Rethinking sustainability frameworks in neighbourhood projects: a process-based approach

ABSTRACT

A process-based approach is used to examine the deployment of two neighbourhood-scale sustainability assessment systems and their tools in two European cities. It explores how these sustainability assessment systems and their tools are contextualized within a larger design and planning process by considering how stakeholders collaborate, how they set design problems, how they make decisions and how they propose design solutions in the early design phases. Specifically, using interviews conducted with key project actors in Malmö, Sweden, and Barcelona, Spain, this paper examines how the sustainability assessment systems in each respective case study were framed, and how this framing impacted upon the design process. A key finding is that how sustainability assessment systems are framed has just as significant an impact as the nature of the tools, especially on the processes entailed. Community participation can have a strong, positive impact on the design process and on outcomes. The case studies confirm that context and players cannot be divorced from tools.

KEYWORDS:

• BREEAM-C
• collaboration
• community participation
• ecological urbanism
• neighbourhood
• planning
• stakeholders
• sustainability assessment systems

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all the interviewees who contributed to this paper and who volunteered their time and expert knowledge on the two case studies. They also give a special thank you to Ray Cole, who has been very significant both academically and personally for both authors. Ray was the primary author’s master’s supervisor, and they have collaborated on several papers together for Building Research & Information and other journals. Ray’s influence has extended far beyond that of a supervisor, however, and his immense knowledge, enthusiasm, support and dedication to sustainability continue to be a source of inspiration for the first author as she finishes her doctoral studies. Ray has also been a long-time colleague and friend of the second author as they were both founding members of the Canadian Green Building Council in 2003. Earlier in 2001, they co-founded ‘Greening the Curriculum’, a decade-long series of national gatherings/workshops involving all Canadian schools of architecture where a healthy forum for exchange and debate focused attention on how to improve the presence of sustainable thinking across all programmes of architectural design.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A ‘tool’ in this context may be referred to generically as an instrument for aiding private and public professionals in a diagnosis, assessment or process, and often using a set of standards. A ‘framework’ more broadly makes use of several overarching concepts that provide conceptual, strategic or practical guidance. For example, a resilient cities framework might use a combination of resilience assessment, climatic projection and visualization tools.

2. For more discussion on regenerative design and development, see Building Research & Information’s special issue ‘Regenerative Design and Development’, vol. 40(1) (2012) (see http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rbri20/40/1).

3. This paper does not make claims about the influence the tools had on the outcomes. At the time that the primary author had conducted the interviews in May–June and September 2016, the Masthusen project was still under construction and the superblocks pilot project simulation was underway. Neither project is completed. Moreover, as the BREEAM-C manager stated when asked what impact BREEAM-C had on the outcome, ‘That is methodologically very difficult to answer.’ It is difficult to know what would have been built or put in a master plan without the use of the tools, and second, politics inevitably influences the outcome of what is built, and so adds another layer of complexity.

4. Here, stakeholders are defined as persons, groups and organizations who are either expected to be influenced by or who may have an impact on projects, playing different roles and having varied responsibilities. Stakeholders can be internal (meaning they play a direct role in the project) or external (meaning they have indirect involvement in the project).

5. Semi-structured in-person interview by the first author with a Malmo City planner, 4 May, 2016; semi-structured Skype interview by the first author with a Diligentia project manager and internal sustainability coordinator, 3 May 2016.

6. Semi-structured Skype interview by the first author with a Diligentia project manager and internal sustainability coordinator.

7. Semi-structured Skype interview by the first author with the sustainability coordinator for the WSP Group, 25 May 2016.

8. Semi-structured Skype interview by first author with a BREEAM-C manager, 17 May, 2016.

9. Semi-structured Skype interview by first author with a Diligentia project manager and internal sustainability consultant, 3 May, 2016.

10. Semi-structured Skype interview by first author with sustainability coordinator, May 25th, 2016.

11. Semi-structured Skype interview by first author with a Diligentia project manager and internal sustainability consultant, 3 May, 2016.

12. Semi-structured Skype interview by first author with a BREEAM-C manager, 17 May, 2016.

13. Interview by the first author, 2016, with anonymous interviewee.

14. Semi-structured Skype interview by first author with a BREEAM-C manager, 17 May, 2016.

15. Semi-structured Skype interview by first author with a Diligentia project manager and internal sustainability consultant, 3 May, 2016.

16. Semi-structured Skype interview by the first author with a sustainability coordinator for the WSP Group, 25 May 2016. In a similar way, the Diligentia project manager adds that what the BREEAM-C framework did contribute to was ‘affecting how we are building and what we do’. However, she adds:

I think it could affect it even more, if we were even earlier, before we set the detail plans. If we could have done this one or two years earlier than we did, we could have affected it even more. And then when you have your detail plan, then you go into step 2 in BREEAM Communities, which involves a lot of other issues. [The consultation process] was really frustrating. We put so much time into something that didn’t really matter. (semi-structured Skype interview by the first author with a Diligentia project manager and internal sustainability coordinator).

17. Semi-structured Skype interview by first author with a Diligentia project manager and internal sustainability consultant, 3 May, 2016.

18. Semi-structured interview by the first author with the San Martí district manager, Barcelona, Spain, 3 June, 2016.

19. Semi-structured interview by the first author with the president of the San Martí Neighbourhood Association (SMNA), Barcelona, Spain, 18 May, 2016.

20. Semi-structured interview by the first author with a professor at the UIC, Barcelona, Spain, 3 June, 2016.

21. Semi-structured interview by the first author with a professor at the UIC.

22. Semi-structured interview by the first author with the president of the SMNA.

23. Semi-structured interview by the first author with the director of the UEAB, Barcelona, Spain, 12 June, 2016.

24. An architect from the City Council explains:

I would tell you that the difference between the previous legislature and now, is that in the previous one, we considered it very important to start with public consultation. And we almost started doing open work sessions with the neighbours; at that time, there were only four places where we wanted to do a test. […] They were four very limited sites. And we started as if to say, ‘hey, the slate is clean. We do not have preconceived ideas’, and we started doing work sessions with the neighbours, and brainstorming – evidently stating the objectives of the program to improve public space, increased green and biodiversity, traffic management and such, but to see what people had to say. (semi-structured interview by the first author with an architect from the City Council, City of Barcelona, Spain, 27 May, 2016).

25. Semi-structured interview by the first author with an architect from the City Council, City of Barcelona.

26. Semi-structured interview by the first author with the director of the UEAB.

27. Semi-structured interview by the first author with the director of the UEAB.

28. Semi-structured interview by the first author with an architect from the City Council, City of Barcelona.

29. Semi-structured interview by the first author with the president of the SMNA.

30. Phase 1 of the superblock implementation began in September with the installation of bollards, painting of roads and changing of traffic signals. All other urban installations were just temporary, and subsequent phases are to be implemented over the next couple of years.

31. Semi-structured interview by the first author with a student at the UIC, 19 September 2016.

32. Semi-structured in-person interview with an architect from the City Council of Barcelona, May 27th, 2016.