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Urban Design Issues
Milton Keynes, Thomas Smith-Keary, 14045700
"How can retrofitted transport infrastructre create innovative & vibrant social spaces for people that impacts positevley on local identity?"
Oslo
Introduction
As previously mentioned Oslo is considered to be one of the pioneering cities in Europe with regards to Biophilia, this case study seeks to explore how the city has managed to accomplish such high degrees of contact with nature?
Oslo is a reasonably small compact city, around 454 square kilometres in size with a population of around 570,00 (ignoring its suburbs). 94.3% of those peopple live within 300 metres of greenspace, or to put it another way, each person has 47 square metres of public greenspace to themselves (Beatley, undated)
Oslo's city council has its environmental policies combined into the "Green Plan" or Grontplan
for Oslo.This takes stock of Oslo's existing green credentials and qualities and sets out an ambitious future vision for further expanding and restoring nature into the city.
Walkability
A key element of a biophilic city is the increase of walkability and reduction of car usage, cars certainly exist but they ar emoderatley controlled, with ovver half the journeys under 5 kilometres are made by foot and 85% of children within the city get to school by walking, cycling and public transport.
Oslo is a very walkable city, part of its green success is network of trails, essentially nature walks. This in turn with the high degree of permeability for pedestrians to reach these areas without needing to use a car through walking, cycling or public transport, there are over 365 linear kilometres of such trails snaking around the city.
Oslo in the past decade has also rapidly increased its capacity for cycling as well, with over 1000 bicycle parking spaces added in recent years within the city centre along with a fleet of city bikes available for hire. This has been done alongside reducing the availability of parking for automobiles and large investment in cycling infrastructure involving specialised junctions and cycle lanes. The city still has a long way to go through, around 15% of trips are done by bicycle compared to Copenhagen's 40% (Beatley).
Forests and Greenery
Another element of Oslo's success is its compactness, between 2000 and 2009, the cities density as a whole increased by 22%, from 37 people per hectare to 42 people per hectare, this compactness allows more room for natural form and two-thirds of Oslo's municipal territories are either forest or lake which surround the city. Within these forests or marka, are 460 kilometres of cross-country ski trails within distance of the city limits, ina city wide survey more than half said they visited the neighbouring forests at least once every week (http://www.oslo.kommune.no), in urbanised areas around 20% of the city is considered public open space that often form direct green corridors from the fjords on one edge of the city all the way to the forest edge on the over side.
The Oslo Green plan also has a sectiond dedicated to reducing noise in certain parts of the city, creating quiet zones, half of these along the cities many river corridors allowing people greater comfort to relax and connect with nature through increased sensory experiance via sound, as they can actually hear natural form now.
Beatley (undated) highlights one element which Oslo is lacking in compared to other cities such as London and Copenhagen, and that is urban agriculture and the presence of allotments and community gardens. Tilling the land and harvesting fruit and vegetables is an important part of a biophilic city nevermind the benefits of food resilience
fig 70, map showing areas of greenery with Oslo, the green areas are dedicated areas of formal public green space , light brown areas are areas of formal green space but are used in ways other than public space, and red are areas of greenery but are informal. (Grontplan for Oslo, 2009)
fig 66, map showing Illustration of the Grontplans greenspace strategies, the light green shows areas of greenery, public parks etc, the dark green areas show the city controlled areas of forest marka, the orange lines are the footpaths connecting the various areas and, the blue are blueways (rivers & lakes etc.) (Grontplan for Oslo, 2009)
fig 67, riverside park in Oslo (http://www.plan-og-bygningsetaten.oslo.kommune.no/omradeutvikling_og_planer/kommunedelplaner/article251637-62187.html)
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