These are some COOL ideas. But I imagine the most impactful, and one of the easier to implement ideas is green roofs, whether they can be turned into little parks, or be covered in wildflowers to support the bee population, there's an abundance of "land" if you start to green your cities' roofs.
@@angelomallanao7594 in Germany all flat car garage roofs have to be planted. Since 20+ years. No problem there, but we also don't use thick earth, only couple centimetres so only dry loving plants survive as the earth can't store much water and you don't want to water your garage roof daily. Then again, in Germany you pay X EUR per square meter of your ground that is covered for Rainwater. The more water can seep away the less you pay. So you try already to have everything green :D
I’ve lived all of my 15 years here in Toronto, and the green roof initiative is actually making quite a big difference downtown, especially in the summertime when it’s over 100° and humid as hell. That’s one thing you didn’t mention in the video, and that’s how we cool or buildings inside. Many years ago the city initiated eight deep cold water project, whereby they sunk massive intake pipes, to sit at the bottom of Lake Ontario, which is then circulated throughout several of the skyscrapers downtown, to cool them down naturally, saving millions in electrical costs, not to mention helping to save the environment. It works really well, as more and more skyscrapers take it vantage of this cold water, it’s one of the many advantages of living on the shores of the Great Lakes. The one thing that struck me when I went to Manhattan for the first time was how much hotter it was specifically inside the city itself, and how much cooler it was as soon as you drove over the bridge to the Jersey side, which is a much cooler. I hadn’t really realized how much heat the city can attract. There’s no way to compare Manhattan to Toronto, but I never found or downtown extraordinarily hotter than the rest of the city/province, but I do know that the further north you go the harder it gets, but if you live near the lake or write on it as I do, the temperatures are always much cooler, saving me a fortune and electricity bills. I’m just wondering if any other cities have used this technology to cool their buildings as well? Lake Ontario is not a warm body of water, even on the hottest of Somers, we’re lucky if the shallow areas get to about 20°C, but the bottom of the lake is always freezing cold, allowing us to naturally cool are buildings via a series of pumps and controls. I have noticed however that has are in sane growth spurt continues, as we add dozens of new towers to work skyline each year, the city is getting hotter, so I’m hoping these technologies can help avoid living in stagnant air mass. So many of our streets are completely wall-to-wall skyscrapers for as far as you can see creating natural wind tunnels, but again, something that helps keep the city cool, especially if the wind is blowing off the lake. We are on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, so the further north you travel away from the downtown core the hotter it gets, but with seas hundreds of new skyscrapers that have been built since this craze began in 2005, The problem is getting worse and worse, and there are still hundreds of towers either under construction, propose for construction, or approved and waiting to start construction. I estimate the average tower here to be approximately 150 to 200 m tall, but, the latest craze is towers over 250 m, with four in the works Well over 300 m, so it’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few decades. If you’re not familiar with Toronto, the city has undergone a complete transformation to such a degree that even I have a hard time recognizing my own city from the waterfront, the only thing that gives it away is the CN Tower, But if the trends continue unabated, we won’t even be able to see the CN Tower for much longer, as it’s already surrounded by condominium towers nearly 300 m tall. The city is building so many skyscrapers, you simply wouldn’t believe it, take a picture of our skyline from 2005, When this building boom began, and compare it to a picture of a skyline today, you wouldn’t believe the difference, it literally looks like a completely different city. A local newspaper, just for fun, took a picture of our current skyline and digitally erased the CN Tower from it to see if anybody could recognize what city it was, the results? They asked 5000 Torontonians we’ve lived here their entire lives to identify the CD in the picture, 90% of those asked had no idea what city it was, they couldn’t believe it was Toronto, until they show them the picture with the CN Tower, that’s how much we’ve grown, and it just gets busier and busier each year, I can only imagine how it will look in another 30 years
Create a need for public transport, provide good public transport, narrow roads or remove them completely in some zones, heavily line the remaining streets with trees with large foliage and canopies and you will remove a ton of black asphalt. Also, increase density and design a cities with increased walkabillity to decrease the need of cars. Cars should only really be needed if you want to travel distances of over 10 miles or even more if public transport is appropriate. Also, tall buildings (for increased density) create shade at ground level to an extent and tal buildings can have natural ventilation at higher levels so no more energy used for ACs. If people were to implement that in cities, it would decrease a lot of carbon emissions and reduce the heat island effect. Just as a bonus, removed roads mentioned earlier can be transformed in long narrow parkways, heck throw a ditch and create a stream if you have a natural river nearby to divert water.
