Journal
01.04.2025
Climate Resilient Masterplans
1: Superblock (Linen Quarter) - 2: Sant Antoni Superblock (Gael Rio) - 3: Vertical Garden Medellin City Hall (Peter Yeung)
BKK have always had a keen interest in the space between buildings, at the intersection of architecture, urban design and landscape, and have enjoyed collaborating with many of Melbourne’s best landscape practices. We relish the value such collaborations can bring to the earliest stages of shaping our cities, precincts and neighbourhoods.
Melbourne is a city in flux – with the realisation that continued urban sprawl is no longer the answer to continued population growth, policies are now shifting to increase densification around key transport nodes as designated activity centres. With densification comes its own set of challenges; we are not the first city to experience this so how do we learn from others who have gone through their own growing pains?
Barcelona Eixos Verds Consell de-Cent, Photo taken by Claudia Maurino
Barcelona’s Superblocks & Green Axes
Barcelona is often cited at as one of the best examples of city densification, however it struggles with a lack of green space, particularly in areas such as Eixample which sits at 1.9m2 of green space per resident vs 20m2 recommended by the EU. Climate change and challenges of managing vehicular traffic led in 2015 for the urban ecologist Salvador Rueda to introduce the idea of ‘superblocks’, which groups several urban blocks together to create a traffic reduced zone where pedestrians and residents have priority, providing much needed outdoor space, while reducing noise and air pollution. This was done by keeping vehicle access to a minimum and encouraging more sustainable transport options by aligning new bus routes with the superblocks and expanding the bike path network.
After a contentious pilot project in Poblenou in 2016 a more successful ‘superblock’ was completed in Sant Antoni; following criticism that ‘superblocks’ create isolated neighbourhoods with low connectivity this idea has continued to evolve with the proposal to create ‘green axes’ to support the super block idea. Through the implementation of one of these green axes(Consell de Cent and four of its intersecting streets) four new public squares will be created and street trees and green spaces will be introduced to capture rainfall.
Barcelona’s aim is to create 21 green axes and 21 new squares which will in turn yield 3.9ha for sports, play and leisure, and 6.6ha of added greenery; all without demolishing a single building.
Plan of Barcelona showing Superblocks and green axes
Kunshan Demonstration Park, Photo taken by Realm Studio
How do we Create Climate Resilient Masterplans?
With flood and drought events now becoming more frequent our urban spaces need to include more holistic thinking during the earliest phases of Masterplanning to make cities more liveable (and walkable), better adept at dealing with urban heating and cooling, and more able to capture storm water runoff to limit flooding.
Learning from our work in Kunshan in China with Monash University’s Water Sensitive Cities Australia program and REALMstudios, we understand the value water sensitive design brings to dealing with climate change impacts and urban water management. Project such as these show how water management infrastructure can be integrated into green open spaces providing ecological value and social amenity, which provides much needed relief in high density developments; a recent review by Alluvium and Water Sensitive Cities Australia found that a small, irrigated 1.5 ha park in Melbourne can provide an average 1oC air temperature cooling effect (up to 3oC) during a hot summer, compared with surrounding streets.
Kunshan Demonstration Park, Photo taken by Realm Studio
Melbourne Aerial View, credit: University of Melbourne
By adding more green infrastructure in our masterplans through increased tree canopy cover and mandating a percentage of green roofs on future buildings, we can reduce the urban heat island effect as well as creating shaded areas, that have been proven to reduce depression, anxiety and heatstroke. The City of Melbourne is already aiming to address this through its Urban Forestry Strategy and cities such as Medellin in Colombia have successfully reduced their temperatures by 2°C in the first three years of its Green Corridors program.
The solution? Only by making trees and green spaces non-negotiable elements of our masterplan designs and valuing them as much as we do other elements of our city’s infrastructure, can we hope to create more climate resilient cities.