a nobody compared to the power of those who built that street or square.
It highlights the clear and immense difference between those who have power and those who do not have.
In some cases, the wide street also serves to allow the passage of military vehicles to control the population and quell any revolts.
The case of Barcelona with its wide streets and the 400-meter squares enclosed by these wide streets is a particular example.
Because these streets were born for a military control of the city, but then the squares were transformed into pedestrian islands giving a new face and vitality to the city.
Other cities have narrow streets, alleys that are not passable by cars, or even underground passages that are more or less secret.
Narrow streets, not easily accessible to the great powersThese characteristics give a sense of intimacy and protection as in some Tuscan villages, for example Casole d'Elsa.
In other cases they arise from the need of the people to protect themselves from the power of the powerful, escaping through alleys that only they know well, thus preventing access to heavy vehicles typical of the army or in any case of strong powers.
I am thinking for example of some areas of Naples where in addition to the narrow alleys there are no squares that are replaced by simple widenings, called slarghi.
But there are many examples, for example Bienno in the province of Brescia, a small mountain village full of underground passages.
Clearly these evaluations are aimed exclusively at trying to understand what effects and reasons are connected to this architectural feature, without making any evaluation of the cities mentioned or their inhabitants.
In the design it is preferable to avoid excessively large or excessively small dimensions.
And it is important to ask yourself how the chosen size affects travel times, without forgetting that a square that is too large when empty risks becoming monotonous.
A road that is too narrow can instead make you feel trapped.
Each dimension must be thought of considering how many people will pass by, at what times and how they will feel crossing that space, on foot, with the crowd, in the evening when it is empty, with rain or strong sun.
It is also possible to provide alternative routes such as porticos, possibly with shops and clubs, which encourage people to surround the square when perhaps there are not the best conditions for crossing it.
A special consideration for the Piazza del Campo in Siena that despite being large, does not give the feeling of being too large.
Siena Piazza del Campo: a large square that manages to be welcomingIts amphitheater shape that welcomes, the slope towards the building that invites you to sit, socialize and admire the architecture as if it were a theatrical show.
These are all elements that have been studied to make the size of a square more human that otherwise might have seemed too large.
2.b) Walkability on a human scale
The city must be liveable even when walked.
Small German town, pleasantly walkable.This is because the movement carried out closed in a box, whether a car or public transport, is only a transitory moment waiting to reach the point of arrival.
You experience the city when you arrive and exit the box. And this is the moment when you breathe its essence.
For this reason we must always think about the sensations that we feel during walking movements, whether from one point to another or even just from the taxi to the hotel or the shop or the office.
Spaces that are too large are depressing and only appeal to those who have the feeling of dominating these spaces. A sensation that is generally linked to the fact of being the protagonist.
To be comfortable and relaxing, walking should not last too long and should not be monotonous.
Walking along a perfectly straight road for a kilometer is absolutely boring and depressing.
It is different if the same distance is an alternation of roads, curves, small squares, porticos or immersed in nature with its variety of plants, bumps, curves.
Some city streets are slightly curved for this very reason. In addition to being less monotonous, they offer the possibility of seeing the succession of facades of the buildings that overlook the street.
A slightly curved road offers an ever-changing view even when walking on itBrescia has many of these slightly curved streets.
Instead, cities like Padua are characterized by the presence of many porticos.
Arcades also have the advantage of protecting pedestrians from rain and wind, offering better livability even in adverse weather conditions.
2.c) Frequency of stimuli generated by the landscape
When walking, it is important to have a landscape that changes and offers new stimuli every few meters.The situation is different when we move by bus or car.
Busy road, too many stimuli cause stressSome American cities have straight streets and are characterized by insignificant, messy and ugly buildings. In addition to this, there is an excess of advertising signs and gigantic signs that constitute a mental stress for those who travel these streets.
Too many visual messages that do not offer any positive stimulation. This visual pollution is also worsened by a general disorder accentuated by tangles of electrical cables hanging from buildings and poles, traffic lights hanging that swing in the wind, etc.
A situation that is unfortunately common in many suburbs, but it makes us understand how much it can affect the stress of people who travel these roads.
To realize this, it is enough to take a 20 or 30 minute bus ride, with continuous stops, traffic lights, braking and accelerating. Looking out the window you see a continuous flow of useless and insignificant images, which make the journey stressful.
