1st Day Highlights 2007: AM
Projects: Arriyadh, Salam Park, Saudi Arabia
‘Championing community access’
Opened in 2003 to provide
the public with a large green space in the dense central
district of Riyadh, Salam Park is located on the site of a
famous traditional farm, formerly owned by the Saudi royal
family. The site is managed b y the ADA (Arriyadh
Development Authority). The park’s popularity is such that
it is attracting around 1,000 people a day and 5,000 people
at weekends with around 780,000 visits a year. The main
features of the park are a traditional farm and lake.
A spokesman for the
project said: “One of the key achievements was the fact that
the bulk of the site had been a dump filled with household
waste with small pockets of contamination making this a
difficult development area. The goal was to open up the site
and make it accessible to the communities around it.”
Asked by the judging panel
about how the project integrates sustainable and
environmentally sustainable management practices, the
delegate said: “We have made this a highly accessible public
resource, there is no use of pesticides. The organic
response is possible because of the especially dry
conditions in Riyadh which means that there is a very low
degree of infestation.
“We have a very narrow
schedule of species with only 20-25 ornamental species – if
you drift outside that you have failures or a high
irrigation demand.”
He said that one fear had
been a proliferation of mosquitoes over the open water lake
area. “This has been self managing – fish from the lake seem
of feast on the larvae and algae – so it has not been a
problem.”
Projects: Arcadia Community, Shenzhen, China
‘Turning landfill into a healthy environment’
Winner of a gold award at
the International LivCom finals in 2005, the community of
Arcadia, located in the West of Shenzhen in China, occupies
116 hectares with a planned population of more than 50
thousand. It has now more than 42 thousand residents with a
green coverage of 45% and is one of the largest residential
communities in China. The project site used to be five bare
hills and a 20 hectare filled landfill site taking in 1200
tons of garbage daily. Since 2001, more than 67 million RMB
has been spent on the renovation of the filled land turning
it into an ecological recreational park. The project has
involved residents, government representatives and
developers.
Mrs Li Ai Jun, chairman of
the Shenzhen Airtown (East) Industrial Co. Ltd said: “The
most important aspect of the work that we have carried out
is that we have protected the natural environment. We took a
neglected landfill area and turned it into a beautiful
landscape and created a very satisfactory environment for
the community and our business partners. The most important
lesson is that business cannot sacrifice our natural
heritage for their own progress.
“The second most important
point is that as developers we were not just building
buildings but a liveable environment and a liveable
community.”
“We don’t only manage the
programme but also establish key elements for the community
for example a welfare programme for children, seniors and
women.”
“The importance of being
here at LivCom is that we want to explain ourselves to the
world community and to communicate the fact that there are
beautiful liveable, harmonious communities in China.”
Projects: Manukau: Flat Bush New Town, New Zealand
‘Green-lungs central to
heart of city’
Flat Bush New Town,
Manukau City, New Zealand is the country’s largest and most
comprehensively planned new town which took ten years in the
planning and anticipates a population of at least 40,000 by
2020. Bruce Harland, Manager Flat Bush Design and
Development, explained that they started with a community
workshop and amazingly achieved consensus in just three
days. It then took another six years to get through all the
statutory documents. The ideas were simple but
implementation takes time.
The key concept that came
out of the consultation was that the natural environment was
the fundamental backbone of the project. “We had some
remnant native bush areas. People didn’t like what they had
seen before in the previous forty years of development, so
we took that message on board very seriously.”
They also worked with
various local indigenous groups to support the restoration
of the waterways and the native bush environments. That
formed the backbone of the development. To get the best of
both worlds the natural environment is integrated with the
new construction plans. “That is what is special and unique
about Flat Bush.”
A feature of Flat Bush is
the ‘Green Finger' effect of the waterways and attendant
foliage, which acts as a lung to area where the building
will take place. The planners have been working organically
with nature. Says Bruce,” We can integrate it in a way that
has never been done before in New Zealand.
Projects: Schwalm-Eider-Kreis,
Germany
‘Revewable energy from
sustainable sources’
A
rapid rise in fuel costs 15 years ago prompted the then
chairman of the council in Schwalm-Eider-Kries to probe the
town's ecological footprint. He was ahead of his time. The
project sparked a plan to replace the heating systems in the
town's schools with wood burning stoves using wood chips and
pellets farmed from the forests surrounding
Schwalm-Eider-Kries. Cllr Helmut Mutschler told the LivCom
judging panel: "We have been able to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions by a whopping 46%. We have so far installed
wood-fired boilers in 27 schools resulting in a capacity for
2.3million mega watt hours per year.
