Author

Tay Kheng Soon
Paper prepared for the Singapore Institute of Architects presented at Arcasia Forum 8 on 28th Nov 1995 in Singapore

1995
ADDRESSING THE CONFLICT BETWEEN URBANIZATION AND NATURE IN THE SIJORI AREA THROUGH A COMPREHENSIVE SPATIAL METHODOLOGY

INTRODUCTION
The paper presented by Dr. Ismeth Abidin of the Institute of Architects, Indonesia has given us a picture of the economic parameters for greater regional synergy in the SIJORI area. It is my task now to sketch out the spatial implications of this in landuse, urban pattern, architecture and eco-environmental terms.

Prior to this, it is necessary first to introduce the methodological problems involved and to discuss a strategy to substantively address these. A major portion of this paper will therefore be devoted to articulating the necessary methodology before the ecological and urbanization conundrum is addressed. The new methodology, aimed at effective multi-disciplinary interaction, is centred around the much neglected disciplines of spatial morphology and comparative built-form typology. These two disciplines enable other disciplines to lock into highly specific spatial, energy, administrative, financial and eco-environmental propositions modeled on regional, district and local scales. Without this locus, the dialogue concerning the form of the city and the conditions of the countryside takes place inadequately and in a confusing manner. It is the aim of this paper to help dispel the confusion.

WHAT ARE SPATIAL OPERATIONS ?
Just what are spatial operations ? An example may serve to clarify. If one has a height restriction of say 3 storeys on a particular site and the plot ratio required is say 2:1. A quick spatial calculation will reveal that the site coverage will be 2 divided by 3 which produces a site coverage of 60%. Immediately, a knowledge of past building designs will reveal that there are few successful designs capable of fulfilling these parameters. From this, it is obvious that the block depth will be considerable and the design will have to rely on internal courtyards and light wells. Innovation and creative design aesthetics is obviously required and that is precisely what Rem Koolhaas did in the case of his housing project in Fukuoka. A new typology has resulted from this project. Faced with similar situations in the future, this typology will form one of the types to be considered. To this extent, the frontiers of high density-low-rise design in the dense urban fabric has been advanced. Without spatial operations of this kind, design is trapped in premature spatial rejection and mindless repetition. At the scale of a whole landscape, spatial operations of the kind illustrated will affect the total space and forms required for human activities across all categories of land-use.

THE CONTEXT
A comprehensive spatial and economic conception of the Sijori area necessarily takes the view that the forces of economic and political complimentarity between the three territories, namely Singapore, Johore, a state of Malaysia and Riau a province of Sumatera (SIJORI) is greater than the competition between them. If such be the case, indeed, the high technology, global business and human and plant infrastructure of Singapore, the vast material, mineral and agricultural resources of Riau and Johore together with the huge land, water, forests and human population of the three territories when added together represent a developmental potential of regional and global significance too important to be slow in realization in the race for global competitiveness. The SIJORI area when linked together can be the western growth pole in the Asia Pacific region. It is evident that as a group the combined potential to be a global web-site is significantly larger than it is developed separately.

Given the above conditions, it is useful to reiterate the scale of the developments to be expected. If a degree of parity of incomes is to come about in Sumatera in relation to Johore and of Johore to Singapore, the total volume of economic activity in the region would generate a population in-migration together with natural increases of upward of 20 million. and an economy several times bigger than the present aggregate size. Translated in spatial terms, one should expect at least a 3-fold increase in urban floor-space and infrastructure. This, of course, is both the consequence and the catalyst of economic development in itself. What will this increase do to environmental conditions in the existing cities and towns; and how many new towns need to be constructed; in what manner and where ? In addition, what will this massive development, with all the attendant pollution and resource demands, do to the regional environment is a cause for concern. Will the disbenefits detract from the benefits to the extent that economic growth is affected ? How can the effects be anticipated and ameliorated ?