Belgrade bus, crowd, continuous start and stop create agitationNow try to imagine a journey of the same length with a boat on the lake. The speed is constant, there are no braking, horns and sudden noises. From the window you observe the lake or the sea, in the distance the shores offer a landscape that slowly and gently changes as you observe it from afar. A bit like relaxing classical music.
During the boat ride you can have a peaceful conversation and maybe even have an aperitif with a glass of sparkling wine.
I have cited two opposite extremes to underline the importance of the frequency of visual stimuli and events and how a journey of the same duration can be psychologically different.
Boat, enthusiasm and relaxationThis example makes us understand that in recent decades we have invested too much in the speed of the means of transport that transports us and too little in the quality of the journey.
If it takes me ten minutes more to get to work and during the journey I have the opportunity to relax, read, have breakfast or something else, I will arrive at work relaxed and the longer duration of the journey will not weigh on me at all.
How you travel is more important than speed
Relaxing on a boat trip2.d) Sounds and lights
The current city is characterized by a large amount of sounds due to engines, horns, advertisements.
Traffic and city noises. Sometimes they can be nice, but if they persist in daily life they are a source of stressA noise pollution that floods our minds.
Here too the frequency of events is important.
Too many sounds stress us by taking away our ability to think freely, to listen to silence or the music and sounds we desire. They prevent us from speaking in a relaxed way with those around us.
Lately, electric cars are becoming more widespread and will certainly have the advantage of being quieter.
But if we do not pay attention to noise pollution we risk not solving anything.
Another type of noise pollution is given by the fashion of continuous voice messages. On trains you can no longer sleep because every minute they repeat the same useless messages to you such as: hold on to the supports, be careful not to fall, get off when the doors open, etc. in addition to hateful and repetitive advertisements.
Voice messages are much more invasive than written messages or advertising images. Because you can do without looking at an image, you can look at the person you are talking to, or what you are reading on your cell phone.
But the acoustic message violates your space without the possibility of defense, it wakes you up if you are sleeping, it distracts you from other thoughts.
Light pollution is similar to acoustic pollution because it modifies the sensations you have from the space around you. Certainly, lights that change color or intensity excessively should be avoided, used to attract the attention of passers-by.
Hong Kong at night: the lights are beautiful and give vitality. But there must be areas that are not affected to avoid light pollutionBut street lighting should not be excessive either. Pedestrian streets do not require strong lighting and safety is better guaranteed by other solutions rather than by excessively increasing light intensity.
Many people who live in cities do not know what the darkness of the night is, a darkness that would never be absolute since it is illuminated by the Moon and the stars, thus allowing people to move around safely.
Continuous lighting is stressful for people because it is not natural and takes away our perception of the difference between day and night. Probably the fashion for intense nightlife also arises from this.
It also has serious effects on animals. Many birds in the city sing almost all night as if it were dawn, and this is not natural.
With these considerations, we do not want to impose any ban on sounds and lights, but we want to suggest greater attention to these aspects.
2.e) Visibility of horizons
In the past, man lived mainly in small villages and from the window of his house he observed the hills, the mountains, the sea.
Panorama from the window of a house in TuscanyCities are built on a road surface dominated by the presence of tall buildings that prevent you from seeing the sky, from seeing far away, from observing the landscape.
The citizen observes almost only large walls with hundreds of holes for windows.
Mirrored skyscrapers improve the situation a little, but they still do not allow you to observe landscapes at medium or long distances.
Having a wall in front of your view is oppressive and frustrating. It gives the feeling of being imprisoned in a narrow space.
The closer this wall is, the stronger the sense of oppression.
Having a window from which you can only see the building in front, anonymous and monotonous, is depressing.
Panorama from the window of a house in icttà. you only see windows, monotonous and invasiveWhen you go to the mountains and sit on a lawn or on a bench observing a landscape with a gaze that can observe kilometers away, you have a feeling of freedom and communion with the world in its entirety.
In the architecture of the third millennium we must give importance to these aspects also because people today live much more time inside the city and inside their home or office.
Having narrow, mutton, insignificant views affects our mood, our energy and our desire to work and socialize.
