This interesting event took place last night in BJ (the last in the current series; series might continue later this year) with 2 speakers: 1 from Tsinghua on the design of the Olympic Park and 1 from Greenlink Kusters on Sustainable landscape design. A few notes follow:

-The Olympic park is very environmentally friendly and environmentally sustainable with very careful thought to water flows (e.g. rain water harvesting, drainage, permeable road services) , biodiversity (selection of local flora, natural noise cancellation), maintenance etc.

-Often pretty is un natural and most environmentally sustainable options are often ‘ugly’ or ‘random’; neither of whcih we tend to want nowadays

-Lawn is often a bad choice and wild grasses of flora (un-cut) is better. Are our environmental spaces designed for human pleasure or for maximum benefit to nature?

-Rain water often drains into sewers, but better to direct rain water into green araeas alongside roads depending on dirtiness of water

-Paving with gaps for grass is better than solid paving, especially for water flows… connected to this is how we thin and how we find ways not to restrict nature’s many services that it provides us (now quite well understood by scientists)?

-We also need less/smaller sewer pipes if we design cities well which reduces materials and labour costs! We need to think like, and copy, nature; e.g. meandering rivers/canals are better than straight ones as slow down water flows, increase absorption etc. Storm water management is crucial, especially in Beijing…not just to manage excess water but to store and use it.

-Green roofs (i.e. a garden on a roof) have many ecological and economical benefits to filter water, create biodiversity, improve air quality, insulate, protect a building that is exposed to sun, provide recreation space etc.Can use old bricks (i.e. recycle) or new (broken) bricks and crush them to use as soil substrate.

-If construction companies are running out of money, they will buy cheap products/services that are temporary/low quality and then get more money (i.e. from increase in asset value) to replace in 5 yrs. But as energy prices, labour and maintenance costs increase =incentive to get right 1st time.