Coffee in the Square

Equality for Bicycles!

I visited Freiburg over the New Year and the information I picked up was very rich.  You will see quite a few blogs on the new developments there over the next few weeks I guess.  Something one of our traffic engineers said before I went away made me think quite a bit about street widths.  Here is a tram in a really narrow street in Antwerp.  So don't tell me that you need a really wide street for a tram! (You know who you are.)

We measured this street out as 6m wide - and you can see that a good metre and a half each side is the footpath.  So a tram takes up about 3m.  (If you look very closely you will see my dog Astrid waiting at the side!)  Yes and cars are allowed down here as well - but woe betide them if they try and park.

However a thorough-fare for all types of traffic needs to be designed differently.  Vaubanalle in Frieburg, is the main road that runs through the Eco suburb of Vauban.

This street is 35m wide. Download the info sheet for a detailed section and more images.  What's really interesting is the fact that the roadway section - two way traffic and a line of parking - is only 6m wide while the pedestrian/cycle track is also 6m wide.  Designing cities for cycles does not seem to mean less tarmac unfortunately.  But it does mean a different balance between car uses and other uses.

The String Bag

OK!  So I’ll admit it. This string bag is symptomatic of my latest consumerist tendency – the purchasing of green bags.  In the last few months I’ve been given or purchased a whole series of green bags, ranging from some very fine and robust canvas bags in Waitrose; logo’ed cotton bags from conferences or purchased in thrift shops; bags for life given or purchased from supermarkets and now the green bag to end all other green bags … the string bag!

However this is not just any string bag.  Its made from strong fairtrade cotton, eco dyes, and manufactured by  (hopefully) happy workers in what are termed airy units in India.  But if this were not enough to save the planet the company that sells them in the UK is committed to saving the turtle.  The turtle is the beast that outlived the dinosaurs but, as the marketing puts it, might not outlive us because of the danger of feeding off plastic bags discarded around our seashores.

Though no proportion of the relatively modest sum that I paid for the bag will go towards some wildlife charity or other the idea is that the more string bags we have the less plastic bags get discarded.  Though the company has been audited by WWF for its ethical and environmental credentials.

The difference between a string bag and other types of eco bag (all the others are much cheaper) is that a string bag cannot carry advertising. They also look very pretty hanging on hooks – as the Turtle Bag website shows.  I’ll keep you posted as to their practicalities, lifespan and fashion kudos.

To find out more go to www.turtlebags.co.uk .

Working in a town or a theme park - comparing Chiswick Park with Chiswick Mall

A chance visit to Chiswick gave me the opportunity to visit Chiswick Park (constructed 2002) and compare it with Voysey's Sanderson factory, now a workspace and built exactly 100 years earlier in 1902. Chiswick Park is a slick modern development built on brown land in a corner between three railway lines.  Thus it is excellently connected to transportation routes.  However the design, clever though it is, is predicated on the idea that everyone will come to work by car. The scheme is surrounded by parking and the basements are all garages, which have the effect of cutting off the buildings from their hinterland. There is always the annoying chicken and egg situation that developers won't build without parking, employers are scared to buy offices without parking and so employees never get to be encouraged to come to work by public transport here.  The pseudo green iconography of brise soleil and a pond, doesn't convince me.  It's the daily travel to work that really eats up carbon in these offices.  Also because the "estate" (for that's what it is ) is unifunctional it becomes a wasteland at weekends and in the evening.
The architecture and the landscaping are of a high enough quality but I can't help feeling that its cosmetic.  The only lip service that the design pays to its inner London location is to squash up the landscape so that it becomes a mere corridor between the blocks.  It takes a hoard of security guards and CCTV to keep this all going.  The website offers all sorts of fun.  There is a health club and a coffee bar as well as fireworks and goose herding.  What employer can't see that all this is  just a Disney-land version of real life which is available in its real incarnation ten minutes WALK up the road in Chiswick Mall!
Its the isolationary premise that I particularly object to.  I was stopped as I entered the park and CCTV's followed me everywhere. 

