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Darwin-Living-Lab-Symposium-2019-Keynote-presentation-by-Guy-Barnett-CSIROTranscript
Darwin Living Lab Symposium 2019. Keynote presentation by Guy Barnett, CSIRO
[Image appears of a slide showing a photo looking up at the outside of several apartment buildings from the ground level and the CSIRO logo and text appears: Global perspective on future cities and resilience initiatives, Guy Barnett, CSIRO, 12 December 2019]
[Image changes to show Guy Barnett standing at the podium talking to the camera and text appears: Guy Barnett, CSIRO]
Guy Barnett: Thanks Shona and hello everyone. It’s great to be here and really good to see such a turnout and such a diverse turnout as well. I’ve really enjoyed the conversations at morning tea and lunch. Look, I’d just like to start by acknowledging the Larrakia nation and pay my respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging.
What I’m going to do is, you know, we spoke before lunch with a bit of a deep dive into some detailed and technical work, I’m going to bring us back out again and talk a bit more broadly about future cities and resilience initiatives here in Australia and overseas and then sort of bring that back down to, to what that might mean for the Darwin Living Lab.
[Image changes to show Guy listening and then adjusting the microphone at the podium inset on the left and the same slide appearing inset on the right and a blue city background screen can be seen]
Male: Can you adjust the microphone so you’re speaking into the microphone?
[Image shows Guy inset talking at the podium and a new slide appears on the right showing text: Scene setting, The emerging ‘science of cities’ is about creating opportunities for experimentation, bringing together multiple stakeholders and sectors, to address urban challenges and foster learning in real-world city contexts, Why focus on cities? Major drivers of change, Thinking about the future, Urban resilience approach, Global research initiatives, Five key lessons for Darwin]
Guy Barnett: Sure, sorry. So future cities, the role that I have in CSIRO is co-ordinating our Future Cities Initiative. So, I connect researchers doing cities related work in the energy space, the water space, manufacturing, ecological areas, social, social research, social and economic research. And it’s a really exciting time to be working on cities. There’s a lot of really interesting things happening internationally and here, here domestically in Australia.
So, just last week the Australian Academy of Science and Future Earth Australia released a ten year plan for Urban Systems Transformation. A really interesting document that’s involved the collaboration of a number of different, sort of organisations and industry and so forth. And similarly we’ve just had a number of CRCs working in the city space, a Low Carbon Living CRC which has just finished up and a Water Sensitive Cities CRC which is coming to its end as well.
[Image continues to show Guy talking inset on the left and the same slide on the right can be seen]
But what’s happening now is that there’s a, in the current round of CRC applications there’s a Future Cities CRC that’s being proposed. So, what we’re seeing in the city space is moving from, sort of, fragmented research in particular domains, in housing, or in water, or in energy, to a much more sort of integrated systems’ approach to the way that we think about cities. And I think that’s really exciting.
[Image changes to show the slide enlarging to cover the whole screen]
So, I guess the talk I’m going to give is, I’m going to start with, sort of, why we focus on cities, you know, why are cities important, talk about some of the major drivers of change, talk about how we think about how we think about the future of cities. I want to talk a little bit about an urban resilience approach to cities and what that means. I’ll just, very briefly, overview some global research initiatives in this space and then from all of that I just want to draw out what I think are, sort of, a couple of key lessons for Darwin and the Darwin Living Lab.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a photo of apartment buildings on the right and text appears on the left: Why focus on cities? Principal human habitat, 89% of Australians live in cities and towns, Three cities in top 10 most liveable in the world, Engines of economic growth, Property is our biggest industry (13% of GDP), Significant sustainability impacts, Responsible for 70% of global carbon emissions]
So, just to start, why focus on cities?
[Image changes to show Guy inset talking on the left and the same slide can be seen inset on the right]
Well, basically they’re the principal human habitat for us now. So, we’ve got 89% of the population living in towns and cities, over 1,000 people plus. And the world now is primarily urban. So, we have over 50% of the population globally living in towns and cities. Australian cities are pretty good by world standards. We have three of the top ten most liveable cities in the world and they’re also, cities are I guess major end sort of growth, creativity, sort of innovation as well. So, the property industry itself is the largest industry in Australia. It’s even larger than mining in terms of its contribution to, to national GDP. So, it’s a really important industry for the nation and cities are at the heart of that.
But, I spoke about having really liveable cities, that’s, that’s come at a cost. So, significant sustainability impacts our cities have had, they’re responsible for about 70% of global carbon emissions. So, there are challenges there, cities have impacts, but there are also opportunities for cities to help us in the way that we address climate change and these major global challenges as well.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a photo of a solar panel on a roof and various words appear under the text heading: Major drivers of change]
So, the major challenges we face, and a number of drivers of change in our cities; we’ve spoken a lot about climate change this morning but there’s demographic changes. So, if we look at the population forecast for Australia, currently sort of looking at another 12 million people to be accommodated somewhere in Australia by 2050, so how we think about how we sustainably accommodate future population.
And the business as usual sort of trajectory at the moment is that 75% of those would go to Sydney and Melbourne. So, can we think of other ways of actually distributing population in a more sustainable way? But there are other challenges around the explosion of data, digital technologies which we’ve heard about earlier, the global competition between cities, and urban densification, the social inclusion and equity issues that are driving change. Waste is a big issue at the moment and ideas around circular economy.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a photo of a city with a network structure superimposed above it and text heading and text appears: Thinking about the future, This is not about predicting the future, but engaging people in thinking deeply about complex issues, imagining new possibilities, and making better choices today]
So, there’s a whole lot going on that’s driving change and driving change to think about the future. Now, thinking about the future is actually really hard and what I’d say is it’s, it’s the process of thinking about the future that’s important. We have various, sort of, models and tools that can look at predicting aspects of the future. So, we project future climate, we project population changes but putting all that together we really don’t have a very good idea of how things will play out.