2.f) Visibility of the sky
Wherever you go in the world, the sky is always widely visible, except in cities.
Seeing the sky connects us with the vitality of our planetHumanity has always lived in visual contact with the sky. Its color, its light, the sun, the moon, the stars, the clouds, the wind, are all elements that are part of the evolution of humanity.
Elements that are very important.
One of the worst things about imprisonment is not even being able to see the sky, being closed between four gray walls that mark the end of our possibility of being free and happy, of living.
Many cities, many places, look terribly like prisons.
In the creation of a city we must give importance to the visibility of the sky from every apartment, because it is a very important natural element.
2.g) Direct solar radiation
Humanity has always lived in the sun. Agricultural and hunting activities were carried out outdoors. The home was only a refuge for eating and sleeping.
Direct sunlight purifies us and improves our moodThe small windows of the houses of two hundred years ago served for better thermal protection, and gave a sense of protection.
They did not constitute a limitation since almost every activity was done outdoors.
Today we live inside a succession of boxes. Home box, car box, office or school box.
These "boxes" must offer the possibility of receiving direct sunlight.
Sunlight has different components that influence our well-being. In addition to the thermal aspect of infrared, visible light that gives us a sense of joy and well-being, there are also other aspects.
The UV components of sunlight have disinfectant effects and also allow our body to develop important vitamins.
These vitamins, in addition to improving our body, also improve our mood.
For this reason, direct sunlight is important and must be considered in an architectural project, evaluating the direction and times in which this light can reach the apartment.
2.h) Importance of the liquid element
Earth, water, fire and air were considered the basic elements by many cultures.
Contact with natural water awakens more intense emotions than a fountain or a swimming poolThey are the exemplification of the main things that every person needs.
Imagine being in a hotel room with a window overlooking the sea. You hear the sound of the waves in the distance and on the ceiling you see the reflection of the waves created by the sun.
This slow swaying of the shadows and lights on the ceiling and the light sound of the waves are very relaxing.
The water element is important because it is in motion. Every surface of water has more or less intense movements, changes color, changes swaying, changes noise.
This is one of the most powerful expressions of nature, and makes us feel in touch with it. Humanity is part of nature and needs contact with it, visual, acoustic, olfactory, and physical contact.
In urban planning it is important to provide fountains, pools, lakes, rivers that are perceptible and usable by people who live in the city.
2.i) Open horizons, variable landscapes, curves and sinuosity
Nature is made of curves. Practically in nature there is nothing cubic or rectilinear.
Nature expresses itself through curvaturesEven the horizon on the sea is a large circle that encloses us. Everything else is a succession of curves, from leaves, to trees, mountains, stones, hills.
The sinuosity of nature is an expression of harmony, continuity, adaptability. We do not collide with edges, corners and flat walls. But we can go around trees, we can walk along hills, the spaces always appear different as we walk along their curves and discover new slopes and sinuosities.
Life in the city often precludes the visibility of these sinuosities of nature.
It is important to be able to observe this succession of different shapes, both in the small personal garden, but also in common spaces such as parks, hills, mountains, visible and usable from our homes.
Some places, such as the Gulf of Poets in Liguria and some villages in Umbria and Tuscany, are famous for having inspired poems and great painters. The natural landscapes of these places create harmonious and beautiful emotions from which great works of art were born.
In the design of a city it is possible to insert some elements that create these spaces, which give visibility on wide horizons, giving harmony and serenity to those who live there.
2.l) Building profiles, street curvatures
We have already mentioned the curvatures of the streets. Consider, for example, the Piazza del Campo in Siena which is oval and inclined and is an attraction for people who, sitting on the ground, observe the view and the beautiful palace that overlooks it.
The curvature and inclination of the square encourage people to sit down and socialize. The color and material of the pavement are also crucial in encouraging people to sit downIts curvature is like an embrace that welcomes people, making them feel like children and protected by the square, inviting them to socialize.
Lots of people spontaneously sit on the ground in the square to admire it and be part of it. This does not happen in other squares.
The curvatures are an essential element with a great psychological effect on people.
The degradation of many suburbs is certainly influenced by the lack of curves and the sense of oppression given by straight lines that are too long and limiting.
An example is a large condominium about a kilometer long near Milan Linate airport. Oppressive for its length and violent for the impossibility of crossing it easily.
