Human Settlements and Urban Issues

Since 2014, Chile’s Ministry of Environment has focused on three objectives: identifying and addressing the climate effects of air pollution; taking a leading role on addressing short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs); and working to integrate these two concepts at both the local and global level.

One November afternoon, the Portland City Council chambers were filled with men and women in suits, serious and practical. Standing out in the crowd were two middle school girls, poised but nervous. One of them, 12-yearold Isabel, walked to the testimony table and spoke: “If we don’t take action now, we will never grasp the opportunity to stop climate change. This is our future.”

In homes and workplaces, schools and hospitals, technologies such as boilers and air-conditioners consume vast amounts of energy. Indeed, half the energy buildings use is for heating and cooling and most of this comes from fossil fuels, burned in buildings’ individual boilers and in power plants on the outskirts of our cities. Citizens, cities and countries are starting to take real action to move away from this status quo to more sustainable solutions, and this monumental shift is cutting greenhouse gas emissions, cleaning our air, saving money and reducing energy imports.

I recently visited one of China's eco-cities, and was impressed by its highly efficient buildings and use of renewable energy for street lighting. However, this newly built city is struggling to attract people, largely due to lack of accessibility to public transport and its distance from jobs. The city’s urban planner told me that the isolation of this “eco-enclave” could have been avoided if a more holistic approach had been taken early in the planning stage, including considering various aspects of land management, urban services, connectivity, and jobs.

Oxford County is a sleepy little farming county in the agricultural heart of southwestern Ontario, Canada. Some 4,000 km away, San Diego is a Californian metropolis of 1.4 million dubbed the “City of Villages” for its many distinct communities. Across the Atlantic, Osnabrück, Germany is home to a Volkswagen car plant and known as the “City of Peace” for its role in ending the 17th century Thirty Years' War.

Cities are innovation hubs. They provide the setting, the stimulus and the substance for people to come together and exchange and develop new ideas. Cultural diversity, universities, informal meeting places and key pressure points spur the investigation into new approaches. Access to capital and shorter decision-making processes help the best of them become a reality. In this way, cities have spawned so many new trends.

Maskbook is an artistic initiative which invites people to take an ordinary dust or pollution mask and transform it from a symbol of fear into a symbol of hope. Chinese artist and photographer Wen Fang gave the initiative its name: “In China, since we all wear masks to protect us against the pollution, we say that Facebook for us should be renamed Maskbook.”

In recent decades there has been an unprecedented increase in the proportion and number of people living in urban environments. In 2014, 54 per cent of the world's people were urban dwellers, compared to 34 per cent in 1960. This trend is expected to continue, while the global population is predicted to grow from 6.1 billion in 2000 to 9.7 billion in 2050, and the size of the urban area expected to triple within the next two decades. It is clear that cities are where our future is going to be decided. This places a large burden of responsibility on us, as administrators and decision-makers looking at how we shape our cities now and in the future.

Habitat III, the Third International Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, offers the world an exceptional opportunity to rethink the sustainability of our urban model. It is largely recognized that cities have become the main driver of economic development. Yet an analysis of the urbanization of the last two decades reveals that current urban practices are unsustainable: our cities consume 78 per cent of the world’s energy, produce more than half of all greenhouse gas emissions and consume much more land than is needed, with consequent environmental impacts.

Melbourne has just been named the World’s Most Liveable City for the sixth consecutive year. Naturally I am tremendously proud of that, but such an accolade cannot be achieved without a strong focus on sustainability. For liveability and sustainability are intrinsically linked. In particular, we do much to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Take our international award-winning Urban Landscapes Adaptation Program, concentrating on trees, water and green open space.

Europe, Africa and Latin America now each have roughly half a billion people living in cities. In Asia, there are two billion city-dwellers. Very soon, two-thirds of the global population will be urban.

In combatting climate change, society must pull hard on two planet-size levers: reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing carbon sequestration. Many economic sectors can mitigate climate change only through the first of those, but with forests we can work both levers at once. We can—and indeed must— simultaneously reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and maintain or increase the carbon captured by forests. This is the promise of forests in combatting climate change.

L’idée primordiale du patrimoine mondial est de faire en sorte que les lieux les plus emblématiques et les plus précieux pour l’humanité survivent à toutes les crises, et soient conservés de génération en génération. Aujourd’hui, nous sommes confrontés à une crise environnementale sans précédent dans l’histoire de l’humanité : le changement climatique.

Una idea central del Patrimonio Mundial es asegurar que los lugares más emblemáticos y valiosos para la humanidad sobrevivan a todas las crisis y se conserven a través de las generaciones. Hoy en día nos enfrentamos a lo que quizá sea nuestro mayor desafío, una crisis medioambiental sin precedentes en la historia de la humanidad, y en su centro está el cambio climático.

A new publication Visitors Count! has been launched to help assess the value of tourism in protected areas. This set of guidelines, published by UNESCO and the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), puts forward a standard methodology for evaluating the impact of protected areas on the local economy.

The World Heritage Committee, during its 44th session from 16 to 31 July 2021, decided to remove Salonga National Park (Democratic Republic of the Congo) from the List of World Heritage in Danger because of improvements in its state of conservation.