But what I would say is that the future is already here to some extent. So, if you look at our existing cities and the asset life of homes and buildings and infrastructure we’ve already built, a lot of that will still be around in these time frames that we’re talking about, out to 2050. So, a large part of the challenge is actually retro-fitting what’s already here. And, as has been acknowledged earlier, there has been some, some work by CSIRO a couple of years ago starting to think about, sort of, Darwin’s future as well and explore that.
[Image shows Guy continuing to talk inset on the left of the screen and a new slide can be seen on the right showing a photo of a multi-storey building and text heading and text appears: Rise of the ‘eco/smart’ city, Masdar ecocity, UAE, New wave of smart cities]
So, we’ve seen some of the, I guess, the rise of sort of eco-cities, smart cities, and this is not a new phenomenon. Those who have been around for a while might remember the, the multifunction polis. It was sort of a Hawke, I think it was Hawke government sort of era, back in the late, late ‘80s, view for an aspirational sort of mini-city on the outskirts of Adelaide.
But we’re seeing other sort of cities like Masdar in the United Arab Emirates, a whole bunch of sort of eco smart cities being developed in China and other places in South East Asia, a real explosion of that. In Australia we’re not, well we haven’t built a lot of new cities but we did hear about Sydney Science Park earlier today, those that were around. So, the amount of growth in Western Sydney in particular is probably the closest we’ve had for some time to really building kind of new cities in a major way. So, in Australia it’s really thinking about how, you know, how we retro-fit our existing cities as well as the types of new cities that might be required to accommodate sort of future population. And there’s a whole bunch of new smart cities that are being proposed by the likes of Googles and Microsofts and other places of the world which are, which are quite interesting.
[Image continues to show Guy talking inset on the left and a new slide appears showing a photo of people on a pedestrian crossing and a circle diagram and the slide enlarges to cover the screen and text appears: Cities are about people]
What I’d like to say about that, particularly with sort of smart cities, is the need to really have people at the heart of, you know we build cities for people and we need to remember that and I think a lot of the smart cities movement is, is starting to, to come around to that and really recognise that.
This diagram that’s, that’s up on the screen now, it really just reflects the different determinants of human health and well-being. So, so whilst cities and the, you know, the built and natural environment, the physical aspects of cities, which are at the middle layer there are really important, there’s a whole bunch of other factors that influence how we experience cities, so down to the individual level, in terms of who you are, your age, your gender, your genetics, all those sorts of things.
There’s various lifestyle and behaviour choices that you’ll make in cities. There’s all sorts of social, economic characteristics that influence the way that you live in cities, around your income, employment, education, and then there’s the physical city element. And then beyond that there’s all sorts of cultural norms, various aspects that influence the way that we behave and make decisions. And then those larger global drivers of change that I mentioned earlier.
[Image changes to show Guy inset talking on the left and the same slide can be seen on the right again]
So, it’s quite complex the way that we sort of interact and live in our cities but, but with people at the heart of that.
[Image changes to show Guy talking inset on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a photo of a stone wall and text heading and text appears: Urban resilience approach, Cities as complex adaptive systems, Highly dynamic, connected and open, Tight mosaic of land tenure, cover and use, Legacies, lag effects, strong path dependencies, Focus is more about the journey than endpoint and the system properties that confer resilience]
So, I spoke about, you know, thinking about the future and that being quite hard. There’s, for some time now, been a growing focus on urban resilience and taking a resilience approach to cities. And that’s really saying, looking at how cities work as a system and about the journey to where we want to get to in future, and how we build properties in that system that are able to, I guess, respond to various shocks and surprises that might come up.
So, we build, we build in sort of an inherent capacity in our, in our cities to respond to whatever might come across without worrying about what, what type of city we’re going to in the future. And so, we needing to do that because cities are really complex to understand, they’re really dynamic, changing all the time, very connected and open to a whole range of external influences.
And there’s also lots of legacy effects and what we call path dependencies where there’s inertia in cities often to do things we’ve always, you know, the way we’ve always done them and it’s hard to break out of that cycle sometimes. So, as I was saying earlier, a resilience approach is really about focusing on the journey to get to where we want to be rather than sort of focusing too much on the end point and thinking about the properties we need to build into the system.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a world map with a text heading: Global research initiatives]
So, to just talk about, sort of broader global research initiatives in this area. So, there’s some well known ones like the C40 Cities Initiative, which is really a, 40 cities around the, around the globe, really large cities that are tackling climate change together. And then there’s the 100 Resilient Cities Initiative which is you know is 100 cities that are focussed on building the resilience of their cities to various shocks and surprises.
More specifically in the heat mitigation space, there’s a number of activities that are underway which we’re connecting into through, through the Darwin Living Lab. So, there’s work in Singapore, the Cooling Singapore Project. There’s the US Environmental Protection Agency that has a heat reduction programme and there’s work at Arizona State University in Phoenix as well on, on heat space and in many other locations as well. But those, those areas, are areas CSIRO has existing relationships with and in fact we have some videos that those organisations have forwarded to us.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing photos of four researchers below text: Tools for Urban Adaption Assessment, Britta Bierwagen, Susan Julius, Phil Marefield, Jordan West]
So, I’m going to just put in a quick plug for this one which is from the US EPA.
[Image changes to show the slide enlarging to cover the whole screen]
There’s four researchers there that we’re interacting with. Now, they’ve given us an 11 minute presentation. I’m not going to play that now but we’ll make that available in the break and there’s probably other ways we can make that more broadly available as well.
[Image changes to show Guy talking inset on the left and the same slide can be seen on the right of the screen]
Cooling Singapore, we have a number of organisations, research and government organisations collaborating in Singapore on a Cooling Singapore strategy. Now, this is just a five minute presentation and I thought I would play that now just to give you a bit of a feel for the work that we’re connecting into in other parts of the world.