A violence that is reflected in the discomfort of the people who live there, and in fact this has become one of the most degraded areas of the outskirts of Milan.
2.m) Size of dwellings, condominiums of niches
The simplest design of a building consists in creating thousands of identical cubes in which each person or group is inserted into one of these anonymous cubes.
Moribund condominiumLarge or small, these cubes become cubic prisons without any architectural harmony and dynamics.
Clearly, the smaller they are, the more oppressive they are, but their repetitive monotony is the worst thing.
A dwelling can be comfortable even if small, if it is inserted in a dynamic or suggestive context. Think of the wooden houses at the seaside campsite near the beach.
Small and welcomingAs small as they are, they appear comfortable to us, because it is the context that makes them beautiful.
Creating small and comfortable homes is possible if we move away from the scheme of the condominium made of many individual boxes, like Lego bricks one on top of the other, without any imagination or dynamics.
Small house in a suggestive context2.n) Cubic architecture contrasted by the Curvitecture
Post-war architecture is almost exclusively cubic.
Cubic designFrom the artisanal conception made of sketches and imagination, we moved on to a plan design with stacking of equal structures to create multi-storey buildings, in which each floor is identical to the previous one.
From the study of facades and volumes, we moved almost exclusively to a plan design, done first with a ruler and set square and then with the first digital systems.
Even today, many designers draw in plan and then extract the 3D elevations with more or less automatic software.
And the result does not change, that is, buildings as sets of burial niches.
To design something different we must start directly from 3D, imagine it and compose it in our mind and on the computer as something wavy like the waves, curved like the wind, sinuous like the hills.
From this we will then obtain the plans and everything else.
From a cube-shaped architectural design we must arrive at a design of curves, to a Curvitecture as a contrast to the post-war cube-shaped Architecture.
Walking you continue to discover new environmentsWe do not need tight and uncomfortable curves, but light waves like the curves of the roads we mentioned before are enough.
The possibility of observing with our gaze something that changes while we walk because the view changes as our point of observation changes.
We must absolutely avoid the depressing immobility that appears to us when walking along a highway, where walking for hours we seem to always be in the same place.
2.o) Traffic light stress
Another form of stress is traffic lights and intersections. Stops and braking.
Traffic light stressAs in the comparison between bus and boat travel, it is clear that continuous stops and departures are not only a waste of time but also a stress factor.
The feeling that our journey is illogical, a feeling also confirmed by the exasperating slowness of travel in the city.
The average speed in modern cities is less than 30 km/h, just over double that of the horse-drawn stagecoaches of the early 1800s.
But more than the slowness, it is the continuous stops that give the feeling of wasting one's time.
These stops are due to the continuous intersections, caused by a narrow road design imprisoned in only two dimensions.
2.p) Daily travel times
The average citizen has to deal with slow and stressful journeys every day to take children to school, go to work, do the shopping, etc.
Small neighborhood with accessible entertainment and servicesWhen these journeys take more than 30 minutes in total during the day, they negatively affect the quality of life.
The solution can be to improve the speed and reduce the length of the journeys, but also to improve the quality and organization of the journeys.
American school buses often pick up the child from home, and there is a person on the vehicle who follows and looks after the children being transported.
In this way, they avoid having to take them to school, simply taking them to the school bus stop.
Teleworking and online shopping also help.
Rio Maggiore (Cinque Terre) in a few meters there are restaurants, shops, beach, port. There are no cars, and they are not needed.Other factors can be greater flexibility on working hours and school entry and exit times, thus avoiding crowds and slowdowns.
Another strategy can be to study different forms of transport.
The city of Barcelona is a positive example of a 15-minute city in which in each "big square" of 400 meters on each side they have tried to put all the services of daily use, therefore school, shops, offices, squares, etc.
Even the tourist, after a few days, realizes that Barcelona is much more liveable when moving walking, not because the traffic is chaotic, but because moving walking or by public transport is pleasant in this succession of pedestrian islands.
This type of fifteen-minute city is certainly a valid option, unlike other solutions in which they try to imprison the population within limited areas with gates and barriers exactly like in prisons.
The organization of spaces and distances is important, and must be combined with an optimization of medium-long journeys with public transport, shared transport and possibly private transport.
