Evolution: The Vertical Street. Evolving The City Through A Sustainable Way

Abstract

Future world climate conditions are expected to become more and more extreme. New scenarios characterize our future: Decrease of land above the sea level, extreme weather events and world population increase will necessarily lead us to re-think the concept of living habitat. Population density and outside living comfort becomes the main issue for most cities. New Zealand was a country known for its mild and maritime climate and green environment suitable for living, but this has changed through the years, especially in Auckland, the largest and most populous urban area in the country. The main reason is that the city’s population are increasing at an extreme rate, following the current trend; by 2031 there will be a total of one million more people in Auckland. The living comfort of Aucklander has been decreased because of this population growth and also that there is a large amount of Co2 emission due to heavy traffic all day long. The city is also suffering from the urban heat island effect, which is caused by home heating and low albedo materials used in most buildings in Auckland. The thesis will be researching and analysing the Auckland CBD as it is the area with highest density and will grow to an even higher rate until 2031. Lack of residential houses and service centres will become an issue. As Huge Byrd mentioned in his book, Energy climate buildings, it said that “energy has allowed architects to design buildings that can ignore natural ventilation, daylight and the sun’s energy by replacing them with artificial environment.” There will be a stage where demand exceeds supply. The thesis will be focusing on finding strategies to increase the outside human comfort and contributing to solve the housing shortage in Auckland through sustainable strategies in the CBD. Provide the city a high comfort, self-sufficient and energy plus building within the limited space in the city, which will be acting like a core, benefiting its surroundings making them become high comfort and low consume. Hopefully finding the best solution to bring back what Auckland is previously known to be, a liveable green city with living spaces available for anyone.