Technology in the Creation of Urban Landscapes

In the Advanced Technology of Trees, the authors note that city leaders are waiting for new technologies and man-made solutions to offset massive challenges in their communities, such as climate change or other problems that humanity has unleashed over time. “Too often municipal decision makers look to technology to fix urban problems when a simpler solution is all around us. For example, we have developed technology to identify and remove toxins from the air from polluting cars; we create heavily-engineered sound dampening technologies to reduce noise between highways and residential areas; and we look for ways to manage wind, water and sunlight with expensive man-made solutions, when many of these challenges have an obvious solution: trees, a natural and affordable geo-engineering tool that is all around us.” 

The planting of trees, grass and other vegetation can not only help reduce a community’s carbon footprint, but it can also create visual excitement by offering quiet and relaxing areas to reduce tensions and pressures around us every day and bring life back to cities that have otherwise become bland and hard three-dimensional surfaces. Enhanced by night lighting, complementary uses such as restaurants, urban water features and other treatments, these landscaped spaces like parks, landscaped streetscapes and even balconies and rooftops, immeasurably add up to help the ecosystem of a community. How can technology further assist in the sustainability of a community, especially utilising aspects of the natural landscape in urban centres? This was a challenging question, but I soon found that there are many aspects of landscape design, operations, data management and other technology-related activities that help in this regard.

To begin with, planting trees, especially in large numbers, such as a forest in the city will help to mitigate the damage that polluting cars, buildings and people cause every day. 
 

Trees and other plants can absorb up to 25% of carbon dioxide emissions created by humans in urban areas. 

However, planting a forest of trees will need watering, proper drainage, street cleaning and waste management of dropped leaves, among other operational and management considerations. These can be done manually, but in urban centres these activities may be inefficient and not cost-effective. The management and operation of these services to maintain city streets, parks and open spaces will increasingly depend on technology. Streetlights, watering schedules and waste management services can be automatically deployed with the aid of timers, sensors and artificial intelligence-based decision-making applications. ‘Bigbelly’ waste receptacles in parks and on public sidewalks have become familiar to the public. Once they are full, the sensors send a message to its operations centre to send a truck to empty the bin. Trucks that sweep the streets and pathways are also monitored by technology. Soon, autonomous vehicles may be deployed to manage these parks and open spaces. Other technologies in parks will become commonplace, including outdoor kiosks and smart-poles that may feature LED lighting and Wi-Fi mesh allowing many unique applications such as security cameras, environmental sensors and communications support systems.

In most urban areas, public open spaces are monitored for use and civic officials can change the design and features of the public realm to meet the community’s needs. Underlying these technologies are potentially advanced 5G broadband and the rapid deployment of the Internet of Things, from an array of sensors capturing a vast amount of data to artificial intelligence capable of making decisions about the services, management and operation of these landscaped areas. As the cost of labour increases, technology may help to reduce the cost of these capabilities and cities will begin to deploy them at an increasing rate.

For instance, landscape designers can use a variety of software and analytical applications to determine the best species for the local geography, proper placement for wind and sun exposure, the ability for developing root profiles and the interplay between the trees and plants with the buildings and structures nearby to assist in watering and best sun/shade considerations for the plants. The design of the High-Line’s many plant features in New York City would be a likely candidate for these applications.
 

This is now being aided further by the application of ‘digital twins’, which create an exact duplicate in terms of all relevant data of the three-dimensional space, which could also demonstrate below-grade features where parking, pipes, drainage and needed soil may be planted. 

Using these digital twins, the designer can test different scenarios, determine the best approach to designing the space and may even determine the benefits of being able to offset specific carbon-producing neighbours through these scenarios. Ameliorating actions could then be undertaken: planting more trees for instance, or incorporating a specific carbon-filtering feature, or using the data to help address the need to relocate or remove the offending carbon-producing element. Companies are already oering digital twin strategies so that design and development strategies can be made remotely. These can be easily applied to municipal operations, such as to parks and landscaped areas for the benefit of the community’s use. For instance, the city of Goteborg, Sweden, is currently piloting its own massive digital twin. Many features such as roads, buildings and parks will be twinned digitally, allowing decision-makers to design, develop, manage and operate their community in a new and unique way.

Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde has developed a filtering technology for large parks that helps to reduce the amount of pollution in the air, making it more pleasant for park users to be in the space. This has been experimented with in Beijing (China) parks with some degree of success. Similarly, a large wind funnel in Masdar City (Abu Dhabi, UAE) has been deployed to create an air-conditioned environment in its urban parks. However, these may be unnecessary if the digital twin analysis of the spaces identifies the number and placement of trees and other vegetation to help reduce the impact of carbon and heat in these spaces.

Another example is the deployment of sensors used in combination with LED lighting poles on streets and in public parks. Chicago, USA, uses these, called an ‘Array of Things’, to measure pollution across the city. Taoyuan, Taiwan, has a similar pilot underway to measure pollution using LED street lighting smart-poles. As more poles and sensors are able to be deployed, the extent of the data that can be generated and analysed can assist in many ways, from measuring the use of the landscaped area, to deterring vandalism and perhaps even identifying the best landscaping materials to use in meeting both ecological as well as public use requirements.

However, a debate has been generated through the process of the development plans for Sidewalk Labs’ proposed Quayside project in Toronto’s, (Canada), waterfront area. Critics are concerned about the potential data that the project might be able to generate as citizens use the site including pedestrian trac, preferences of citizens using commercial premises on the site and even the use of the utilities on the site that could potentially monitor people’s use of the site. 
 

For instance, heated pipes below modular sidewalks may be able to keep the snow and ice off them eliminating manual snow removal but they may also generate data on the foot traffic above. 

All these innovative ways to obtain and analyse data have gained global attention and generated much discussion on data governance, use and application of technology-related methodologies to be deployed in these types of projects for the potential commercial benefit by Google and others. This backlash has delayed the plans and implementation of this project, which has many new and unique landscape proposals for Toronto’s Waterfront, especially related to energy and sustainability-oriented design.

Green technology, such as the deployment of wind and solar applications throughout cities, especially in parks and open spaces where access to the electrical grid may not be possible, help to provide services where they may be needed. Use of vertical farming and deployment of trees and plants as part of landscaping in urban centres requires technology to sequence the timing of the lights, watering and harvesting and replacement of plants. An excellent example of a vertical forest is Milan’s (Italy) Bosco Verticale, twin residential towers with over 20,000 square metres of tree cover, absorbing approximately 19.000 kg/year of CO2. The technology to support this unique vertical forest of 20,000 plants and over 800 trees includes heating and air conditioning during inclement weather, water irrigation, green area maintenance and cleaning systems. In Taoyuan, (Taiwan) a company called YesHealth iFarm provides a 14-storey, 2700 sq.m. vertical farming solution that also provides a local grocery store, restaurant and educational experience related to the variety of edible plants it grows.

Technology clearly can help, but it isn’t what the trees and plants can do for us naturally. Even the ivy between houses can reduce the temperature on a hot day in my driveway by as much as 15 degrees Centigrade. See if air conditioners can do that!

1. The Advanced Technologies of Trees; Catherine Jung and John G. Jung; Public Sector Digest: https://publicsectordigest.com/article/advanced-technologies-trees; December 2018