Towards a Volumetric Urbanism: Governing Underground & Vertical Space. Donald McNeill, Professor of Urban Geography, Western Sydney University

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1 Towards a Volumetric Urbanism: Governing Underground & Vertical Space Donald McNeill, Professor of Urban Geography, Western Sydney University

2 The calculated production of urban space Research is based on an Australian Research Council-funded Discovery grant ( ) undertaken with Prof Simon Marvin (Sheffield) and Dr Andrea Connor (WSU) Research problem: Governments are faced with the problem and possibilities of volume : the stacking and moving of more and more people and things above, across and below tightly defined, interlocking sites within booming central business districts. The skyscraper becomes a distraction from the real issue, which is the engineering, organization and enlivening of site-based spatial envelopes, based on various calculative expert practices.

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4 Three research axes Axis 1. Voluminous space and built environment practice: a genealogy of architectural and engineering approaches to volumetric spaces, identifying key cities, prototypes, firms, and movements, and the geographical shift from experimental status to commercialized design solutions. Axis 2: The financialisation of volume: an examination of financial metrics to sites and buildings, through a study of property development and investment practices. Axis 3: identifying the specialist procedures and products that are used to operationalize and resolve complex vertical, horizontal and transverse movement in built space; measuring, enabling and organizing mobility and capacity within volume.

5 Axis 1: Genealogies of volumetric spatial form Framing ground and surface Technologies of enclosure: the enduring power of the dome and the glasshouse Archigram and the metabolists: the modular city OMA and CCTV in China: the anti-skyscraper Parallel cities and modernist city-making

6 Urban theories: Framing ground From the Nolli diagram to aformal urbanism (Shelton et al; Solomon et al on Hong Kong) Analogous or parallel city, such as Montreal or Minneapolis; Where development was once limited by the pattern of land assembly, with the largest unit being the block, the new bridges and tunnels allow the extension of the filtered corporate cities over entire sectors of downtown. (Trevor Boddy) modernist megastructure (Banham; Koolhaas in SMLXL)

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8 Solomon et al, City Without Ground (2012)

9 Melbourne Central (Kurokawa 1991; remodelled by ARM 2002)

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11 The Interlace, Singapore (source:

12 Volume and the organisation of urban life Orientation: What is the new image of the city? Kinetics: the building interpreted through movement Metabolism: how the building envelope ingests and expels energy Thermal comfort: affects how often people enter and exit the envelope

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14 Axis 2: the financialisation of volume Building envelopes as capital storage, especially in safe haven context Spatial complexes: rail plus property; air rights; land value uplift through subterranean extrusion Financialised zoning tools: revenue capture districts; tax increment financing

15 The metrics of volume Financial: the FAR, the valuation: the need for better public understanding of the distribution of value across a site. Especially important in debates on affordable housing: poor doors, and locational advantage/disadvantage. Value uplift by provision of new public goods How do deal with capacity: the externalities of volume - the safety, comfort and efficiency

16 Volume and transport Not so much the last mile as the last 100 metres Elevators and escalators as public transport: should they be integrated with public transport smart cards? Tubes and shafts as thoroughfares Capacity metrics footfall, safety, temporality

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19 Axis 3: Technical practices and languages The interrogation of volumetric space requires the analysis of (at least) six distinct technical practices and languages: (i) legal understanding of property rights relating to mass and volume; (ii) engineering languages relating to human movement systems, from elevators to metro carriage capacity; (iii) architectural and design standards and styles; (iv) property development and its definition of lettable and nonlettable space; (v) governmental and jurisdictional claims to space, such as through underground railway corporations; (vi) maintenance and repair that may range from smart (such as sensor based) to disorganized.

20 Conclusions Urban practice can benefit from a vocabulary of volumetric urbanism, where the architecture and engineering of the spatial envelope is interpreted through a set of metrics and technical languages.

21 The challenge is to generate a fuller understanding of public value (rather than public space per se) This requires a wider public literacy of the nature of land value (including its extruded subterranean and airborne potential).