THE CONCEPT
The spatial conceptualization for economic and ecological sustainability in the SIJORI area is based on the premise that economic growth is essential for environmental improvement. The case of Singapore demonstrates that economic resources, when directed by public will and public education, does produce a high environmental service level. The urban infrastructure provisions and the regulatory determination in carrying out environmental control intentions is possible with adequate means and when the basics are well on the way to achievement. The environmental strategy for the SIJORI area is, therefore, based on catalyzing a new growth cycle when the limits of the existing growth cycles will have been reached. This growth, it is suggested, will be enhanced by pooling the resources, capital, skills and infrastructure of the three territories acting as a whole. The construction of a system of physical linkages will act as the key catalyst to the existing political and the emerging economic and tourism initiatives already in force. The proposal projects transportation linkages between the three territories by road, rail, pipes and cables traversing through a system of trans-national tunnels and bridges linking Johore to Singapore to Karimun Island and onwards to Sumatera on the west and Batam on the east. These linkages will, in effect, create one economic zone to augment the existing trade, telecommunications and shipping and air traffic infrastructures. The urbanization implications and opening of new opportunities suggests locating efficient urban clusters along the trunk connections, thereby creating a spatial system of towns, settlements and plantations across the landscape for the efficient location of capital and human resources. In terms of the ecological and environment implications, it is postulated that these dense urban nodes forming a string of human interventions in the landscape is not only cost effective it is environmentally friendly. The total CO2 released from such a pattern, it will be shown later in the paper will be lower than present urbanization models based on sprawling agricultural land conversion. The additional benefits of the linking of compact nodal clusters of towns is the impact this has on adjacent agricultural activities. Bringing the centres of demand and the supply of labour closer to the plantations and farms and thereby enhancing the economic opportunities for sustainable eco-agricultural practices and nature conservation. The specific configurations of this pattern will be discussed later.

TOWARDS A NEW METHODOLOGY: THE NEW SPATIAL HYPOTHESIS
As stated earlier, before it is possible to discuss the specific spatialization strategy, there are some long-standing methodological problems to resolve. It is interesting that in the environmental debate on sustainability, while the issue of urbanization is identified among the strategic issues to be addressed, the strategies have been focused on modeling, measuring and mitigating the subsystems of the city and not the form of the city itself. Although the form of the city as a whole has immense implications on pollution and co2 generation, surprisingly, it has not surfaced on the environmental agenda. The strategic implications of the spatialization of the city has received little attention in the literature on environmental protection and urbanization. This paper is an attempt to fill the gap through demonstrating the new approach in the SIJORI project.

With the phenomenon of rapid urbanization in newly emerging economies, and with the spectre of ecological disaster looming, the conflict between natural ecology and urbanization is now of global concern to everyone. Although it may be low on the agenda of new states, it is they who paradoxically have the greatest to contribute both positively as well as negatively. It is, after all, in new states that the possibility of making a new beginning is most challenging. The stakes are high. While the scope for developed states has to be predicated upon restoration, it is in new states that the opportunity to avoid the old pitfalls is available. Of course, this is premised within the massive tasks of tackling the backlog of economic transformation. While technophiliacs put their faith in technical solutions, the populationists are pessimistic. Wherever the truth may be, the problem of economic growth and the attainment of ecological sustainability is ultimately tied to land and technology. All forms of land development have therefore to be the starting point of any investigation, for it is here that the conflict is at its most pronounced. In this respect, therefore, the working assumptions of the entire spectrum of the spatialization of human activities in the landscape needs examination. If the concepts and practices of human spatialization are inadequate and inefficient, thereby exacerbating conflicts with biosphere, this is where the search for solutions must start. In the specific areas of urbanization and chemical-based agriculture, the degrading effects are already evident. Fostering an effective cross-discipline dialogue is vital. All land-developing disciplines display disparate approaches and thus act pragmatically and in isolation of each other despite the governing panoply of rules, regulations and concepts. The rules are therefore the locus of much abuse. In such a situation, developers and land speculators will continue to find it rational and expedient to operate oblivious of the larger environmental implications. The result is the uncontrolled expansion of the total curtilege of urban land through land conversion into suburban developments and the consequential loss of arable land. Added to the industrial mal-practices the water ways and the soil are increasingly polluted. Chemical stress of the soil and fertilizer leaching into the hydrological systems, forest dispoilation add to the litany of destruction. The problem is that the real costs of development is not factored into the economics of production and consumption.

