Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Low density, high density

New York, Central Park.
Found on my wall, from a magazine

Environmentalist usually don't like high density, it's ugly, un-human, boring and so on but if every human would have a house and their own farmland and so on, we would not fit on this globe. And transportation would be dreadful!

Suburban sprawl is more densed than country side, but not enough. Long distances requires cars. Downtowns with 100 floor buildings? Shadows too long, dark.

If every human on this planet would stand on their feet, close to the other, they would fit on Sweden's largest island; Gotland, with a size of 3 140 km2. That would mean a world without humans, a wild world- who would feed us?

We can't live like that of course, but it shows a little perspective what we are doing.
The transformation of a city ontop of the Roman
 Empire pillars, grandma's painting in my kitchen

We need to build dense and compact, but in a smart way; beautiful, practical, lot of functions, mixed-used (use shade side for office, ground floor for stores, sunny-side as terraces apartment).

See a house from Uppsala here and a couple of them from Paris here and don't forget to make the space between the houses more fun than that! Bridges, water, levels, gardens, and so on..!
The smart, ecological city is compact and fun!

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