2.q) Slow-motion escapes
Many modern cities have many of the elements of stress we have mentioned.
Slow-motion escapes from the city.These stresses lead to the desire, or even the need, to periodically escape from the city, to relax.
These escapes are typically on weekends.
The problem with the two-dimensional city is that as the population increases, traffic and road congestion increases.
This is a physiological aspect.
If a road that leaves the city is one kilometer long, it will have to accommodate the people who live along that kilometer of road. If it is ten kilometers long, it will have to accommodate the population that lives along ten kilometers of road, that is ten times more.
The current solution of two-dimensional cities is livable up to populations of 100 thousand or 200 thousand inhabitants. Beyond these values, we arrive at absurd and unlivable situations such as in Paris where it can take more than three hours to leave the city on a normal day.
These are slow-motion escapes that are exhausting if done to experience a weekend in the mountains, but are literally deadly if done to escape any dangerous natural event.
2.r) Air, noise, light, olfactory pollution
Pollution is a situation of discomfort created by annoying conditions. Whether it is a smell, a noise, excessive or flashing light, vibrations due to the passage of the tram or subway, or anything else, are a source of stress.
SmogThere are many defenses that can be implemented. From soundproofing windows, to air purifiers or closing windows with blinds that prevent the entry of light from street lamps or signs.
In essence, it is a matter of barricading oneself in an increasingly hermetic and repressive prison.
These forms of pollution should instead be drastically reduced at the source.
One possibility consists in distancing homes from communication lines. A strategy used in many American cities.
For example, in Atlanta, apart from the small downtown area, the rest of the city is spread over large areas where the houses are distributed and spaced out in small groups, surrounded by greenery and often not even visible from the street.
The feeling is similar to that of a tourist village where you move walking or typically with the vehicles used on golf courses. People know each other, the managers greet you and are always present providing assistance and safety to the inhabitants.
2.s) Direct contact with nature
Lying on a lawn, running in the woods, swimming outdoors.
Running in natureThese are activities that we can hardly do in the city.
Often even parks do not offer the cleanliness and safety necessary to carry out these activities.
These direct contacts with nature are very important, not simply observed from afar, but also experienced physically.
4) New needs of the third millennium
- Greater mobility: Solve the problem of slow travel in cities.- Adjustable privacy: It is important to have different levels of privacy, selectable to protect yourself but without isolating yourself. Levels of privacy: couple, family, friends, public.
- Simple changes of residence: We need many changes of residence for work, school, marriages, family. Homes can no longer be thought of as something static and immobile.
- Security: Protection from crime, safe homes.
- Direct sun: Access to private areas and public areas to take advantage of direct solar radiation.
- Available green areas: Private greenery and public greenery.
- Wide horizons: Wide view from windows and pedestrian paths.
- Separate mobility types: Pedestrian, slow and fast types must be separated to offer serenity and safety.
- Safety from natural events: Study of the city to resist natural disasters without risks. Insert the concept of redundancy into urban safety.
- Safety from terrorism and crime: Escape routes, police assistance, greater control and collaboration from law enforcement.
- Risk analysis: Precise risk assessment of each place and each activity to be able to choose how and how much to protect yourself.
- Flexibility of the property Modularity, lightness and simple mobility. Scalability of the property.
5) How to revolutionize construction
5.a) New design criteria
In two thousand years the city has undergone a great evolution but now a revolution is needed.Competitions and tenders for the design of new cities always clash with the need to be compatible with the existing in terms of transport, construction techniques, etc.
Now it is necessary to get off these tracks and design a new way of inhabiting the planet that is in line with the needs of humanity in the third millennium and that is compatible with the current and future crowding of the planet, remaining sustainable on a naturalistic and energy level.
Only a design completely free from traditional schemes can lead to a true revolution in the way of living, thus being able to perfectly solve the problems common to almost all existing cities.
5.b) Different construction strategies
Different construction strategies are needed, pursuing the following objectives:- Greater transportability and reuse of materials and parts, going beyond simple recycling.
- Industrial production Industrially produced components and modules with lower costs and energy consumption can also guarantee a better and uniform level of quality across the planet.
- Risk assessment Environmental and terrorist risks. Defensive design from these types of risks.