[Image shows Guy listening on the left and a video playing on the right showing Conrad Philipp giving a presentation on a platform]
Dr Conrad Philipp: Good morning. My name is Conrad Philipp from the Singapore ETH Centre and I would like to talk about the “Cooling Singapore” project. Cooling Singapore project is an initiative of ETH Zurich as well with partners from MIT, from the Technical University in Munich, and from the local NUS University. And aim of the project is to mitigate the urban heat islands and to adapt the thermal comfort.
[Image changes to show Conrad talking on the right and slides move through on the left showing a photo of the Create Campus, and then photographs of the Research Team]
We are based in the Create Campus here at NUS since 2007 and there’s a bunch of people involved in the project with different disciplines from mathematicians, climate monitors, architects, planner and geographer.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the right and then the image on the left changes to show a new slide showing various logos of agencies involved and text appears: Cooling Singapore Intra-Agency Urban Head Island Work Group with Singapore Agencies]
We are also reaching out in this project to other agencies in Singapore like planning authorities, or for example, the agencies related to parks and buildings, and we’re working closely together with them in the project.
[Image shows Conrad continuing to talk on the left and the slides on the right move through to show two people looking at a whiteboard covered with coloured post-it notes, and a male in a workshop session]
So, we organised workshops with them for some here and at the Singapore ETH Centre as well as locations across Singapore and we also organised workshops with the citizens of Singapore and it’s quite a novel thing for Singapore.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a female walking past an information sign in a park]
And we also did questionnaires and surveys in several districts of Singapore and measured the outer city climate conditions. So, we asked people what stage they firmly believe about outer thermal comfort and what sort of developments they’re in.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and slides move through on the right showing a photo of a group of people at a workshop, and the audience listening to a Panel on the stage]
So, we organised also international workshops by inviting guests from overseas here in Singapore as well as we organised a symposium last year.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a group of people mingling and in conversation at a conference]
We also participated in several conference like the International Conference of Urban Climate in New York last year where [14.12] attended and as well our research colleagues presented, most of us gave presentations.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and slides move through on the right showing a page from the Today newspaper, and then a map of Singapore with the text heading: Singapore’s surface urban heat island]
So, we reached out as well through newspaper articles to the citizens of Singapore and we highlighted there our research, for example here’s the Singapore surface sensing image, the surface temperatures we captured from Singapore and the greater regions is, you know, the temperature difference of up to seven degrees between urban areas and rural areas.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and the slide on the right changes to show a type of satellite image of Singapore entitled: Singapore Views]
A new model on the Maisel scale and the urban heat island effect. So, we used the Maisel scale model [14.50] and using over 24 hours average surface and air temperature over Singapore and clearly indicated there as in warmer areas in the urban areas but also colder areas in the rural areas.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and slides move through on the right showing an animation model of a city and text appears across the slide: Which strategies to choose?]
So, then we developed, we had a lot of strategies how to mitigate the urban heat island effect and we came up with more than 80 strategies regarding urban geometry, vegetation and water bodies, materials and surfaces, transport, and energy.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears showing a Mitigation Strategies booklet open page spread]
And altogether we summarised findings in a booklet and what was also designed by our colleagues from the Singapore ETH Centre, and then also distributed to government agencies but also citizens of Singapore and also the other researchers who were visiting last year in the Centre.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing various maps of Singapore and the text heading: Project Aims]
So, now our research focussed on not only the Maisel scale but also on the microscale which we selected with the agencies in Singapore to test science in the north east of urban Singapore and the south-west as well as the CBD where there is high-rise buildings and then the north-east in relation to this where it’s more residential areas.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing various development diagrams]
So, we used there the model [16.06] mat to model the microscale and to be translated in research outcomes then into design guidelines.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and slides move through on the right showing various building type diagrams with the text heading: Urban Form Geometry Scenarios, and Cast Studies Scenarios]
What can we see here? This is a project where we also, where we also with partners from Hong Kong we did similar studies there to provide the related agencies design guidelines how to construct and build the buildings.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a blue screen showing text: Future collaboration]
And for us it’s really important to reach out not only to Singaporeans but also to the National Research Community and we would like to really engage with Australia
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing the CS logo in the top right corner and text: Thank you! Dr Conrad Philipp, phillippAarch.ethz.ch]
and to find strategies for other tropical cities, or sub-tropical cities, and also down further to Sydney, and Melbourne, and Adelaide. And we’re very likely to collaborate in the future with you thinking about mitigation, adaptation strategies but as well as working on different modelling aspects but also including people in this process. That’s very important for us as well and thank you for your participation in my forum. My name’s Dr Conrad Philipp and I’m keen to get your feedback and comments in the near future.
[Image changes to show Guy inset talking on the left of the screen and a new slide appears on the right of the screen showing a photo of a walkway shaded by trees and text appears: From research into practice, Science of UHI’s has been settled for long time, Combination of heat mitigation and adaption, Multi-scale, integrated UHI responses are rare]
Guy Barnett: So, that was just a really, a really quick five minute example to say that we’re connecting with, we’re not in this alone. There’s are lots of others in other parts of the world that are tackling sort of similar issues and we’re building relationships and looking at leveraging off that work so that we’re not sort of re-inventing the wheel.
But the thing to say, I guess, and this question was raised before lunch is really, I think the challenge is going from research to practice. So, I think the science of sort of urban heat islands, a lot of this work has been settled for quite a long time. It’s not changing kind of greatly now. So, we have a lot of good knowledge. We kind of know what we need to do but it’s just slow in the uptake in terms of sort of getting action. And I think there’s also needs to be that reflection that Mat Santimouris was making around sort of combining heat mitigation and adaption.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left of the screen and the same slide can be seen on the right of the screen]
We won’t be able to kind of mitigate all the impacts and there, there will be an element of adaption that’s required as well. And I think the opportunity for Darwin which is really exciting is that idea of a multi-scale integrated approach to, to urban heat reduction. Those integrated responses across multiple scales are pretty rare in the projects that we’ve looked at and people will tackle one element and it’s an urban greening solution. But if you’ve got the ability to, to move three scales, think about people, the individuals and the choices that they make, and how heat kind of influences that. But also the decisions they can make around thermostat settings on sort of air conditioners and those sorts of things which all play a role through the buildings and how our buildings perform, which we heard from, from Mat.
