Alcestis Rodi, Speaker at Climate Change conference.
University of Patras, Greece
Title : Ideal and real precedents of the 15-minute city

Abstract:

Time-related urban modules based on walking distances and access to frequent destinations — 5-minute for 400m, 10-minute for 800m, etc.— emerge as urban design and planning concepts that will heal the environmental and social impacts of the automobile age. 

To reduce greenhouse emissions and mitigate climate crisis as well as to strengthen community connections and promote local identity and economy, Paris pilots the ‘15-minute city’ concept, Barcelona plans to super-size its car-free ‘superblock’ and cities in Australia and UK pursue the ‘20-minute neighbourhood’, a strategic city planning for walkable environments and complete communities that originated in Portland, OR. Furthermore, Sweden pursues on a national scale a smaller, hyper-local module, the ‘One-minute city’.

All these promising strategies that will decisively contribute to the transition towards climate-resilient cities focus on city performance and pay little or no attention to city form.  The Covid-19 pandemic has already offered a ‘performance preview’ of living in urban models with shorter or fewer commutes, more free time and ‘greener’ neighbourhoods. Therefore, what will an ‘x-minute city’ look like? What will the urban form be when most community services can be reached within the certain time span on foot, on bike, by public transport?

Still, most of the ideas and principles underpinning x-minute city concepts are not new. An examination of both ideal and real city plans derived from the past reveals the hidden origins and the underlying persistence of the 5-,10-,15-minute city along with their varied aspects. The presentation discusses the findings from historic paradigms where city modules are functions of walking time, ranging from Polybius’s Roman military camp descriptions to Oglethorpe’s Savannah plan, from Filarete's Sforzinda to Scamozzi's Palmanova, from Hebrard’s World Centre of Communication to his Thessaloniki Reconstruction plan and from Howard’s Garden City to Milton Keynes.

Alluding to the European Commission’s New European Bauhaus initiative to help deliver the Green Deal, the presentation looks back to elaborate city planning paradigms, so as to advocate the matching of sustainability and planning with design and aesthetics of urban form in the pursuit of an innovative framework towards the green transformation.

Biography:

Dr. Alcestis Rodi (Dipl.Arch., NTUA; MAUD, Harvard ; PhD, TUDelft) is associate professor at the Department of Architecture, University of Patras, Greece. She practiced architecture and urban design in USA and Greece and was advisor to the Vice President of the Greek Government (2010-12). She introduced the concept of ‘Bricolage Urbanism’ (2015) and co-authored Modern Architectures in History: Greece, also being editor and contributor to several collective volumes. Her design work and academic articles have been published and awarded internationally. Her current research focuses on urban morphology and contemporary urban concepts. In 2018-9 she was a Visiting Scholar at MIT.

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