A Conversation with Raffie and Chris

Chris Choa and Raffie Samach have worked together on urban design projects in the vast swath of territory from Dubai, to Mumbai, to Shanghai and most of the Asian Pacific that is currently the scene of unprecedented population growth and urbanization. While Chris comes at urban design from the planning angle, Raffie approaches it from the architecture viewpoint. Here they reflect on some of their experiences with integrated urban design, how developed economies have lessons to learn from emerging economies, and why AECOM has an important responsibility.

Emerging economies

Chris: I think that specifically with urban design we can make a distinction between mature economies and emerging economies. To a certain extent, the combination of architecture and planning exists in both. In mature contexts, it is much more about working with stakeholders, an incremental process spread out over a long period of time. In the emerging world, specifically in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Brazil, India, China, the pressures of urbanization, demographics, and inward investment create very large projects that are very design rich, and the combination of planning, architecture and landscape all done at once with economics to create a vision for a large area is very important. It's unique to this period of time. It hasn't happened in so many places and at such a large scale in history.

Raffie: It becomes even more pertinent the more challenging the site is. When you have to add infrastructure, the ability to have checks and balances between disciplines at a real-time basis is remarkable because otherwise, traditionally, it's a step by step process that takes a long time and in which each team spends a lot of time either trying to figure out or to disprove the validity of the previous effort. I've been on that side of the fence too many times. But when you plan, design and engineer simultaneously, you have an ability to bring the truism to that workshop teaming opportunity and evaluate an enormous amount of data, which is what these efforts require, in a more expeditious way resulting in richer solutions that are more meaningful.

Chris: At least five different projects come to mind that illustrate what we're talking about. We worked together on Rawabi — the first new town in Palestine — where the goal is to create not simply housing but a middle class. By creating an encouraging and structured environment, we can create stakeholders, and stakeholders will think very differently about the world than if they don't have property. That's a very interesting component of our work, a byproduct of the technical work that we do. In Damascus, Syria, we're integrating modern, large-scale retail into the very delicate historical fabric of the oldest continuously inhabited city on the planet. In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, we have produced a masterplan to convert an unplanned settlement suffering from lack of infrastructure into a new urban quarter. We're taking on similar efforts in Amman, Jordon. These projects are around 100-150 hectares each, affecting upwards of 100,000 people. In Qatar, we're working on a huge educational initiative sponsored by the Qatar Foundation, and they're trying to become an educational center not just for the Gulf but for the whole Middle East. Qatar is a tiny place, but the nearby population of the Middle East is over 300 million people within an easy hour or two hour flight distance and many more just beyond in India or Pakistan.

Raffie: I think what's fascinating about what's happened is that in the Middle East, many enlightened developers and leaders have learned some of the lessons of the follies that occurred in Dubai primarily about 8-10 years ago, when projects were being selected and awarded purely for their patterning and their 'wow' factor, and that probably extended itself until much more recently and has a lot to do with the current state of Dubai. Emirates like Abu Dhabi, who always considered themselves much more mature and much more cautious than Dubai, or Qatar, or the Saudis and the Chinese are now taking a much more mature attitude toward planning, toward zero-carbon, toward urbanism in a considerably more enlightened way than we are practicing here in the U.S. It's quite humbling.

Sustainability

Chris: Sustainability is a very broad topic; the term tends to be overused and has lost a lot of its meaning. In the broad sense, it's a combination of social vibrancy, environmental sustainability, and economic vitality. There are five major characteristics that need to be advanced at the same time in physical terms to have true sustainability: high density, mix of uses, connectivity, relationship to open space and hinterland, and delivery. This is true in the Middle East, but this is true anywhere in the world where you do large-scale development. Without high density you don't have the leverage to do just about anything else. When you energize a high-density area with a mix of uses and you create a 24-hour environment, you create the underpinnings of an extraordinary economic and social machine. Connectivity means mass transit, roads intelligently laid out, integration between neighborhoods to create an overall coherent fabric. If you live in a dense environment, the promise is that you have access to everybody and everything, but you also need to have the relief — the exposure to the natural environment, whether that's internal in a park or external in an agricultural area or coastal waterways. Finally, unless there is a clear path forward to implement the vision, you often can't make any progress — that's where program management and downstream technical design skills are very important.

Raffie: One of the factors that we deal with in the Middle East more so than elsewhere is the fundamental shortage of water, and obviously heat. Much of the water in the Emirates is already desalinated. They don't have a problem spending an enormous amount of energy to desalinate the water. Elsewhere water is remarkably precious. We face the need to design something with that sensitivity from the outset, and how you landscape it and create a density at which you're able to preserve the water, and working with clients to educate them in terms of recycling water, which is enormously challenging from a cultural perspective. Another thing we stress is the decreased dependency on cars and the promotion of alternative transportation modes — public transportation, walking. These are all things that stand in direct conflict to notions of progress that they've inherited from the West and want to emulate. So part of our responsibility, and something with which I think we've done very well, is to introduce these concepts of responsible density and water conservation and a greater respect to the planet. The projects that stand out are the ones in which we've been able to educate the client to the value of what they have and to the sensitivity of what their local conditions require. That takes time, and that takes very concerted effort.

Cities of the future – cities of the past

Chris: Inexpensive energy has allowed people to decouple aspects of life that normally are closely connected. You can live in one place; you can work in another place; you can go to school in a third place; you can have recreation in a fourth place; and what separates everything is the car and the road. We are learning the hard way that this decoupling, not just in the emerging world but everywhere, is very alienating. The most progressive communities, the most forward-looking, even the most high-tech, are trying to reintegrate functions that have been decoupled over the last forty to fifty years. The successful city of the future, in any climate, in any economy, is going to look very much like the preindustrial city of the past. You have to be in a position where you're not lecturing anybody about the evils of any particular piece of technology, but you have to emphasize human truths. The secret of good urban design is that people are not attracted to nice architecture; people are not attracted to beautiful parks; people are not attracted to fantastic roads. The secret of urban design is that people are attracted to people.

Raffie: People vote with their feet. They gravitate to places that make them feel good, and while I clearly agree about the importance of great urban spaces, I know that people also react to great architecture. These are the buildings that respond to the local cultural conditions, that talk about time and place, that express the public's view of themselves and their place in the global community. These are the buildings that become the logos of cities, the symbols of pride in place, and their importance should not be underestimated. However, great cities balance these important object or landmark buildings with background or tissue buildings. That balance is part of the magic of great cities, and all these buildings, without exception, require architectural rigor and a great deal of design effort and responsibility to be worthy insertions into the urban fabric.

AECOM

Raffie: As an architect who always thought that he could plan, I've come, after working with Chris and his team, to appreciate the balance that planners bring and the dynamic that then occurs, the synergy between planning, economics, architecture, and infrastructure. When they're done at a real-time basis and can check each other, they really have the ability to produce something much more meaningful, much more doable, in a much more expeditious way.

Chris: The only reason to have a very large comprehensive service firm is to be able to take on very large comprehensive projects. The evolution of the urban world is a big idea and very well matched to our capabilities and aspirations. There are very few firms who can analyze and deliver at that scale.

Raffie: This is a particular marketplace where clients gladly look for a single consultant team as a point of leadership that can't afford to do the traditional finger-pointing and is accountable for everything. The strength to do megaprojects is built from the ability to do smaller projects, so they are not in conflict with each other.

Chris: As a firm or professional develops, you go from small to large, from local to international. At some point, the international gives back to the local and is informed by the local. You have to work at both scales. The ability to do good international work allows you to do more powerful local work.

Jake Herson