Thinking about our streetscapes which links to some of the, the work we heard sort of earlier as well, how streetscapes fit into a broader neighbourhood context and then how those neighbourhoods kind of aggregate up into cities and how we experience cities. So, there are various strategies and things you can do all the way along that continuum there and there are various responsibilities as well from individuals to local government to Territory government and others that can play a part in that. And so, I think that’s really unique and I think that is sort of a world leading opportunity for Darwin to, to play in that space.
[Image continues to show Guy inset on the left talking and the slide on the right changes to show text on a blue screen: Lessons learnt that are informing the Darwin Living Lab and activities, Context, Integration, Engagement, Measurement, Scaling]
So, just to, to wrap up my talk I just wanted to tease out sort of I guess five lessons that, that I’ve learnt through looking at work from elsewhere that I think’s relevant and to informing the Darwin Living Lab and the types of activities that we undertake.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left of the screen and the slide on the right changes to show a photo of a park near apartment buildings and text appears: 1. Context is critical, Bespoke solutions rather than ‘cookie cutter’, as what works in other cities may not work in Darwin, Suitable for current and future climates, Reflect local cultural diversity and knowledge, Respond to geographical constraints/opportunities]
So, the first of those is what I said earlier, it’s not about re-inventing the wheel. Context is critical. So, it’s not just a cookie cutter approach and taking what others have done and applying it in Darwin. It’s really sort of bespoke solutions or tailored solutions that are specific to the current and future climates we’re, we’re going to experience here and we’ll hear a little bit more about that in a moment I think from, from Jude. They’re solutions that reflect the local cultural diversity and knowledge and solutions that respond to geographical constraints, opportunities, in this part of the world. So, context is key.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and the slide on the right changes to show pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and text heading and text: 2. Focus on integration, Across different spatial scales, knowledge domains, the urban delivery chain, stakeholders and sectors]
Integration is key too. So, I mentioned that earlier in terms of the different, you know, from individual through to city scale but it’s also thinking about, through integration, through time, and, and thinking about the urban delivery chain. So, planning, design, construction, the occupation phase, through to renewal processes. What are the opportunities through that, through, through time? And then having the different sectors and organisations involved as well with the community all coming together.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and the slide on the right changes to show people in conversation and text heading and text appears: 3. Strong Engagement, Cities are made up of multiple stakeholders, often with different values, beliefs, agendas and criteria]
And I guess related to that last point, it’s just really the need for strong engagement and reflecting that cities are made up of multiple stakeholders. There’s often different values that are, that are held, different beliefs, you know, different agendas and criteria that people are kind of seeking to achieve as well. So, it is a really complex space and often there’s contested kind of issues that we’re dealing with. And we need a really robust way for having, you know good conversations around the types of change and the types of projects that we’re, that we’re looking at.
So, it’s really about fostering diverse participation, shared understanding in the types of issues that we’re dealing with. We talk a lot in Living Labs about co-production of knowledge. We really need to work out, well what does that mean in practice. My view is it’s really about having sort of stakeholders who are active participants in projects. They’re not sort of recipients of a research product but actively involved all the way through the process.
And then the other aspect of engagement, I think, is really considering the equity considerations and exploring some of the societal impacts of the different pathways we, we, that maybe in front of us in the future. And I think we may hear a little about that later too, in terms of smart city technologies and sort of artificial intelligence.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and the slide on the right changes to show a photo of a fountain pen and a calculator and text appears: 4. Measuring change, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it?” Quote: Peter Drucker]
And the fourth lesson is just really around measuring change. So, you know, it’s a, quite an old, sort of quote. But if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it and we’ve never really been very good at measuring the performance of our cities at a scale that’s kind of meaningful to, to inform decision-making.
That’s starting to change with the explosion of data that’s available and that’s enabling a new wave of urban science that, empirical science that wasn’t possible even ten years ago. So, we’re, we’re seeing now rapid advance and better scale metrics for how we measure the performance of cities and a whole range of different dimensions. But there’s the challenge of then how you deal with that explosion of data and all the things that we can now start to measure can become quite overwhelming. So, it’s trying to work out what are the essential things that we need to measure. You know, rather than measuring 100 things, are there 12 key things, or eight key things that we can measure that explain, you know, 80 or 90% of what’s going on in a city? And then I think there’s a need to focus on the feedbacks. So, what are the types of things that we can measure that really reveal some of the systems dynamics and the complexity, in cities.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and the slide on the right changes to show a photo of a hand holding a small world globe and text appears: 5. Scaling for impact, Demonstrations are about de-risking and accelerating innovation and ‘moving to scale’]
And just the final slide and final point is really about the need to scale for impact with, with the work that we do. So, we talk about demonstrations and pilots. We talk about trying to de-risk innovation and accelerate the process of uptake of innovation and new ideas and then moving that to scale.
But that needs to be supported by what we call a strong theory of change.
So, that’s really starting with the impact that we’re seeking to achieve and almost working backwards from that. You know, what are the, what are the outcomes that would be required to deliver that impact? What outputs, you know, contributed to, to that outcome? What sort of activities are required to produce that type of output? And then what inputs are required in terms of the science and the contribution.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking and the same slide can be seen on the right]
So, starting with the impact, I think’s really important. And in a way it’s where I was proposing, sort of, you know the research into practice, it’s thinking about the practice back into research link. It’s thinking about, you know, what’s, what’s required to deliver impact and how do we make sure we’re doing the right type of science and the right type of research to address those questions. So, that’s, that’s where I’ll leave it. Thank you.