The distorted form of urban centres with their urban sprawl results in loss of arable land and over-pricing of urban residences. This leads to the centrifugal expansion of the city into the countryside, the mono-culturing of the CBD as only a place of work and its emptying out in the evenings is but a symptom of the other aspect of the current spatialization paradigm. Indeed, the present system acts as system for the reproduction of political power since it is premised on land conversion and real-estate price enhancement. The conflict is thus unresolvable without a major change in the development parameters affecting both cities and their countrysides. For existing cities, a strategy of re-urbanization through mix developments enabling internal cross subsidies for the cost of residences should instead be practiced within a spatial strategy of decentralized settlements served by mass public transportation. This tantamounts to a paradigm shift. It is urban land reform on a regional scale. This paper is an attempt to define the paradigm shift.

Firstly, the fragmented approach towards development needs to be reviewed and reconfigured to be methodologically integrative. It is proposed that a new spatialization discipline integrate the existing fragmented disciplines and roles. This is, in effect, a new Spatial Technology. To be an integrative discipline, spatial technology has to encompass all the existing professional and conceptual distinctions and link them together by a core discipline. The core discipline is the much neglected methodologies of morphology and comparative typology. The power of morphology should be appropriated into design process due to its ability to cut through conventional spatial models which underlie all conventional ideas about built-form as defined by the current fragmented disciplines. Morphological operations is not limited to the spatialization of buildings, it can be applied to the spatialization of whole cities, districts and regions. The ability to freely model alternative spatial configurations through morphology enables a strategic dialogue among the disciplines and with the powers that be based on a dialogue of possible configurations. Thus, regional planning within or between adjacent regions can be effected, the master planning or structure planning processes can be better informed as to cumulative consequences, land budgeting and land-use patterning can take into account the rivaling claims of ecology, urban design and architectural form-making can take on meaningful interaction with each other and with the environment as a whole. In this context, I therefore urge all professional architectural institutes and planning and architectural schools to embark on a project of typological documentation and morphological research. Suffice it to say now that, without morphology and the supporting typological data-base, the systematic exploration of spatial alternatives is not possible across the disciplines. It should also be stated that spatial typology should be accompanied by modeling energy, pollution and other technical characteristics of proposed morphologies and the testing of existing typologies. The new core discipline can do this because the methodology is essentially mathematical. With systematic data available, design discourse need not be stymied by implicit and explicit subjectivity.

Regional planning, eco-agro planning, urban planning and architectural design should be one seamless conceptualizing sequence because the full range of various spatial configurations can be modeled in a relational manner. This is the power of the method.

MORPHOLOGY AND TYPOLOGY
It should be stated here at the outset that the systematics involved in the understanding of space and form does not inhibit the design initiative of individual designers. Indeed, when a total mastery of the systematics of space and form is gained, designers are free to alternate between typological and morphological operations at will. Morphology is also not confined to contemporary buildings. Indeed, a systematic amassing of quantified data, properly formatted, on historical or vernacular buildings and structures can yield valuable information which can be useful even today.

Morphology is a term appropriated from biology. However, unlike in biology, where morphology is about the surface features and structure of the form of living organisms, morphology in spatial technology is about the quantified geometry and structure of habitable space. Since unspecified space is amorphous, morphological operations render space specific and endow it with properties which can be contrasted, invested or inscribed with other properties. Morphological propositions, therefore, serve only as initiating formulations for other forms of tests and initiatives. In some instances, aesthetic intuitions can also be prompts for morphological initiatives. The most clearly formulated ideas and procedures about the morphology of built form are the investigations by Leslie Martin, Lionel March and others at the Centre of Built Form Studies at Cambridge, England undertaken in the 60’s and published in 1972 in the book “Urban Space and Structures”. The book enables a thorough grasp of morphology especially when densities have to be high and heights are restrictive.

Morphology thus serves to give great insights to designers in terms of building layout and composition on any given site at any density and for any type of building, all in a stylistically unprejudiced manner. One’s own stylistic preference in planning or architectural design will not, therefore, interfere prematurely in the strategic phase of a design process until the basic configuration is settled. There is no prescription that morphology need necessarily take lead in the design process. This depends on individuals and the nature of the design problem. Essentially, the methodology ensures that a strategic dialogue occurs in the interaction between aesthetic notions and typological comparables prior to a design being concretized. Morphological formulation is not a design tyrant. Indeed, it serves only as a basis for the interrogation of the spatial possibilities which may have been missed in the usual precedent-based design investigations, which are undertaken in the normal design and planning processes.

