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Joburg joins global exhibition
- Details
- 15 February 2011
What will a vibrant, busy, high-density Orlando East look like in 2030? Architects have come up with a design, which is part of a travelling international exhibition called Our Cities Ourselves.
REA VAYA will be part of the international travelling exhibition of urban transport, called Our Cities Ourselves, through February and March.
Orlando East is the subject of Joburg's contribution, more specifically, a vision of the Soweto suburb in 2030. It is imagined as a vibrant, high-density node with good quality retail and public spaces that operates 24-7.
Bus and train mass transit options make it easy and quick to get to anywhere in the city from this key transit node. "The Johannesburg Development Agency [JDA] is already working to make this vision a reality. In 2010/11 we are completing the construction of a new public square that links the Rea Vaya bus stations to the commuter rail station. Work will continue in 2011/12," says the agency's acting chief executive officer, Thanduxolo Mendrew.
The exhibition will be open from 22 to 25 February at the Bus Factory in Newtown from 10am to 4pm; from 1 to 4 March in Orlando East; from 8 to 11 March at Wits University; and from 15 to 20 March at Museum Africa in Newtown.
Our Cities Ourselves illustrates the vision of 10 leading architects of 10 of the world's most "fascinating" cities in 2030 – when about 60 percent of the global population, or roughly five billion people, will live in urban areas, mostly in the developing world.
FOCUS ON REA VAYA
"It is very exciting for us that this exhibition is focusing on Rea Vaya as a sustainable form of public transport," said Lisa Seftel, executive director for transportation in the City of Johannesburg.
"Rea Vaya is increasingly being recognised as a world leader in many areas of BRT [Bus Rapid Transiit] including infrastructure, negotiations with the mini bus taxi industry and innovative bus funding options", she added.
This year the exhibition, consisting of 12 panels, features: Ahmadabad, India; Budapest, Hungary; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Guangzhou, China; Jakarta, Indonesia; Johannesburg, South Africa; Mexico City, Mexico; New York City, United States of America; and Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
These cities have proven to be leaders in innovation in sustainable transport and are fertile ground for further transformation, notes Sharon Lewis, the executive manager: planning and strategy at the JDA.
"Each has the leadership potential to make the transformational leap in urban planning that we believe is needed, and are also places where the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy [ITDP] works.
"Nearly all of the cities are in developing nations, because this is where most urban growth will happen over the next 20 years. They have the opportunity to learn from and leapfrog over the mistakes made by developed nations, particularly the over-dependence of cars in the United States," says Lewis.
The architects involved in the project are acknowledged leaders in their field. Each has a close knowledge of the city they worked on, a track record of innovative urban design, and a strong commitment to putting sustainability at the core of their work.
SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT
Over the past year, the architects have worked with the ITDP and its offices in these cities.
In creating their designs, the architects used the ITDP's Ten Principles of Sustainable Transport to help guide their design choices. The results combine creativity with pragmatism, and show what is possible when we design our cities for ourselves.
On its website, Our Cities Ourselves says: "In the middle of the 20th century, cities across the United States were redesigned to accommodate the car. As people flocked to the suburbs, cities were retrofitted with highways and parking lots. Roads expanded, public transit declined and so did our cities. In the decades that followed, cities around the world imported this auto-dominant urban design and began to suffer from its devastating impact."
As a result, Our Cities Ourselves proposed an alternative path to underpin the images on show with 10 principles developed with Jan Gehl, a Danish urbanist. With these as foundations, architects produced visions of iconic sites projected to experience at least a doubling of residents by 2030.
The ITDP was founded in 1985 to work with cities worldwide to bring about transport solutions that cut greenhouse gas emissions, reduce poverty and improve the quality of urban life.
The art project is designed to attract interest and stimulate debate, enabling the ITDP to maximize its impact in cities throughout the world, with the aim of making people think about what sort of cities they want to live in, the sort of streets they want to walk along, and the sort of future they want for themselves and their children.
It is presented by the ITDP in conjunction with Rea Vaya, City of Johannesburg, JDA, Museum Africa, South African Cities Network, School of Architecture and Planning, Wits University.
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