[Image shows Guy inset smiling on the left and a new slide appears on the right: Thank You, Land and Water Co-ordinator, Future Cities Principal Research Consultant +16 26246 4380, guy.barnett@csiro.au, https://www.csiro.au/FutureCities]
[Audience applause can be heard and image changes to show a black screen and text appears: To find out more, visit research.csiro.au/darwinlivinglab]
[Image appears of a slide showing a photo looking up at the outside of several apartment buildings from the ground level and the CSIRO logo and text appears: Global perspective on future cities and resilience initiatives, Guy Barnett, CSIRO, 12 December 2019]
[Image changes to show Guy Barnett standing at the podium talking to the camera and text appears: Guy Barnett, CSIRO]
Guy Barnett: Thanks Shona and hello everyone. It’s great to be here and really good to see such a turnout and such a diverse turnout as well. I’ve really enjoyed the conversations at morning tea and lunch. Look, I’d just like to start by acknowledging the Larrakia nation and pay my respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging.
What I’m going to do is, you know, we spoke before lunch with a bit of a deep dive into some detailed and technical work, I’m going to bring us back out again and talk a bit more broadly about future cities and resilience initiatives here in Australia and overseas and then sort of bring that back down to, to what that might mean for the Darwin Living Lab.
[Image changes to show Guy listening and then adjusting the microphone at the podium inset on the left and the same slide appearing inset on the right and a blue city background screen can be seen]
Male: Can you adjust the microphone so you’re speaking into the microphone?
[Image shows Guy inset talking at the podium and a new slide appears on the right showing text: Scene setting, The emerging ‘science of cities’ is about creating opportunities for experimentation, bringing together multiple stakeholders and sectors, to address urban challenges and foster learning in real-world city contexts, Why focus on cities? Major drivers of change, Thinking about the future, Urban resilience approach, Global research initiatives, Five key lessons for Darwin]
Guy Barnett: Sure, sorry. So future cities, the role that I have in CSIRO is co-ordinating our Future Cities Initiative. So, I connect researchers doing cities related work in the energy space, the water space, manufacturing, ecological areas, social, social research, social and economic research. And it’s a really exciting time to be working on cities. There’s a lot of really interesting things happening internationally and here, here domestically in Australia.
So, just last week the Australian Academy of Science and Future Earth Australia released a ten year plan for Urban Systems Transformation. A really interesting document that’s involved the collaboration of a number of different, sort of organisations and industry and so forth. And similarly we’ve just had a number of CRCs working in the city space, a Low Carbon Living CRC which has just finished up and a Water Sensitive Cities CRC which is coming to its end as well.
[Image continues to show Guy talking inset on the left and the same slide on the right can be seen]
But what’s happening now is that there’s a, in the current round of CRC applications there’s a Future Cities CRC that’s being proposed. So, what we’re seeing in the city space is moving from, sort of, fragmented research in particular domains, in housing, or in water, or in energy, to a much more sort of integrated systems’ approach to the way that we think about cities. And I think that’s really exciting.
[Image changes to show the slide enlarging to cover the whole screen]
So, I guess the talk I’m going to give is, I’m going to start with, sort of, why we focus on cities, you know, why are cities important, talk about some of the major drivers of change, talk about how we think about how we think about the future of cities. I want to talk a little bit about an urban resilience approach to cities and what that means. I’ll just, very briefly, overview some global research initiatives in this space and then from all of that I just want to draw out what I think are, sort of, a couple of key lessons for Darwin and the Darwin Living Lab.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a photo of apartment buildings on the right and text appears on the left: Why focus on cities? Principal human habitat, 89% of Australians live in cities and towns, Three cities in top 10 most liveable in the world, Engines of economic growth, Property is our biggest industry (13% of GDP), Significant sustainability impacts, Responsible for 70% of global carbon emissions]
So, just to start, why focus on cities?
[Image changes to show Guy inset talking on the left and the same slide can be seen inset on the right]
Well, basically they’re the principal human habitat for us now. So, we’ve got 89% of the population living in towns and cities, over 1,000 people plus. And the world now is primarily urban. So, we have over 50% of the population globally living in towns and cities. Australian cities are pretty good by world standards. We have three of the top ten most liveable cities in the world and they’re also, cities are I guess major end sort of growth, creativity, sort of innovation as well. So, the property industry itself is the largest industry in Australia. It’s even larger than mining in terms of its contribution to, to national GDP. So, it’s a really important industry for the nation and cities are at the heart of that.
But, I spoke about having really liveable cities, that’s, that’s come at a cost. So, significant sustainability impacts our cities have had, they’re responsible for about 70% of global carbon emissions. So, there are challenges there, cities have impacts, but there are also opportunities for cities to help us in the way that we address climate change and these major global challenges as well.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a photo of a solar panel on a roof and various words appear under the text heading: Major drivers of change]
So, the major challenges we face, and a number of drivers of change in our cities; we’ve spoken a lot about climate change this morning but there’s demographic changes. So, if we look at the population forecast for Australia, currently sort of looking at another 12 million people to be accommodated somewhere in Australia by 2050, so how we think about how we sustainably accommodate future population.
And the business as usual sort of trajectory at the moment is that 75% of those would go to Sydney and Melbourne. So, can we think of other ways of actually distributing population in a more sustainable way? But there are other challenges around the explosion of data, digital technologies which we’ve heard about earlier, the global competition between cities, and urban densification, the social inclusion and equity issues that are driving change. Waste is a big issue at the moment and ideas around circular economy.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a photo of a city with a network structure superimposed above it and text heading and text appears: Thinking about the future, This is not about predicting the future, but engaging people in thinking deeply about complex issues, imagining new possibilities, and making better choices today]
So, there’s a whole lot going on that’s driving change and driving change to think about the future. Now, thinking about the future is actually really hard and what I’d say is it’s, it’s the process of thinking about the future that’s important. We have various, sort of, models and tools that can look at predicting aspects of the future. So, we project future climate, we project population changes but putting all that together we really don’t have a very good idea of how things will play out.
But what I would say is that the future is already here to some extent. So, if you look at our existing cities and the asset life of homes and buildings and infrastructure we’ve already built, a lot of that will still be around in these time frames that we’re talking about, out to 2050. So, a large part of the challenge is actually retro-fitting what’s already here. And, as has been acknowledged earlier, there has been some, some work by CSIRO a couple of years ago starting to think about, sort of, Darwin’s future as well and explore that.