By comparison the Voysey building designed for the Sanderson factory and adjacent to the Barley Mow workspaces in Chiswick Mall is a real urban office space.  As far as I can see there is no car parking here at all - and even deliveries have to run the gauntlet of a tiny service road. There is no expensive manicured lawn - but this is right next door to Chiswick Park, no pond and I expect that the insulation is lower.  But people seem to manage to walk to work here and the communal activities like access to health clubs, cafe's ( no no goose herding here!) are public so anyone can join in and the profits from these activities are shared more widely with the community.

Ironically the architecture is rather similar. Both buildings are about the same scale of floor heights with a distinctive lower level and a distinctive roof-line.  Both were designed to provide open floor-plates and both have a very well defined service core.  Both also took advantage of modern scientific advances.  Architects have always loved the technology!
I can't help feeling that the Voysey building has already demonstrated its greater sustainability.  But how do we persuade the hard nosed developer that this is the better option?

Left:
Plan of Chiswick Park - note enhanced colouring of the pond!

Below:
Voyseys original drawing.  The building remains very similar today. 
 

The Selfishness of People -Road Pricing

So Downing Street's website is jammed with people complaining about road pricing.  Being a citizen of London and subject to central London's congestion charge - I really can't see what all the bother is about.  True, we in London have excellent public transport and so we are used to leaving our cars at home and using the bus/tube/train.  Also the standard of living in London is high so we can afford public transport which is admittedly costlier than driving.  And here is the nub of the issue.  Drivers currently don't pay the price of their road use or their environmental impact.  Other modes of transport are economically incomparable.  If we want a brighter future we should learn that we all have to make sacrifices in order to achieve it.  This rush to complain of road pricing is just selfishness.
People who live in the countryside should not despair.  These country roads are not overcrowded and the environmental impact of their use is not great.  A short trip to a transport hub should be the order of the day. At the same time the costs associated with smaller, greener cars should be less than the gas guzzlers.  (Benefiting the less well off)
Remember you may have a car now and enjoy its use.  But we will all grow old and at some stage you will be forced to give up driving.  How then will you get around?
I have received a positive response from Westminster Councillor Harvey Marshall, who agrees with me about pedestrians raw deal in Westminster. See my post Feb 9th Westminster's Folly  Unfortunately he tells me he is no longer my councillor and that Cavendish Square is neither in my or his ward - so I suppose we are back to square one.  No news from the New West End Company or the Developers!

Supermarket Packaging

Further to my January 15th post I have to report no good news from M&S, they seem to be incapable of responding personally to a query and I keep getting sent back to their press release, which does not really answer the question.  Is wrapping food in recycleable packaging enough?  However since M&S came out with their agenda, Asda has now come out with a plan to reduce packaging by 25% by going back to 1950's style display.  Its extroadinary isn't it?  We have to go back to go forward.  Anyway I salute this initiative.  Asda, part of the all pervasive Wall-Mart group, is not my favourite bunny on the block, nor do they have a good record on the environment - so its interesting to see that they seem to have come up with quite an interesting initiative.  (Though it could be band-wagon jumping)  The Independaqnt has also launched an in itiative to reduce waste under the banner Campaign Against Waste so I know I'm not alone.

M&S see the light

Finally M&S seem to have seen the light in green retailing.  Every business must by now be aware that taxes for landfill of rubbish, high emissions and energy costs will hit them sooner or later.  Also its great PR to be green.  Just think of the "out of town" Sainsbury on the Greenwhich peninsular which assuages its guilt at being located in the middle of a giant car park by hoisting a couple of windmills!
So will M&S be any different?  Well they have had Jonathon Porritt  helping them set it up and a read of today's press release seems to offer some cause for optimism.  However will this mean that M&S starts to abandon their out of town locations, will they be importing less by air, will they be using renewable resources in their clothing lines?  At the moment its fleece from recycled plastic bottles - is that all there is?
A major cost of energy in their stores must be the lack of natural ventilation and natural light even though a lot of stores are only two storey.  It would be interesting if just as John Lewis start filling in their atria (designed in the 40's to bring in natural light and ventilation) M&S start adding atria to their stores. 

Download ms_press_release_070115.pdf