- Elimination of traffic lights and intersections A different structure of the connective network can allow fast and safe movements. Optimization of design strategies. Average crossing speeds of 100 km/h on average.
- Abolition of architectural barriers There are still many private, public and transport architectural barriers. It's not just about the classic steps, but also the difficulty of getting on a train or a bus with two suitcases or finding your way around the transport network. It is necessary to create better public transport than private transport, comfortable even for those who travel with luggage, for disabled and elderly people, etc. Bicycles and scooters are exclusive to some types of people, they cannot be the standard but only an option. No to public transport like cattle cars with people standing.
- Livability of everyday life the typical day of the citizen must be livable by moving walking to reach daily objectives. The necessary travel times must be less than 30 minutes per day overall.
- Accessibility of transport Accessibility to fast public and private transport must be improved.
- Adjustable privacy Privacy must be continuously adjustable at an individual level, ranging from privacy of couples, family, friends and the public.
- Integration between public and private transport .
- Adequate population density The goal is to have a population density greater than 10 thousand people per km² without creating crowds and queues, without giving up the other objectives mentioned.
- Natural greenery maintaining natural surface (greenery or water) 100%.
5.c) Phases for the realization
The project is divided into the following phases:- 1) Study: The study has been completed and achieves all the objectives mentioned.
- 2) Supporters: acquisition of supporters, enthusiasts, followers.
- 3) Planning: creation of a planning team with which to share the study and define the details of the project.
- 4) Construction partners: acquisition of construction partners with whom to cooperate to create new products. The protection of brands and patents is important. Involvement of the automotive, major works, architects, construction, logistics, transport, energy, environmentalists, farmers, energy, etc. sectors.
- 5) First prototype: To create the first prototype of the city, it is necessary to identify the financiers and the location for the location. The first prototype will host approximately at least 50 thousand people. During this phase, the first serialization of the modules will be created.
- 6) Standardization development and standardization of new solutions for the mass production of modules, optimizing costs.
- 7) Widespread mass production creation of personal factories that can be transported around the world to build the necessary modules near new cities.
5.d) Financing
Each phase requires specific financing.- Phase 1) Study requires small investments for advertising, trademark registration, legal protections aimed at safeguarding patentability.
- Phases 2-3) Design necessary involvement of the research and development sections of large companies and, with some exceptions, should be financed with the transfer of project shares and paternity of the patents as compensation to the entities that carry out the designs.
- Phases 4-5) Prototype the construction of the first prototype city requires important sponsors. It is appropriate to involve political and multinational entities for permits, as well as large financing groups.
- Phases 6-7) Diffusion after the first prototype, a large diffusion of the model is hoped for for a series construction of many cities. This phase should be financed mainly by the buyers of housing and structures and by patent fees. Given the size of the market, patent fees could be limited to 2% of the final price in order to guarantee adequate earnings and at the same time discourage unnecessary investments in competing patents or production activities without paying patent rights.
6) Current progress
The study defines guidelines that can ensure the achievement of all the objectives set.In particular, for transport, the separation of the different levels, safety and the required speed are guaranteed.
For privacy, the city is designed to allow different levels of privacy that can be selected at any time by each inhabitant.
For housing mobility, the solutions defined in the study allow for a huge recycling of components, modularity, flexibility and scalability with excellent levels of sustainability.
Mass production will reduce times and costs while improving quality. Mass production can also allow the involvement of the automotive industry and its technologies for the construction of the modules, thus solving the current crisis in the automotive sector.
The city is developed according to the specifications indicated, maintaining a surface between greenery and water equal to 100% of the occupied planar surface.
During the design, the construction strategies of each detail will be developed, allowing the patentability of the components to guarantee an adequate economic return for the manufacturing partners.
7) Project management and promotion
To continue managing and promoting the project, we need your collaboration and support.On this page, we have presented some of the objectives of our project.
Later, we will present how these objectives can be achieved through the solutions we propose.
We want to verify the interest in this project that aims to improve life in cities and in travel,
creating a better harmony with nature and between people.
We are creating a group of partners who will collaborate on the detailed design, finding the best technical solutions.
We need people to talk about the project to increase interest and therefore the possibility of realizing it quickly.
We count on your collaboration to spread it.
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