[Image shows Guy continuing to talk inset on the left of the screen and a new slide can be seen on the right showing a photo of a multi-storey building and text heading and text appears: Rise of the ‘eco/smart’ city, Masdar ecocity, UAE, New wave of smart cities]
So, we’ve seen some of the, I guess, the rise of sort of eco-cities, smart cities, and this is not a new phenomenon. Those who have been around for a while might remember the, the multifunction polis. It was sort of a Hawke, I think it was Hawke government sort of era, back in the late, late ‘80s, view for an aspirational sort of mini-city on the outskirts of Adelaide.
But we’re seeing other sort of cities like Masdar in the United Arab Emirates, a whole bunch of sort of eco smart cities being developed in China and other places in South East Asia, a real explosion of that. In Australia we’re not, well we haven’t built a lot of new cities but we did hear about Sydney Science Park earlier today, those that were around. So, the amount of growth in Western Sydney in particular is probably the closest we’ve had for some time to really building kind of new cities in a major way. So, in Australia it’s really thinking about how, you know, how we retro-fit our existing cities as well as the types of new cities that might be required to accommodate sort of future population. And there’s a whole bunch of new smart cities that are being proposed by the likes of Googles and Microsofts and other places of the world which are, which are quite interesting.
[Image continues to show Guy talking inset on the left and a new slide appears showing a photo of people on a pedestrian crossing and a circle diagram and the slide enlarges to cover the screen and text appears: Cities are about people]
What I’d like to say about that, particularly with sort of smart cities, is the need to really have people at the heart of, you know we build cities for people and we need to remember that and I think a lot of the smart cities movement is, is starting to, to come around to that and really recognise that.
This diagram that’s, that’s up on the screen now, it really just reflects the different determinants of human health and well-being. So, so whilst cities and the, you know, the built and natural environment, the physical aspects of cities, which are at the middle layer there are really important, there’s a whole bunch of other factors that influence how we experience cities, so down to the individual level, in terms of who you are, your age, your gender, your genetics, all those sorts of things.
There’s various lifestyle and behaviour choices that you’ll make in cities. There’s all sorts of social, economic characteristics that influence the way that you live in cities, around your income, employment, education, and then there’s the physical city element. And then beyond that there’s all sorts of cultural norms, various aspects that influence the way that we behave and make decisions. And then those larger global drivers of change that I mentioned earlier.
[Image changes to show Guy inset talking on the left and the same slide can be seen on the right again]
So, it’s quite complex the way that we sort of interact and live in our cities but, but with people at the heart of that.
[Image changes to show Guy talking inset on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a photo of a stone wall and text heading and text appears: Urban resilience approach, Cities as complex adaptive systems, Highly dynamic, connected and open, Tight mosaic of land tenure, cover and use, Legacies, lag effects, strong path dependencies, Focus is more about the journey than endpoint and the system properties that confer resilience]
So, I spoke about, you know, thinking about the future and that being quite hard. There’s, for some time now, been a growing focus on urban resilience and taking a resilience approach to cities. And that’s really saying, looking at how cities work as a system and about the journey to where we want to get to in future, and how we build properties in that system that are able to, I guess, respond to various shocks and surprises that might come up.
So, we build, we build in sort of an inherent capacity in our, in our cities to respond to whatever might come across without worrying about what, what type of city we’re going to in the future. And so, we needing to do that because cities are really complex to understand, they’re really dynamic, changing all the time, very connected and open to a whole range of external influences.
And there’s also lots of legacy effects and what we call path dependencies where there’s inertia in cities often to do things we’ve always, you know, the way we’ve always done them and it’s hard to break out of that cycle sometimes. So, as I was saying earlier, a resilience approach is really about focusing on the journey to get to where we want to be rather than sort of focusing too much on the end point and thinking about the properties we need to build into the system.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a world map with a text heading: Global research initiatives]
So, to just talk about, sort of broader global research initiatives in this area. So, there’s some well known ones like the C40 Cities Initiative, which is really a, 40 cities around the, around the globe, really large cities that are tackling climate change together. And then there’s the 100 Resilient Cities Initiative which is you know is 100 cities that are focussed on building the resilience of their cities to various shocks and surprises.
More specifically in the heat mitigation space, there’s a number of activities that are underway which we’re connecting into through, through the Darwin Living Lab. So, there’s work in Singapore, the Cooling Singapore Project. There’s the US Environmental Protection Agency that has a heat reduction programme and there’s work at Arizona State University in Phoenix as well on, on heat space and in many other locations as well. But those, those areas, are areas CSIRO has existing relationships with and in fact we have some videos that those organisations have forwarded to us.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing photos of four researchers below text: Tools for Urban Adaption Assessment, Britta Bierwagen, Susan Julius, Phil Marefield, Jordan West]
So, I’m going to just put in a quick plug for this one which is from the US EPA.
[Image changes to show the slide enlarging to cover the whole screen]
There’s four researchers there that we’re interacting with. Now, they’ve given us an 11 minute presentation. I’m not going to play that now but we’ll make that available in the break and there’s probably other ways we can make that more broadly available as well.
[Image changes to show Guy talking inset on the left and the same slide can be seen on the right of the screen]
Cooling Singapore, we have a number of organisations, research and government organisations collaborating in Singapore on a Cooling Singapore strategy. Now, this is just a five minute presentation and I thought I would play that now just to give you a bit of a feel for the work that we’re connecting into in other parts of the world.
[Image shows Guy listening on the left and a video playing on the right showing Conrad Philipp giving a presentation on a platform]
Dr Conrad Philipp: Good morning. My name is Conrad Philipp from the Singapore ETH Centre and I would like to talk about the “Cooling Singapore” project. Cooling Singapore project is an initiative of ETH Zurich as well with partners from MIT, from the Technical University in Munich, and from the local NUS University. And aim of the project is to mitigate the urban heat islands and to adapt the thermal comfort.
