The last few projects I've been working on would be classified as mega-projects due to their size and scope. They have been subject to non-disclosure agreements preventing me from publishing 'lessons learned' for the benefit of other practitioners. Creating community under cloud of secrecy seems to be at odds with the intended result, yet this seems to be standard practice outside of North America. Another annoying standard practice, now that every architectural firm considers themselves urban planners, is that of clients choosing a firm for urban design services based on whether or not they like their skyscraper designs. This has dire consequences for the discipline of urban planning and has the potential to derail or bankrupt the economies of developing countries.
As luck would have it there is a plan being proposed in South Korea which exhibits many of the ills found in plans I've inherited on the mega-projects. Because I'm not involved with this project I am not familiar with the particulars of its genesis, as such my critique will be guided by my experience on similar projects. The level of detail shown in the Songdo plan is limited so my assumptions may be incorrect and this particular project may thrive, however, these same techniques used in similar plans have led to the complete collapse of the project. In essence, I'm using Songdo as a foil to set the stage for a general critique of mega-projects.
You can see the plan at the following link: http://www.songdo.com/songdo-international-business-district/the-city/master-plan.aspx
Here it is being claimed as New Urbanism on Forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaynejung/2011/11/15/new-urbanism-comparing-songdo-south-korea-to-belmar-usa/
The critique will touch on the following topics:
- Urban Form
- Infrastructure
- Open Space Programming
- Construction Phasing
- Project Financing
What motivates a land developer to chose a firm known for their high rise towers for their urban planning needs is the desire for a skyline similar to New York or Chicago predicated on the false logic that a firm which works and is based in a dense, vibrant, urban environment must have the requisite understanding and skills to reproduce the same. When such a firm is retained with that mandate all future design decisions flow from the need to deliver the skyline. Initial concepts and renderings are generated and the sales process begins. Before long the land developer has commitments and building footprints are set in advance of planning approval. In order to deliver the skyline the office towers are concentrated in a designated area of the plan relegating other uses to the outskirts. In the case of Songdo, using the golf course to the south for scale comparison, a pedestrian shed analysis can be quickly imagined which shows the walking distances from the outskirts to downtown to be lengthy. The commercial shopping streets, shown in orange, suggest that this use will be separate from the residential districts in lieu of mixing uses. The lengthy walk from the residential outskirts to the shopping areas makes this plan pedestrian hostile and necessitates a fairly robust system of public transit to feed the retail. The street sections as drawn do not appear to accommodate tram or BRT lines suggesting underground rail. The CBD is linear and is bisected by the major vehicular artery connecting this town to the rest of South Korea. This artery can be expected to be particularly wide, high speed, and also hostile to pedestrians. Pedestrian underpasses may need to be built or integrated into the underground rail system. The result is a conventional zoned plan scaled not to the pedestrian, nor the car, but to the tower.
Infrastructure
The CBD straddles a highway and therefore the roadway most likely incorporates the rail, underpass, utilities. This will all need to be coordinated, and thus designed, in concert with the utilities and underground parking of the towers to ensure there are no conflicts. Since the uses aren't mixed the infrastructure for the commercial and residential districts will need to be included in this exercise, as will the public realm and open space network. This is great for generating design fees, but the net result of this type of planning is that in order for a resident to go from their home, grab a cup of coffee, and head into the office an entire network of the most expensive infrastructure a city can have will need to be designed, approved, and built. On similar projects the spend would be close to a quarter trillion dollars before Starbucks can open for business.
Because the marketing is based on selling the towers the easy fix of starting with a single neighborhood and growing from there is off the table. The towers absorb all the demand for office space to achieve their desired height which leads to the dis-integration of uses. Starting with the towers first forces the issue on the major public works projects incurring major expenditures before any critical mass has been achieved. This is an inorganic approach reminiscent of the 'all-in' poker bet where the developer is betting they can do it all or they wind up losing it all. If the project stalls for any reason (planning approval, design approval, delay in tendering for construction, or redesign) then serious doubt is cast on the entire project and the financial backers slowly start withdrawing support. This pretty much kills the plan and the project dies.