"The area around Schwalm is very rural with 40% of the land
covered by forestry. German forests have all been managed
sustainably for hundreds of years. Our plan is to extend the
scheme to all 75 schools in our area and by 2020 go green in
all our buildings using other forms of renewable energy too
such as solar panels."
The engineer in charge of the project, Dirk Schnurr said:
"Our aim is also energy education. In demonstrating this to
pupils and students we are also trying to change behaviour,
but they are also the decision makers of tomorrow."
Category B: Hoover, Alabama, USA
‘Using cooking oil to drive cars’
Hoover, Alabama, USA is a
vibrant community that has grown from its humble beginnings
as a quiet small town of 450 people to a city with 67,000
residents which is often swelled by visitors to a full
calendar of entertainment and sporting events. In an
enlightening and up beat presentation Mayor Tony Petelos
outlined several current initiatives, but the one that
caught the eye was the City’s advanced recycling of cooking
oils to automobile fuel. In 2004 the City began using E85, a
corn-derived fuel alternative consisting 85% ethanol and15%
unleaded gasoline. Hoover has 172 civic vehicles that have
logged over 4.1 million miles using E85.
The City also uses B20 and
B100 Bio-Diesel fuel. It also has initiated a cooking oil
collection service from the city restaurants. This is doubly
environmental, since old fat in the drains was the biggest
cause of blockage and the collected old oil, from provided
vats is converted into fuel. Hoover is now in the forefront
of rolling out the scheme to domestic dwellings. As delegate
Gene Smith says, the whole community gets to feel they are a
part of the City’s Green initiative.
Category B: St Cloud, USA
‘Collaboration with University campus’
As a commercial hub of
more than 250,000 people, St Cloud, Minnesota balances
strong economic environment with diverse opportunities in
education, recreation and the arts. The city is at the
centre of Minnesota’s fastest growing metropolitan area. In
his presentation, Mayor Kleis told the LivCom judging panel:
“St Cloud is, without a doubt, home to so many caring,
generous people, who live by the words of Sir Winston
Churchill. “We make a living by what we get – we make a life
by what we give.”
He told the panel: “We are
a core city in a group of cities. We have approached a three
pronged approach to create a civic vision.
"We brought together
neighbourhoods to enabling the citizens to create a shared
vision and involved 100s of people in the process. Ten
thousand dollar grants were available and the funds were
spent on newsletters, beautification and planning. We then
established neighbourhood best practices and we started
engaging more with St Cloud State University. There are
16,000 students at the university and both the leaders of
the city and university have shared goals and now meet
regularly to exchange ideas. There is a wealth of knowledge
at the university and we are collaborating to use that
knowledge."
Category C: Fayetteville, USA
‘Botanical ambitions’
In a presentation included
in the Category C section of LivCom 2007 Cindy Cope from
Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA, a local volunteer, outlined the
University town’s application for a Bursary to fund the
construction of a rainwater and irrigation scheme at the
Botanical Garden of the Ozarks. Because of the considerable
rainfall in the area, it is not unusual to have two to three
inches of rain in a day, it is sensible to try to collect as
much run off water as possible. The Botanical Garden is in
its early stages, opening this September, with only nine out
of ninety acres so far developed and though the irrigation
system was in the initial plans, the budget didn’t run to
it. Fayetteville is looking for help with the projected
budget of $41,000.
Category C: Norwich, Norfolk, UK
‘Heritage as a driver for regeneration’
Norwich is the regional
capital of East Anglia, UK and has been so since medieval
times. In recent years they have been following several
environmental initiatives and been planning considerable
growth for which the bywords are compatibility and
sustainability. As long ago as 1985 Norwich adopted a Green
Plan aiming to enhance the landscape setting of the city.
Norwich is currently
designated as a regional growth point and in partnership
with neighbouring authorities, is formulating a Green
Infrastructure Strategy and action plan.
Delegate George Ishmael
led the presentation in his role as a city planner and
explained the city’s view to heritage projects “We have a
long history in Norwich of protecting our heritage, trying
to use the best of the old and blend that in with new
developments. We were the first authority in the UK to set
up a building preservation trust.” Recently they set up the
innovative Norwich Heritage Economic Regeneration Trust
(HEART) - a private charitable company that will produce an
overarching heritage strategy but also manages and
regenerates key heritage buildings.