[Image changes to show Conrad talking on the right and slides move through on the left showing a photo of the Create Campus, and then photographs of the Research Team]
We are based in the Create Campus here at NUS since 2007 and there’s a bunch of people involved in the project with different disciplines from mathematicians, climate monitors, architects, planner and geographer.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the right and then the image on the left changes to show a new slide showing various logos of agencies involved and text appears: Cooling Singapore Intra-Agency Urban Head Island Work Group with Singapore Agencies]
We are also reaching out in this project to other agencies in Singapore like planning authorities, or for example, the agencies related to parks and buildings, and we’re working closely together with them in the project.
[Image shows Conrad continuing to talk on the left and the slides on the right move through to show two people looking at a whiteboard covered with coloured post-it notes, and a male in a workshop session]
So, we organised workshops with them for some here and at the Singapore ETH Centre as well as locations across Singapore and we also organised workshops with the citizens of Singapore and it’s quite a novel thing for Singapore.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a female walking past an information sign in a park]
And we also did questionnaires and surveys in several districts of Singapore and measured the outer city climate conditions. So, we asked people what stage they firmly believe about outer thermal comfort and what sort of developments they’re in.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and slides move through on the right showing a photo of a group of people at a workshop, and the audience listening to a Panel on the stage]
So, we organised also international workshops by inviting guests from overseas here in Singapore as well as we organised a symposium last year.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a group of people mingling and in conversation at a conference]
We also participated in several conference like the International Conference of Urban Climate in New York last year where [14.12] attended and as well our research colleagues presented, most of us gave presentations.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and slides move through on the right showing a page from the Today newspaper, and then a map of Singapore with the text heading: Singapore’s surface urban heat island]
So, we reached out as well through newspaper articles to the citizens of Singapore and we highlighted there our research, for example here’s the Singapore surface sensing image, the surface temperatures we captured from Singapore and the greater regions is, you know, the temperature difference of up to seven degrees between urban areas and rural areas.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and the slide on the right changes to show a type of satellite image of Singapore entitled: Singapore Views]
A new model on the Maisel scale and the urban heat island effect. So, we used the Maisel scale model [14.50] and using over 24 hours average surface and air temperature over Singapore and clearly indicated there as in warmer areas in the urban areas but also colder areas in the rural areas.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and slides move through on the right showing an animation model of a city and text appears across the slide: Which strategies to choose?]
So, then we developed, we had a lot of strategies how to mitigate the urban heat island effect and we came up with more than 80 strategies regarding urban geometry, vegetation and water bodies, materials and surfaces, transport, and energy.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears showing a Mitigation Strategies booklet open page spread]
And altogether we summarised findings in a booklet and what was also designed by our colleagues from the Singapore ETH Centre, and then also distributed to government agencies but also citizens of Singapore and also the other researchers who were visiting last year in the Centre.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing various maps of Singapore and the text heading: Project Aims]
So, now our research focussed on not only the Maisel scale but also on the microscale which we selected with the agencies in Singapore to test science in the north east of urban Singapore and the south-west as well as the CBD where there is high-rise buildings and then the north-east in relation to this where it’s more residential areas.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing various development diagrams]
So, we used there the model [16.06] mat to model the microscale and to be translated in research outcomes then into design guidelines.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and slides move through on the right showing various building type diagrams with the text heading: Urban Form Geometry Scenarios, and Cast Studies Scenarios]
What can we see here? This is a project where we also, where we also with partners from Hong Kong we did similar studies there to provide the related agencies design guidelines how to construct and build the buildings.
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing a blue screen showing text: Future collaboration]
And for us it’s really important to reach out not only to Singaporeans but also to the National Research Community and we would like to really engage with Australia
[Image continues to show Conrad talking on the left and a new slide appears on the right showing the CS logo in the top right corner and text: Thank you! Dr Conrad Philipp, phillippAarch.ethz.ch]
and to find strategies for other tropical cities, or sub-tropical cities, and also down further to Sydney, and Melbourne, and Adelaide. And we’re very likely to collaborate in the future with you thinking about mitigation, adaptation strategies but as well as working on different modelling aspects but also including people in this process. That’s very important for us as well and thank you for your participation in my forum. My name’s Dr Conrad Philipp and I’m keen to get your feedback and comments in the near future.
[Image changes to show Guy inset talking on the left of the screen and a new slide appears on the right of the screen showing a photo of a walkway shaded by trees and text appears: From research into practice, Science of UHI’s has been settled for long time, Combination of heat mitigation and adaption, Multi-scale, integrated UHI responses are rare]
Guy Barnett: So, that was just a really, a really quick five minute example to say that we’re connecting with, we’re not in this alone. There’s are lots of others in other parts of the world that are tackling sort of similar issues and we’re building relationships and looking at leveraging off that work so that we’re not sort of re-inventing the wheel.
But the thing to say, I guess, and this question was raised before lunch is really, I think the challenge is going from research to practice. So, I think the science of sort of urban heat islands, a lot of this work has been settled for quite a long time. It’s not changing kind of greatly now. So, we have a lot of good knowledge. We kind of know what we need to do but it’s just slow in the uptake in terms of sort of getting action. And I think there’s also needs to be that reflection that Mat Santimouris was making around sort of combining heat mitigation and adaption.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left of the screen and the same slide can be seen on the right of the screen]
We won’t be able to kind of mitigate all the impacts and there, there will be an element of adaption that’s required as well. And I think the opportunity for Darwin which is really exciting is that idea of a multi-scale integrated approach to, to urban heat reduction. Those integrated responses across multiple scales are pretty rare in the projects that we’ve looked at and people will tackle one element and it’s an urban greening solution. But if you’ve got the ability to, to move three scales, think about people, the individuals and the choices that they make, and how heat kind of influences that. But also the decisions they can make around thermostat settings on sort of air conditioners and those sorts of things which all play a role through the buildings and how our buildings perform, which we heard from, from Mat.