Typology is a kin of morphology. It refers to the systematic study of building types. As such, it is a study of morphologies which have been built. Useful typological studies would therefore to be specific about the geometry and the quanta involved as well as the spatial intervals encountered. Typology should, therefore, specifically declare the plot ratio, the specific climatic responses in terms of surface area and fenestration, the volume of the building, the technologies employed, even the cultural context etc. Based on the systematics established in comparative typology, other variables can be interjected, such as energy efficiency factors. A complete typological data would therefore consist of the formal as well as the energy-performance characteristics of a specific case within a specific typology. When these criteria are clearly declared, it is possible to compare like with like, and not otherwise, as what is occurring now. Comparative typology is therefore vital as a data base for establishing design criteria for building and urban design across time and culture. Comparative typology is, therefore, inseparable from morphological investigation. In a specific sense, morphology leads, typology follows. In a general sense, the process may be inverted. The process is dynamic. Successful morphologies are always added to the stock of favourable typologies and the process goes on. Thus the availability of comparative typology allows correct appropriation of earlier proto-types. Sadly, in the current planning and architectural body of knowledge in a design culture predicated on difference, there is no systematic comparative typology. Difference is almost always sought for its own sake. This deficiency leads to the tendency to misappropriate past typologies into contemporary usage just for their style effects.

Particularly, in the area of urban form and in housing design, the lack of morphological investigation and typological comparison and evaluation has led to the many lost opportunities in high density low rise designs. Especially, in high rise high density housing of beyond plot ratio 3:1, opportunities to achieve greater variations in heights, block lengths, block depths and production of large integrated green spaces in housing layouts have also been lost.

THE MORPHOLOGY OF A COMPACT, LOW CO2-GENERATING CITY IN THE TROPICS
Of necessity, any prescription has to focus only on key issues. What is `key’ depends on the underlying theory of urbanization. In this case, the theory for ecological adaptability and economic viability are the primary considerations.

Sociologically, there is no theoretical limit to the density of the residential quarters of the city so long as the provision and the accessibility to the supporting services for everyday life is adequate. The criteria is, therefore, the ensuring of civility through accessibility. If this is the case, the size and density of the superstructures on any given site can vary considerably depending on site-specific considerations such as scale, open space and transportation provisions of the existing environment. In new sites, the densities may be determined by funding and financial considerations. In such a case, the determining criterion is the horizontal spacing of settlement clusters. This is, therefore, determined by the walking distances to the transportation nodes, the schools and the available open spaces nearby. In the tropics, research has shown that an acceptable walking distance is approximately 400 metres, beyond which the physical toll extracted by the discomfort of walking meets resistance. This being so, the urban clusters would be approximately 800 metres in diameter. This encompasses a land area of 200 hectares. This is, therefore, the primary spatial and transportation module. We shall call this area the elemental urban space. The capability of the transportation system to serve any number of these urban elements would therefore be sized accordingly. With adequate safeguarding along the line, the transportation modes and system can be implemented as the density demands and as the economics allows.

Having established the basic urban module, it is now possible to consider what constitutes it. Obviously, it should be self-supporting in its infrastructure and in its facilities. Through mix uses, it can support the many aspects of living, working and recreation as required. Density is an asset in ensuring the economic viability of the provisions. A sufficiently large captive market for the services would determine the quantum of mix and the level of sophistication in the choices provided. A 800-m diameter can be spatialized in any number of ways as noted earlier. Given a spatial agenda of ecological adaptation and responsible response, it behooves designers to consider the most appropriate morphology. And the most adapted and responsive morphology which is at once also economic, the density has to be as high as possible and practicable with in the means and resources available. Now, also given that resources are restricted at any one time, the density and the consequential morphology is configured accordingly. If one was to avoid waste, the morphology translated into appropriate typology must therefore be transformable. Can we consider a system of building which can achieve this since we are building anew?