Main roads will still exist and the usual distance from a street is mainly one block. You can deliver goods in carts that fit on sidewalks (motorized or pushed/pulled by hand) like in walk-only areas with shops or restaurants.
Tall buildings (skyscrapers) almost certainly contribute more in heat effect than they do in cooling from their shadows. If one side of a building is generating a shadow, the other side is receiving sun, of course, so overall the building heats up from the sun. They do need to be air conditioned because their windows are almost always fixed closed. Tall buildings slow and block breezes that would ordinarily cool the streets and flush out car exhaust. Their glass and metal facades are poor insulators, which means they lose heat to the surrounding air whenever the building is warmer than the air (e.g. night, winter). Glass and metal are both frequently highly reflective, which sends the radiation back out to the street where it heats the surroundings. A glass and metal facade also sheds water very quickly, much quicker than stone or brick or wood, which are all absorptive to varying degrees. Thus, rain water drains away through a storm sewer instead of evaporating and cooling the surroundings. All too often big buildings discharge hot air at or near street level, either from air conditioners or other equipment installed in the basement.
Wonderful ideas, would be very useful for urban and industrial centres around the equator. Cities like Lagos (Nigeria), Dhaka (Bangladesh) and Sao - Paulo (Brazil) could benefit from similar initiatives
You guys should do a Video on Manchester UK. The amount of towers in planning or under construction is absurd for a city in Northern England. The skyline is already starting to change and in 10 years time it will be unrecognisable. I think it would make for an interesting vid, but I'm sure you have some good content lined up regardless. Cheers.
It's not a conspiracy theory, and even if it was what is wrong with creating a more sustainable world to live in? Do you think we can keep extracting oil and sprawling our cities indefinitely?
Great video! One of the issues you didn't mention is how aircon warms up the surrounding area - meaning buildings need to use even more aircon which just accelerates the problem. I did a video (check out "Aliens and Aircon") on my channel that covers and alternative cooling system being used in Australia. It's super cool! Thanks!
I like the idea of cooling towers. They could be even taken a step further, by making them absorb CO2. The technology is already here. We should fill our cities with these cooling/absorbing towers.
I'm amazed that more people aren't talking about Masdar given how innovative and effective it is. I've been waiting years for reputable sources to make good-quality documentaries about it! Still waiting...
The B1M LOL Sorry! I guess I didn't communicate that very well! I meant that I'm still waiting for someone (e.g. the BBC) to make an in-depth documentary solely about Masdar, exploring every single one of its facets. As always, this was another great video from you. I'm so glad I happened upon your channel :)
Hahaha, don't worry we know what you meant. Just winding you up :-) It does need more coverage - rumour is that its not been as successful as they thought it might be, so could make for an interesting doco. Thanks so much for watching and subscribing, and for the great feedback on channel - we LOVE our viewers!!
Great shout! We have this video on Mexico City's "earthquake proof" skyscraper in the meantime: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MjKXuaPPK24.html
Misters! You need to install misters. At least in dry climates like Arabian deserts, misters work wonders. Misters introduce water which evaporates. Evaporation causes cooling. Trees and grass and other plants also increase evaporation, which is why they are so good at cooling the environment around them even though they are often colored dark green. Of course adding CO2 to the air also makes plants healthier. Healthier plants grow bigger, causing more local cooling. Buildings also need to be designed to exhaust their hot air (e.g. from air conditioners) at the top of the building, not near street level. The sooner we convert to electric vehicles in city centers, the faster we can cool them down. Over half the energy in gasoline or diesel is wasted as heat discharged through the radiator and the exhaust. EVs introduce a far lower heat load at the street level.
PUT THE TREES BACK! A mature tree holds 400 gallons of water in their trunk and foliage and can cool their surroundings by 2 degrees. They even take Carbon Dioxide out of the atmosphere and give us Oxygen to breathe. Or you can cut them down and make a piece of furniture and watch as the sea levels rise. How many trees have been cut down so far one million? one billion? one trillion?