Thinking about our streetscapes which links to some of the, the work we heard sort of earlier as well, how streetscapes fit into a broader neighbourhood context and then how those neighbourhoods kind of aggregate up into cities and how we experience cities. So, there are various strategies and things you can do all the way along that continuum there and there are various responsibilities as well from individuals to local government to Territory government and others that can play a part in that. And so, I think that’s really unique and I think that is sort of a world leading opportunity for Darwin to, to play in that space.
[Image continues to show Guy inset on the left talking and the slide on the right changes to show text on a blue screen: Lessons learnt that are informing the Darwin Living Lab and activities, Context, Integration, Engagement, Measurement, Scaling]
So, just to, to wrap up my talk I just wanted to tease out sort of I guess five lessons that, that I’ve learnt through looking at work from elsewhere that I think’s relevant and to informing the Darwin Living Lab and the types of activities that we undertake.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left of the screen and the slide on the right changes to show a photo of a park near apartment buildings and text appears: 1. Context is critical, Bespoke solutions rather than ‘cookie cutter’, as what works in other cities may not work in Darwin, Suitable for current and future climates, Reflect local cultural diversity and knowledge, Respond to geographical constraints/opportunities]
So, the first of those is what I said earlier, it’s not about re-inventing the wheel. Context is critical. So, it’s not just a cookie cutter approach and taking what others have done and applying it in Darwin. It’s really sort of bespoke solutions or tailored solutions that are specific to the current and future climates we’re, we’re going to experience here and we’ll hear a little bit more about that in a moment I think from, from Jude. They’re solutions that reflect the local cultural diversity and knowledge and solutions that respond to geographical constraints, opportunities, in this part of the world. So, context is key.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and the slide on the right changes to show pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and text heading and text: 2. Focus on integration, Across different spatial scales, knowledge domains, the urban delivery chain, stakeholders and sectors]
Integration is key too. So, I mentioned that earlier in terms of the different, you know, from individual through to city scale but it’s also thinking about, through integration, through time, and, and thinking about the urban delivery chain. So, planning, design, construction, the occupation phase, through to renewal processes. What are the opportunities through that, through, through time? And then having the different sectors and organisations involved as well with the community all coming together.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and the slide on the right changes to show people in conversation and text heading and text appears: 3. Strong Engagement, Cities are made up of multiple stakeholders, often with different values, beliefs, agendas and criteria]
And I guess related to that last point, it’s just really the need for strong engagement and reflecting that cities are made up of multiple stakeholders. There’s often different values that are, that are held, different beliefs, you know, different agendas and criteria that people are kind of seeking to achieve as well. So, it is a really complex space and often there’s contested kind of issues that we’re dealing with. And we need a really robust way for having, you know good conversations around the types of change and the types of projects that we’re, that we’re looking at.
So, it’s really about fostering diverse participation, shared understanding in the types of issues that we’re dealing with. We talk a lot in Living Labs about co-production of knowledge. We really need to work out, well what does that mean in practice. My view is it’s really about having sort of stakeholders who are active participants in projects. They’re not sort of recipients of a research product but actively involved all the way through the process.
And then the other aspect of engagement, I think, is really considering the equity considerations and exploring some of the societal impacts of the different pathways we, we, that maybe in front of us in the future. And I think we may hear a little about that later too, in terms of smart city technologies and sort of artificial intelligence.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and the slide on the right changes to show a photo of a fountain pen and a calculator and text appears: 4. Measuring change, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it?” Quote: Peter Drucker]
And the fourth lesson is just really around measuring change. So, you know, it’s a, quite an old, sort of quote. But if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it and we’ve never really been very good at measuring the performance of our cities at a scale that’s kind of meaningful to, to inform decision-making.
That’s starting to change with the explosion of data that’s available and that’s enabling a new wave of urban science that, empirical science that wasn’t possible even ten years ago. So, we’re, we’re seeing now rapid advance and better scale metrics for how we measure the performance of cities and a whole range of different dimensions. But there’s the challenge of then how you deal with that explosion of data and all the things that we can now start to measure can become quite overwhelming. So, it’s trying to work out what are the essential things that we need to measure. You know, rather than measuring 100 things, are there 12 key things, or eight key things that we can measure that explain, you know, 80 or 90% of what’s going on in a city? And then I think there’s a need to focus on the feedbacks. So, what are the types of things that we can measure that really reveal some of the systems dynamics and the complexity, in cities.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking on the left and the slide on the right changes to show a photo of a hand holding a small world globe and text appears: 5. Scaling for impact, Demonstrations are about de-risking and accelerating innovation and ‘moving to scale’]
And just the final slide and final point is really about the need to scale for impact with, with the work that we do. So, we talk about demonstrations and pilots. We talk about trying to de-risk innovation and accelerate the process of uptake of innovation and new ideas and then moving that to scale.
But that needs to be supported by what we call a strong theory of change.
So, that’s really starting with the impact that we’re seeking to achieve and almost working backwards from that. You know, what are the, what are the outcomes that would be required to deliver that impact? What outputs, you know, contributed to, to that outcome? What sort of activities are required to produce that type of output? And then what inputs are required in terms of the science and the contribution.
[Image continues to show Guy inset talking and the same slide can be seen on the right]
So, starting with the impact, I think’s really important. And in a way it’s where I was proposing, sort of, you know the research into practice, it’s thinking about the practice back into research link. It’s thinking about, you know, what’s, what’s required to deliver impact and how do we make sure we’re doing the right type of science and the right type of research to address those questions. So, that’s, that’s where I’ll leave it. Thank you.
[Image shows Guy inset smiling on the left and a new slide appears on the right: Thank You, Land and Water Co-ordinator, Future Cities Principal Research Consultant +16 26246 4380, guy.barnett@csiro.au, https://www.csiro.au/FutureCities]
[Audience applause can be heard and image changes to show a black screen and text appears: To find out more, visit research.csiro.au/darwinlivinglab]