Editorial

Abstract

Increasing populations and urban living are increasing the number of new cities and regions being planned and designed for the twenty-first century and beyond. The Woven City being developed by Toyota in Japan takes its name from both its concept and design, with three types of streets interwovenwith each other on the ground level, one dedicated to automated driving, one to pedestrians and one to personal mobility vehicles. There will also be an underground road used to transport freight. The community is planned to start with around 360 residents, mainly senior citizens, families with young children and inventors and is planned to grow to a population of 2000 or more individuals, including Toyota employees. There will be a strong priority given to people’s health and well-being besides many measures will be planned which will make the city sustainable. Woven City is envisaged as a place where people live, work, and play in a real-world living laboratory, powered by a hydrogen fuel cell system. In Saudi Arabia, a city named Neom, on a much larger scale than the Woven City, is being constructed, aiming for completion in 2030. Both cities will use high technology of all kinds but also connect with Nature and claim to be places that will be good for people’s health and well-being. Will these cities be like an overcomplicated tasting menu with no depth of flavour or as intended bring deep sensory experiences to everyday living? Indy Johar, an innovative architect who set up Dark Matter Labs, on being interviewed in the Financial Times (November 5/6/ 2022) spoke about the need to reimagine our world from one in which reductionist logic has pervaded our mindsets to one which is much more about entanglements and interdependencies at philosophical, social, material, ethical, value or cost levels. Too often, we consider costs and ignore value. Too often, we work in silos blinkered to the enriching interconnections between things. With buildings and cities, it is the user which is key. The Syrian architect Marva Al-Sabouni states that – architecture is the only form of art that does not take its value from its makers, rather it takes it from its users (Royal Society of Arts Journal Issue 3 2020 page 41). With no apology, I return to the Grenfell tragedy in London in 2017 as I have just received the book Show me the Bodies: How we let Grenfell Happen by Pete Apps (OneWorld 2022). It will make an interesting read, I am sure. He concludes it is a story of corporate structures that allowed human beings to abandon their own conscience and sense of agency and to think only about sales and profit margins. This is a sad reflection and tragic outcome of how limited we can be in our everyday planning, design and construction but a chance to learn how never to let this happen again. Energy costs are uppermost in many minds as world events disturb the fuel markets, but energy choices are a major concern anyway, as all the COP Climate Change meetings show. There is an acceleration that is gathering pace towards renewable fuel economies but first howmuch energy do we use and also waste? Margaret Harris in an article Home, Green Home (Physics World November 2022) reveals that not just homes, but the keepers of our cathedrals too are considering their operating costs as well as playing their part in climate change after all they manage huge spaces with highly variable occupancies. Gloucester Cathedral was the first to install solar PV panels on its roof in 2016 and now Bath Abbey may do the same, having already used the heat from the Roman baths as a source for a geothermal heating system. The age of some 25.5 million UK homes means the housing stock brings immense problems: 76% are pre-1980 and 20% pre-1919. Half of it is poorly insulated and rates of upgrading homes have decreased since 2012 with poor incentives for homeowners to do so. The recent death of a child from oedema due to mould in a home was reported in the British Medical Journal (BMJ 2022:379:02794) and questioned the value of housing policies. So well-insulated homes are needed for energy and health reasons which makes it an urgent issue besides, it is often quoted that the UK has the most poorly insulated homes in