TheNewfineart Where I live we have regulations for cutting down trees. For every tree cut, 4 seeds and 1 sapling have to be placed. Now I can’t speak for other countries, provinces, states, etc. But we’re doing just fine. It’s all about being sustainable.
Braeden Griffiths, that is a good idea to ensure that trees are at least being replaced. It's just a shame that it will take two centuries for them to reach maturity. Architects really need to look at nature to find ways of creating living spaces that have little or no environmental impact.
TheNewfineart Well saplings do grow faster than the seeds, but I see what you mean. As for little to no impact on the environment, damn near impossible. All material has to come from somewhere, and the more carbon friendly approaches tend to use a lot of wood. Only thing I’d say that could help would be to start mining asteroids for material.
+TheNewfineart 400 gallons is a lot of water. That makes me think that creating green cities could create one issue while solving another; a water shortage issue, especially in cities such as Los Angeles. However, one way to reduce water usage, while still putting more green into cities is by simply using native plants.
brickman409, that is a good point. Trees take their water through their roots and do a fantastic job of mopping up all the rain that falls on them. Trees are completely self-sufficient and never need watering, nature takes care of that. This is a channel that demonstrates the very best of what humans can achieve when they desire to create intelligent and thoughtful structures in which we live, work and play. We forget that we are a part of nature not separate to her. This video clearly demonstrates that architects are starting to address the overwhelming evidence that we are having an effect on this planet and the weather patterns that we have grown accustomed to. If we planted globally 50 billion trees every year we might take some of the energy out of the system which is creating extreme weather.
Hey B1M, I heard somewhere (but cant remember where) about converting dead shopping malls into community centers where people can work remotely, have daycare for their kids, and classes for teaching people new skills with the parking lots partially converted into community gardens. Have you heard about this and if so could you do a video on it. I think it's a really neat idea and would like to see any projects you know about.
Here in Toronto, we’ve been using deep water cooling to cool some of the biggest office towers downtown, for well over a decade now, which has saved millions of dollars, not to mention saving us from putting countless tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It’s such a simple concept. For those that don’t know Toronto is on the shores of Lake Ontario, one of the great lakes. About 15 years ago, give or take, they ran piping to lay on the bottom of the lake, and they put it quite far out, resting it on the lake bed, ensuring The water will always be cold, ice cold at those depths. I don’t know a lot about it, but a friend of mine is an engineer, who actually worked on the first deep water leak cooling project in the city, it was a massive undertaking, to run these pipes several kilometres to the bottom of the lake and all the way to the downtown core to cool first Canadian place, a 72 story office tower, in our downtown core. He said that ever since they got the system up and running, it has never faltered, and is far more effective than traditional air conditioning, not to mention a lot more cost effective and environmentally friendly.
Just stumbled upon on this channel and I must confess, the work you guys are doing is truly a class apart. Keep up the good work and it’s great to see a channel related to construction/realty is not doing grand homes and tacky interiors.
You north american folks could speed up a little. In switzerland every flat roof over 30 square meters (not 2000 like toronto) has to be a green roof since probably the 90s.
Great video. Particularly love the roof top gardens initiative. And I didn’t know about Masdar...this video made me look further into it. Keep up the good job, guys!
Construct rows of towers running east-west and put aluminumized fabric between them that shade the streets and buildings from direct sun, and articulate slightly in the wind to drive hydraulic pumps at their base, pressurizing a fluid to store energy that drives turbines for power production.
Good video. One quibble. 6:30 is a rendition of what Masdar is supposed to look like when it’s completed. Have a look of Google Earth to see it’s about 1/50th of this.
In a previous video B1M explained building design to deal with wind. Surely planning departments (local or national) can then attempt to take that modelling further to use the disrupted airflow to cool or heat other areas?