El texto de la Convención del Patrimonio Mundial no se ha revisado desde 1972. Sin embargo, el marco, los mecanismos y los instrumentos asociados han evolucionado y siguen desarrollándose en respuesta a las cuestiones que afectan al Valor Universal Excepcional de los sitios del Patrimonio Mundial.

El Comité del Patrimonio Mundial, durante su 44ª reunión, del 16 al 31 de julio de 2021, decidió retirar de la Lista del Patrimonio Mundial en Peligro al Parque Nacional de Salonga (República Democrática del Congo) gracias a las mejoras en su estado de conservación.

We are living at a time when we need to act decisively to produce global agreements on sustainability, social inclusion and poverty reduction, climate resilience and the conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity. From a global perspective, the prevailing trajectories of economic growth have put at risk the survival of at least two of the systems that sustain human well-being on the planet: climate and biological diversity. There is a clear scientific consensus (IPCC 2021, 2018; IPBES 2019) that indicates an alarming planetary risk due to the deterioration of these two systems and points to human activity as the main factor responsible.

En los últimos años, el sudeste asiático -una región que alberga 42 sitios del Patrimonio Mundial en nueve de once paíes y que contiene numerosos bienes del patrimonio natural y cultural de incalculable valor- ha sufrido cada vez más peligros naturales sin precedentes, acelerados por las turbulencias climáticas y las acciones provocadas por el hombre.

Une nouvelle publication intitulée Visitors Count! a été lancée pour aider à évaluer la valeur du tourisme dans les zones protégées. Ces lignes directrices publiées par l’UNESCO et la Bundesamt für Naturschutz, BfN) (l’Agence fédérale allemande pour la conservation de la nature – BfN –) proposent une méthodologie standard pour évaluer l’impact des zones protégées sur l’économie locale.

Le texte de la Convention du patrimoine mondial n’a pas été révisé depuis 1972. Le cadre, les mécanismes et les instruments associés ont cependant évolué et continuent de se développer en réponse aux questions touchant à la valeur universelle exceptionnelle des biens du patrimoine mondial.

Durante su 44ª reunión ampliada, que se celebró en línea presidida por China desde Fuzhou, el Comité del Patrimonio Mundial examinó las candidaturas presentadas en 2020, año en que la reunión no pudo celebrarse debido a la pandemia del COVID-19, y en 2021.

During its extended 44th session, held online and chaired by China from Fuzhou from 16 to 31 July 2021, the World Heritage Committee examined nominations submitted in 2020, when the session had to be postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2021.

Agir comme s’il était impossible d’échouer. Ce pourrait être le mantra de l’artiste kényane Thandiwe Muriu. C’est l’un des proverbes africains dont elle a assorti chacune des photos qui composent sa série Camo (pour camouflage). Une manière pour cette photographe originaire de Nairobi d’ajouter une dimension à ses images et de les faire dialoguer avec la mémoire collective de son pays.

Born in the Mexican state of Veracruz, the poet Judith Santopietro now lives between her homeland and the United States. The experience of migration, a core element in her personal history, is central to her work. It is also key to the writing workshops she runs for migrant women living in the United States. Written in Spanish, her mother tongue, her texts borrow from Nahuatl, Quechua and Aymara, not only in sound but also in their vision of the world. She has published Palabras de Agua (2010) [Words of Water] and Tiawanaku. Poemas de la madre Coqa [Tiawanaku. Poems from the Mother Coqa] (2019).

In the Austrian capital, green roofs have been flourishing on the tops of buildings for years, acting as islands of coolness on hot days and helping to reduce carbon emissions.

Муссонные дожди, обрушившиеся на юг Пакистана в 2022 году, лишили крова многих местных жителей. По проекту архитектора с мировым именем Ясмин Лари, которая черпает вдохновение в традиционных постройках, для них были возведены новые дома из глины и бамбука, способные устоять во время наводнений и землетрясений.

Gran consumidor de energía, el sector de la construcción representa por sí solo el 39% de las emisiones mundiales de CO2. Para llegar a ser ecorresponsable, el sector está condenado a reinventarse. El uso de tecnologías innovadoras, la introducción del reciclaje en el ámbito de la construcción, la utilización de materiales naturales o el empleo de técnicas adaptadas a los climas locales son algunas de las vías a explorar para conseguir una arquitectura más sostenible.

Может ли солевой рассол — основной отход опреснительных заводов — стать альтернативой цементу? На это надеется архитектор из Дубая Ваэль Аль Авар, выступающий за экологически ответственную архитектуру.

Act as if it is impossible to fail could be the mantra of Thandiwe Muriu. It is one of the African proverbs that she has matched to her photos in the series Camo (for “camouflage”); in this way the Nairobi-born photographer adds a dimension to her images, creating a dialogue with the collective memory of her country.

في العاصمة النّمساوية، تزدهر الأسطح الخضراء منذ سنوات فوق قمم المباني. ولكونها جزيراتُ برودة منعشة حقيّقيّة، فهي تساعد على الحدّ من انبعاثات الكربون في أيّام الحرّ.

