Words by Smiley Team
Expensive, polluted and busy, most cities are far from the welcoming environments they could be. But around the world, innovators are coming up with solutions to transform urban spaces into utopic havens, where people and nature can thrive. Here are our top picks of urban designs to create cities of the future.
Said to improve health, happiness and the environment, biophilic design puts nature at the heart of construction. As one of the greenest cities in the world, Singapore (pictured) is the perfect example of this, home to Khoo Teck Puat hospital, the most biophilic hospital in Asia. Patients are said to experience heightened levels of calm due to the surrounding greenery. The city also hosts a 110-hectare nature park, Gardens by the Bay, offering residents space to fully immerse themselves in nature.
When so many buildings are left empty, there’s no excuse to leave people out on the streets. In Islington, London, Holland Harvey Architects transformed a disused supermarket into accommodation for people sleeping rough. The converted space, Shelter From the Storm, provides 42 beds as well as hot meals and rehabilitation support. With a simple but stylish design, the architects have created a shelter that offers inspiration to those hoping to provide hospitable housing for all.
Especially in the UK, where food insecurity is a mounting concern, healthy free food is often hard to come by. For families, in particular, there can be a lot of stress attached to having to use food banks. Community gardens like Edible London offer an alternative to this. By converting abandoned pieces of land into thriving vegetable patches, the organisation is sowing the seeds for change around the capital. Since launching the initiative they’ve offered over one million free meals to urban residents in just eight months.
Would it be possible to run cities of free, publicly owned renewable energy for all? Some cities have been taking steps towards this scenario. For example, Seville in Spain makes use of over five million kilos of waste oranges that splatter its streets, converting the fruit’s juice into enough electricity to power 150 homes. Similarly, Stockholm generates biogas from sewage, solving the problem of waste disposal and fuelling city-centre buses in one go.
Taking all cars off the streets and replacing them with more efficient public transport is one of the most effective ways of tackling air pollution and traffic congestion in our cities. In February 2020, Luxembourg set an example for the world to follow by making all it’s public transport, including trams, buses and trains, completely free for anyone to use. Although travel restrictions during lockdown made it difficult to gauge the impact of this measure, access to free transport could be saving citizens hundreds of euros on travel each year.