Open Space Programming
The towers will require large volumes of parking. This will be accommodated underground under the towers and potentially under parks and plazas. In order to achieve the narrow and tall proportions of the towers while also creating a dense skyline the building footprints will be kept to a minimum. The small footprints will make entry and exit of the individual garages difficult and reduce their efficiency driving up per space costs. The entry and exit points for each garage will need to be predetermined for each plot. These impinge on the public realm requiring a proper design strategy for the sidewalks as well as the affected parks and plazas. Without the guidance of a complete theory of urbanism this is typically handed over to landscape designers who set about designing all these spaces without considering the context. Add to this mix the need for open space programming to determine the various uses for the individual parks, plazas, linear parks, and sidewalks. This happens in advance of the building designs and introduces a whole new set of challenges.
To wit: The landscaping cannot be designed until the irrigation budget has been set without which the supply lines cannot be sized, which is coming from the engineers who need to coordinate with the architects to ensure there is a chase through the garage to accommodate the lines which needs to be kept clear of the ventilation shafts from the garage to the surface where the park is to be built, but we won't know the actual planted area of the park until the garage has been designed and the engineers cannot determine the irrigation budget until they know exactly how much planted area there will be.
In a properly coded plan this is not that difficult of an issue to deal with, but when dealing with high-rise firms turned urban planners there is never a proper code nor, I hate to say, would they recognize a code if they saw one. Many attempts have been made on such projects to introduce a proper code template to set them on the right path but they are more interested in saving face. (This is part of the epiphany that has 'struck' many of those espousing Landscape Urbanism after their projects in the UAE didn't fare very well.)
Construction Phasing
The land developer will be facing a huge chicken & egg problem when it comes to phasing and identifying the various construction packages. The services and utilities are separated from the roadworks, the bridges are treated separately, and preparing the tunnels for the public transit system (usually cut and cover) is also a separate design contract. The buildings need to dig deep for their garages and foundations which then needs to be coordinated with the rest of the surrounding infrastructure. Keep in mind that in order for the project to proceed these tower sites have already been promised to developers who are now very concerned with their future property.
It's entirely possible to use the old Cardo and Decumanus method of simply running the main infrastructure down the primary streets and then build out from that point. However, the engineers will convince the developer that infrastructure is bust run in complete circuits so completing the loops and the runs to treatment stations and other concerns will lead to the conclusion that it is most prudent to build it all at once. Again, "all in" as opposed to block by block or neighborhood by neighborhood.
It is usually at this point that complaints arise about the width of the street sections and the easements for the various utilities. With constrained sites in order to provide a dense skyline of towers there is no room to widen the sections without adversely impacting the floor plates of the towers. This leads to the all too familiar battle of wills between approving authority and the property developer. When the roads inevitably widen the floor plates are reduced and since the physical space required for vertical transportation in a tower hasn't reduced the overall financial viability of the tower is undermined. Once the tower developers figure this out they start shying away from their commitment to the development.
Project Financing
Once the plan is complete and has been approved in principle it is tantamount to a promise to the future residents. All the wonderful photo-realistic renderings and broadcast quality animations provide a sense of inevitability and completeness that isn't real.
When the reality of the expense hits the developer, the fact that they need to build the whole enchilada at the same time, they need to trim the budget. The original vision starts to go through an extreme makeover. The options for cost cutting are limited since reducing the scope in effect eliminates uses. The retail district or the residential district will simply not be built. This is not a desirable outcome, but is the only way to achieve the skyline promise while managing the budget with the current plan.The construction program will prevent the other districts from commencing until the primary infrastructure has been completed. This may take upwards of six years. If market conditions, political climate, and access to capital haven't changed in that time period then the infrastructure for another district can commence. This will require another several years to complete this infrastructure before the buildings can commence construction. So, all in, there is likely a period of twelve years before two of the three districts are quasi-operational.
Yet markets change, businesses that need space can't wait twelve years and will find a home elsewhere. Financial markets change and funding will ebb and flow. The development company will change and the project direction will be revised several times. All of this happening while the capital expended to build the infrastructure has yet to provide any revenue to the municipality. After a decade this becomes a political problem. The carpet will get pulled out from the developer long before they have to worry about building the second district.
Conclusion
New Urbanism does scale better than any other planning paradigm. It can grow to be as large as required, but in so doing each neighborhood is complete with everything needed for a proper human habitat.
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