На строительную отрасль, известную своей высокой энергоемкостью, приходится до 39 % мировых выбросов CO2. Чтобы минимизировать ее воздействие на экологию, требуется полностью пересмотреть подход к строительству. Новые технологии, повторное использование зданий, а также применение натуральных материалов и учитывающих местный климат методов строительства могут помочь сделать архитектуру более устойчивой.

Лауреат Притцкеровской премии китайский архитектор Ван Шу сочетает приемы и принципы традиционного китайского зодчества со строительством из переработанных материалов. В своем архитектурном бюро Amateur Architecture Studio он стремится проектировать дома, которые идеально гармонируют с окружающей средой.

Dans la capitale autrichienne, les toits végétalisés fleurissent depuis des années au sommet des immeubles. Véritables îlots de fraîcheur pendant les journées chaudes, ils contribuent à réduire les émissions de carbone.

من المنازل المصمّمة بتّقنيّة الطباعة ثلاثيّة الأبعاد، إلى ناطحات السّحاب جاهزة الصنع، مرورا باستّخدام التّوأم الرقمي، توفّر التّكنولوجيّا المتّطوّرة عديد الحلول للبناء بأقلّ التّّكاليّف مع الحدّ من التّأثيّر على البيّئة.

La reconversión es siempre más sostenible que la demolición. En arquitectura, el enfoque tectónico permite una rehabilitación de los edificios respetando la estructura original, al mismo tiempo que se tienen en cuenta las necesidades de los ocupantes y se mejora el rendimiento energético.

أدّت الأمطار الطوفانيّة التّي ضربت جنوب باكستّان في عام 2022 إلى هدم عدد كبيّر من أسقف المنازل. وقد بادرت المهندسة المعمارية الشهيّرة عالميًّا، ياسميّن لاري، إلى تصميّم منازل جديدة مستّلهمة من البنايات التّقليّدية المصنوعة من الطّيّن والخيّزران والقادرة على مقاومة الفيّضانات والزّلازل.

Could brine waste from seawater desalination plants offer an alternative to cement? This solution is put forward by Wale Al Awar who advocates for eco-responsible architecture.

Au large de l’île sénégalaise de Gorée, symbole de l’esclavage, des chercheurs africains sondent les fonds marins pour établir une cartographie des épaves de navires négriers. L’idée n’est pas seulement de documenter l’histoire de la traite transatlantique mais aussi de l’aborder autrement.

Sénamé Koffi Agbodjinou is a Togolese architect and anthropologist. To help residents think about and build the intelligent, sustainable city of his dreams, he has created L’Africaine d’architecture, a platform for research and experimentation open to everyone. Through his projects, he advocates for a city inspired by traditional African habitats that fit into their environment and use local resources.

لتّكون مدينة الغد مستّدامة، يجب أن تكون أكثر عدلاً وأكثر حفاوة. تلك هي قناعة نيّاشا هاربر-ميّشون، المهندسة المعمارية المقيّمة في هولندا، والتّي تحاول بثّ أفكارها بيّن الفاعليّن في مجال البناء ولدى المهندسيّن المعمارييّن الشبان، لا سيّما عبر الشبكات الاجتّماعيّة.

Поэтесса Джудит Сантопьетро родилась в Мексике, в штате Веракрус, и сегодня часть времени проводит в Соединенных Штатах, а часть — у себя на родине. Опыт эмиграции, оказавший существенное влияние на ее жизнь, занимает центральное место в ее творчестве. Он же является отправной точкой на занятиях по писательскому мастерству, которые она проводит для женщин-мигрантов в США. Для ее собственных произведений, которые она пишет на родном испанском языке, характерны особое звучание и видение мира, заимствованные поэтессой из индейских языков науатль, кечуа и аймара. На данный момент опубликовано два сборника ее стихов: Palabras de Agua («Слова воды», 2010) и Tiawanaku. Poemas de la madre Coqa («Тиауанако. Стихотворения матушки Кока», 2019).

El reinado del cemento ha tenido tendencia a eclipsar los méritos históricos de la arquitectura tradicional. Desde hace algunos años, los arquitectos más visionarios recurren a conocimientos ancestrales para concebir edificios que resistan naturalmente al cambio climático.

Чтобы быть устойчивым, город будущего должен стать более справедливым и инклюзивным. В этом уверена архитектор Ньяша Харпер-Мишон из Нидерландов. Она стремится донести свои идеи до представителей строительной отрасли и молодых архитекторов, в том числе через социальные сети.

كادت هيّمنة الاستّعمال الشامل للإسمنت في البناء أن تنسيّنا مزايا المعمار المحلي الأصلي. ومنذ بضع سنوات، أصبح المهندسون المعماريون ذوو النظرة الاستّشرافيّة يلجأون إلى الخبرات التّّقليّدية لتّصميّم المباني القادرة، بطبيّعتّها، على مقاومة التّغيّّر المناخي.

From 3D-printed houses to prefabricated skyscrapers and the use of digital twins, cutting-edge technology holds promises for building at a lower cost and in a more sustainable manner.