Contemporary Urban Environment

Contemporary Urban Environment

ur·ban, adjective

In, relating to, or characteristic of a town or city. “the urban population”.

Most people can agree that cities are places where large numbers of people live and work; they are hubs of government, commerce and transportation. But how best to define the geographical limits of a city is a matter of some debate. So far, no standardized international criteria exist for determining the boundaries of a city and often multiple boundary definitions are available for any given city.

One type of definition, sometimes referred to as the “city proper”, describes a city according to an administrative boundary. A second approach, termed the “urban agglomeration”, considers the extent of the contiguous urban area, or built-up area, to delineate the city’s boundaries. A third concept of the city, the “metropolitan area”, defines its boundaries according to the degree of economic and social interconnectedness of nearby areas, identified by interlinked commerce or commuting patterns, for example.

Even though humans have lived and studied cities for centuries, there isn’t yet a solid answer as to what they are, or moreover, what they should be. During this research we should understand the present-day city as a contemporary urban environment, a set of conditions and surroundings in which humans live and operate.

Figure 1: Montage proposing new forms of urban densification. Work by Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Pratt GAUD

The contemporary urban environment that we now inhabit is a consequence of ongoing human actions. These actions have led to irreversible changes not only in the urban environment but in our planetary scale. Humans are currently in a state of shock while we are witnessing the actions of the footprint we’ve left on the planet. In this time of realization, we must stop mourning our past environments, accept the new conditions, and think of how we can preserve and do things properly through:

Current environmental conditions as opportunities Contemporary urban environments as a resource Design as a strategic device to shift

ur·ban·i·za·tion

The process of making an area more urban. “he saw nature being destroyed by urbanization”

In recent decades, the world has been urbanizing rapidly. In 1950, only 30 per cent of the world’s population lived in urban areas, a proportion that grew to 55 per cent by 2018. The global urbanization rate masks important differences in urbanization levels across geographic regions. Northern America is the most urbanized region, with 82 per cent of its population. residing in urban areas, whereas Asia is approximately 50 per cent urban, and Africa remains mostly rural with 43 per cent of its population living in urban areas in 2018 (United Nations, 2018).

More than one half of the world population lives now in urban areas, and virtually all countries of the world are becoming increasingly urbanized. This is a global phenomenon that has nonetheless very different expressions across regions and development levels: richer countries and those of Latin America and the Caribbean have already a large proportion of their population residing in urban areas, whereas Africa and Asia, still mostly rural, will urbanize faster than other regions over the coming decades. These trends are changing the landscape of human settlement, with significant implications for living conditions, the environment and development in different parts of the world. Even though the world still contains a vast amount of rural areas and settlements, these areas risk being absorbed into cities. It is an uncontrollable phenomenon that is exponentially spreading across the earth’s surface. The sprawl calls for attention, where architects and urban designers carry a huge responsibility in thinking new forms of reurbanization and density.

Figure 2: Urban Catalyst Master Plan. Fall 2019 by Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman

Whithin the debate of urban sprawl and redensification, it is necessary that architects, urbanists, and designers question themselves the actual current conditions, taking into consideration the historical actions and objects that have led us to them, and from their understanding be able to plan ahead of time. Some of the questions that should be considered when rethinking our urbanities are:

Where to add density? What type of city do we want to build? What is architecture in the age of extreme urbanization?

Architecture and urban design are interpreted in the importation and exportation of existing and foreign forms. The boundaries of this exchange have been clear in the past, but the future expectations are still a blur due to the larger range of opportunities we now have from scientific, technological, architectural, and engineering research. As we face present and future challenges, we must exert our efforts on exploring the possible outcomes of extreme urbanization. While exploring new forms of densification and urban design we can detach future possibilities from being strictly on the ground or on planet Earth.

Figure 3: Hong Kong Urban Density by Dietrich Herlan