Another way to tackle this is to plant more trees since provide shade and removes CO2 from the air. If you start using Ecosia.org instead of Google, you can search the web like usual but then Ecosia will use the profits earned from your searches to plant trees all over the world!🌳
I think greening the urban jungle is the best way to cool a city. But one method of "greening" a city is very impractical and expensive. Like the one where you incorporate trees into the sides of tall buildings. It's just expensive, hard to maintain and looks out of place in Europe. Making parks densely packed with trees is definitely a great way to cool a city. It may be a waste of space, but at least everybody could use it. Another way of "greening" a city is to add street trees. Trees beside trees definitely make a street more beautiful and peaceful. It also absorbs carbom dioxide from cars and blocking the asphalt from absorbing heat. Street trees might actually be the best way to cool down a city while beautifying it aswell.
I went to an elevator video next and now back to this: those external elevators could leave cores to intaking cooler air for energy efficient air-conditioning strategies.
City sponges with soil and parks is more important along with widespread trees. Roofs should be kept for solar panels Actually even in Singapore where we grow angsana trees and raintree that cover our roads and all, we still suffer a 4 degree issue for urban heat island. It's also attributed to the air conditioning.
When white gets dirty it looks really messy, that aside painting the road white, so I guess you paint the lines black. considering the cost is it actually sustainable, how often would the streets have to be repainted? Also you'll be driving on a painted surface which could be dangerous enough what happens when ice is added to the equation? I guess it would be different if they invented some additive that when added to the paving process would turn the tar White.
I assume the paint would be for cities in warmer climates ex. Los Angeles. Other than that, the white reflectivity may make it more difficult for drivers to see :/
In the case of San Francisco the environmental benefits of green roofs, other than the counteracting of the heat Island effect, were the stimulus for enacting legislation, as the city is ‘heat starved’ because of the almost constant flow of on shore cool air from the cold northern Pacific Ocean.
The road solution for cooling would be easier by using hempcrete and recycled tire rubber mixed. Hempcrete for the reducing of heat, being natural, water absorbing/resistant and eco friendly. The recycled tire rubber for quieter rides with little to no road noise. I jnow RAC exist for roads, which is GREAT, but let's try it with hempcrete and even adobe. Everything else their doing is kool though.
Actually it isn't, I live in LA and though they arent all over the place, where i have driven on them, it's not a "glaring" problem. Also, I am from northern MN, we actually pioneered "white roads". My small home town to the city of Duluth had a 26 mile highway that was this white/light gray color. It very much improved night driving, and was never a problem in the day. It actually cut down on driving fatalities related to drunk driving and falling asleep at the wheel, as well. You are more likely to be blinded by other reflective surfaces on vehicles/buildings and lights at night, than the matte white/light grey road surfaces.
I think after a while, the white will become more of a light greyish color because of the constant usage, at least that might reduce some problems. But if the future is about self-driving cars as so many people think, then this will be a bad idea
I would like data for how much lining the streets with trees cools them compared to the white paint (which I imagine must also be reapplied regularly considering how tires will make them dark over time).
What about the interruption tar and concrete cover makes on the water cycle?? How are we going to get rain and snow to soak into the ground so it doesn't "get stuck" and re-evaporate into the atmosphere instead of soaking down into whatever aquifer??
A question I've been wondering about LA's white streets, but what's being included to prevent glare from sunlight and streetlight? Anyone who sees snow knows early Spring is one of the most painful times to drive because of what comes of street glare. Is it being implemented?
what about bringing more water in cities? fountains, spraying water sparks on streets that increase humidity? water is good at absorbing heat and cooling the surrounding///
I live south of LA. The idea of painting the streets a brilliant white is horrifying to me- I have sensitive eyes, to the point that walking on a typical concrete sidewalk without sunglasses as noon will force my eyes closed. I literally can't keep them open from the flare of a simple concrete sidewalk. An entire street painted WHITE? This sounds awful, and there will most certainly be unintended consequences.
It's not Ashfelt, it's Asphalt :) while it's a minor mistake, I had to realize that while I used to think this channel was run by architects, it's not necessarily so, Ashfelt was now a huge giveaway.
White asphalt emulsion increases reflectivity of sunlight causing eyes to squint. I suspect that plastic sunglasses lose hydrocarbon bathing eyes in pollution because I'm constantly having to wipe them clean. Green roofs seem a recipe for failure.
Here in the American southwest there is a lot of people painting roof white . . . but there's a product guarantee that is limited. Rain bleeds the stuff onto the ground making a gooey yuck that plants don't thrive in.
