Achieving the objectives settled by the Paris Agreement requires meticulous monitoring strategic actions, which should evaluate the social and environmental sustainability, as well as economic viability sustainable neighbourhoods are tasked to address.
WOHA, a Singapore architect’s office, developed a set of five integrated indexes assessing the people friendliness and ecological performance of projects.These indexes are a good starting point for guiding planning efforts with indicators, benchmarks and objectives, and a re relatively easy to calculate at the design stage since they do not require expensive and time-consuming data gathering.
Integrated Indexes
Green Plot Ratio
This calculates the quantity of landscaped surfaces compared to a development’ site area. The measurement includes all new and preserved vegetation, vertical and horizontal landscaping, water features, lawn and trees, raised planters and urban farms.
A high Green Plot Ratio encourages biodiversity, reduces the urban heat island effect, provides shade and cooling, improves air quality, soften the harshness of the cityscape, restore wildlife habitats and reconnect people with nature.
Community Plot Ratio
Sustainable neighbourhoods should encourage human socialisation and facilitate gatherings.This ratio quantifies the community space allocated with a development’ site area and compares it to the site area. This measurement assesses the surface area of socially interactive space accessible. It includes public areas, semi-private communal spaces, care centres, libraries, restaurant, cafés and community centres. A high Community Plot Ratio fosters human scale, convenience and inclusivity; it is crucial to the success of people integration.
Civic Generosity Index
Civic Generosity Index is the extent to which a development encourages and facilitates the public life of a neighbourhood. The index quantifies the value of a development public attributes such as urban connections, shared relaxation areas, sheltered walkways, gardens and artworks. There are five criteria to consider for reaching 100% of the Civic Generosity Index; ground-level shelter, services and amenities; ground-level accessibility and activity; visual pleasure provided by horizontal and vertical landscaping; public access to spaces and facilities with buildings; spatial engagement and connection with urban network.
Ecosystem Contribution Index
This index establishes how much a development supplements a city’s biosphere by rating a development’s capacity to maintain connections between natural habitats. Its ambition is to provide food, water and shelter for local wildlife and settings for native plants.
Reaching an Ecosystems Contribution Index of 100% means that a development offers diverse and interconnected habitat that operates as a wildlife sanctuary within a wider network of similar environments in which the natural food chain is maintained with the protection and nurturing of rare species.
Self-sufficiency Index
Sustainable neighbourhoods must aim at achieving a high level of self-sufficiency that should generate as much energy as they consume, and preferably more to compensate for embedded energy in their consumption. As such, this index measures a development’s capacity to provide its energy, food and water compared to its intake. This involves a twofold approach: reducing the resources demands and increasing the local supply.