They have also introduced
an historic colour strategy for heritage buildings in
collaboration with a Dutch paint manufacturer. They are
using heritage as a driver for regeneration.
1st Day Highlights 2007:
PM
Projects: Johannesburg City Parks, Thukela Park, Soweto,
South Africa
'Historic showcase'
AN historic National
Historic Landmark since the early 1950s, the 21ha Thokoza
Park is a today a showcase development within the community.
Soweto has a population density of 2million with 2000ha of
public open space. Of the original parks that were
developed, most became moribund during the apartheid era,
posing a challenge for the City Parks team which has
undertaken the redevelopment.
In response to Global
Warming the City Parks team has overseen the planting of
20,000 trees under the Greening of Soweto project. The park
has also been used as a demonstration for other
environmental entities, industries and businesses.
Luther Williamson Managing
Director of Johannesburg City Parks said: “The reason we are
here is that we want to play in a global arena and use this
as a benchmark to see effective we are being. The process of
information exchange at LivCom is absolutely vital – we may
find that someone has encountered the same issue before and
offered a new solution.”
Category B: Newark, Nottinghamshire, UK
'Townspeople's day'
The Nottinghamshire town
of Newark - on -Trent came to LivCom 2007 in the hope of
securing a grant to support a project that will support a
community event ‘Newark Day’. The Bursary will allow for an
improvement in the event infrastructure and an increase in
promotional material fro 2008.
The first Newark day was
held in 2006 and was the brainchild of the then Town Mayor
of Newark-on-Trent, Cllr David Nixon. As explained by Julie
Meadows, over 40 local groups and organizations took part in
the day.
The participants and
exhibitors were from a wide cross section of the community,
including sports groups, historical societies, voluntary
organizations and local charities. The first event had an
attendance of 2,500.
This participation in
LivCom 2007 is an excellent reminder of the great diversity
in scale of annual entrants from Beijing Riverside and
Johannesburg to the historic market town of Newark-on-Trent
who are asking for a modest eight thousand five hundred
pounds for their important, but young project.
Category C: Richmond, British Columbia,
Canada
'Healthy lifestyles a priority'
Richmond is an Island City
in British Columbia, West Canada which takes the healthy
lifestyles of its citizens very seriously. Good health,
community involvement and social connectedness are all
central to the City of Richmond’s vision.
The City has made the huge
capital investment of $178 million CDN in community wellness
through the development of the Richmond Oval, scheduled to
open late in 2008 and to be used for the Olympic Winter
Games of 2010.
The Oval will contain the
region’s largest fitness centre, full complement of sports
medicine services, specialized wellness programmes, a
nutrition centre and indoor walking and running tracks.
As Venue City for the 2010
Olympic Winter Games, Richmond has accepted the challenge to
increase physical activity by 20% by 2010and the city and
its community partners are encouraging healthy lifestyles.
Considering they already
claim a remarkable and nation leading average lifespan of
83.4 years, it would seem they are aiming for immortality.
Category B: Chudrim, Czech Republic
'The Athens of Eastern Bohemia'
Chudrim in the Czech
Republic is referred to as the “Athens of Eastern Bohemia“.
Since the fall of communism the city has made giant strides
in heritage conservation concerning both buildings and
landscape. Of the latter, helping to create a pleasant,
restful environment beneficial to citizens was the
revitalization of the mill race. This was a man made canal
diverted from the main Chrudimka river which runs about
2kms. It became an open drain before the Chrudim sewer
system was reconstructed. Various studies had been compiled
on a “ Concept for the ecological care of the southern
branch of the mill race in Chrudim.” By 2004 realization
occurred in seven revitalizing modifications to the mill
race.
Foreign experience was
canvassed from Germany and Holland. The Chrudim experience
has been used since as a template for other projects in
other countries of the European Union.
The judges’ views at the end of Day One
Chairman of the judges,
Gabriel de Buysscher (Bel) said the quality of the
presentations on day one had been impressive making the work
of the judges over the next few days even harder: “We have
been surprised at the quality of the work coming out of each
of the communities. From the initial submissions we had
expected a high standard but today has exceeded that. It is
obvious that each of the communities has been working on
these projects for some time. Each of the programmes has a
certain depth.”
Claudette Savaria (Can)
said: “The criteria for healthy lifestyles that was
introduced last year is being more than fulfilled. There is
a major shift and trend towards focussing on that area among
all the communities and it is having the effect that we
wanted to achieve and are showing results that we did not
expect for another few years. It is very strong.”
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