Another interesting lecture on the city – this time by William Mcdonough. I like his idea of transfering the principle of metabolism to industrial processes.
However, I have doubts whether his city planning project in China will be successful. Though brilliantly planned in terms of sustainability and use of energy it is lacking two fundamental components:
1. history
2. culture
It's a problem all planned cities have and even though his plans are without a doubt far superiour to the original ones by the Chinese officials the buildings are shaped by industrial ideals rather than human ones. And what's more, there seems to be no room for natural growth or change within the city. Instead of trying to hide huge rectangular buildings under elevated nature it would be better to make the city itself a pleasant sight. I hope to be proven wrong, but I fear the farmers on the roofs will give up their fields pretty soon for jobs underneath.
Nevertheless, if the plans were applied to existing cities (e.g. Tokyo) they could boost the quality of life there. Only the fear remains that we have reached the point in history where even Chinese officials are more open-minded and innovative than Japan's stuck bureaucrats...
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Another resource for this topic.
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