Leaving this question aside for the time being, let us consider a methodology employed in studying a range of spatial possibilities which are yet consistent with the macro considerations imposed by the rapid developmental forces of our times. Our considerations proceeds as follows: If we model the density within an elemental planning area (EPA) at, say, a gross plot ratio of 3:1, and we assign the service roads to be say 20% of the gross site, the net site area for building upon becomes 3.6 : 1. We then model this morphologically to understand the impact on livability. If the building’s foot-print is, say, 35%, the average heights of the building forms would be approximately 10.2 storeys with localized open spaces of approximately 65%. Not terrifying, even quite desirable!

Now we can proceed to quantify the implications of the proposed density. On the basis of say 25m2 per capita of floor space allocation across all categories of floor space, the total population supportable in each elemental planning area in the core cities can amount to 288,000 persons. A city of 1,000,000 will only require 3.5 elemental planning modules. The provision for schools is the critical issue in the allocation of land. If it is assumed that the age distribution is 0.33 of the total population, the number of school-going children per elemental module would be 95,000. If each school can accommodate 2,000 pupils, the number of schools is say, 48. If it is assumed that each school needs 5 ha of land, then the total school land is 240 ha. This is more than the land allocation for an elemental module. Assuming that some sharing of playing fields is possible, perhaps the land allocation could be reduced to 200 ha. When added to the modular population, the gross plot ration becomes 1.8 instead of 3.6. Still, this can be seen as a possible efficient utilization of land. The total hectareage becomes 7 times 200. This equals 1400 ha or a land area of approximately 3.7 km2. Not very large at all. This means that open fields, large parks and ecological areas can be brought close to the city or allowed to exist.

Thus, we can continue to morphologically explore as many alternative configurations as we like and study close-fit typological antecedents in evaluating them. We can also interject valuations along the way. It can be seen that such a procedure enables the spatial conceptualization process to include many diverse disciplines in the process. This is the power in modeling possibilities. If the possibilities contemplated have no precedents, we will have to build actual models or better, modeling new spatial concepts in virtual space using computers. The methodology facilitates this. This is the point. Consider the present situation where no morphological alternatives are possible being strapped to the planning and building rules. The existing process simply compounds the existing morphologies embedded in the typological assumptions which underlie the planning and designing processes. No progress can be made, only the astheticizing of extant typologies. Such is the present design culture.

THE MORPHOLOGY OF A PRODUCTION TOWN
The process and criteria for the planning and design of smaller scale urban settlements is similar to the process described above. The horizontal spatial distances remaining the same except the contents of the elemental urban areas themselves. In these, the densities, morphologies and proposed typologies can vary considerably. Being space-efficient, the total curtilege of the town will intrude less into the surrounding greenery. Indeed, the possibility for greater interpenetration of greenery and other landscape features such as hills and rivers into the urban space can be easily accommodated. And thus the genius loci of a place can be manifested in the town as its distinguishing character. Allowance for noxious industries and integration of non-urban occupations such as farming and craft industries is facilitated due to the space created.

THE MORPHOLOGY OF AN AGRO-ECO RURAL SETTLEMENT
Similarly, the morphology of agro-eco settlements can be arranged to satisfy the environmental specifications suited for the settlement itself and to the inhabitant’s desires within economic efficiency criteria and ecological parameters. Again, due to the spatial efficiency of the elemental modules, the relationship possibilities with the surrounding agro-eco plantations and forests is enhanced. Moreover, it is more feasible to respect all the topographical and geographical features of a particular locale. A loose clustering of independent homesteads linked by country lanes connecting to transportation nodes at the centre of each elemental area of 800m diameter and linked as distant as desirable with the next elemental area provides the service and transportation system ensuring low reliance on the use of private motorcars. Modular sewerage treatment systems feeding into the organic agricultural areas recycles the waste. Local energy generation using mini-hydro-systems provides non-polluting, renewal energy. Telecommunications and computers ensure linkage.

WHAT WILL LIVING IN COMPACT URBANIZED CLUSTERS BE LIKE ?
While the negative features of the fast growing Asian city in general is evident, imagine what might be possible if a grip on the forces of change in a positive manner can be achieved in the SIJORI area. Imagine a typical compact core-city where the main highways and roads are noise shielded by noise barrier structures in the form of office buildings, storage facilities, garages and high-tech factories alongside. The quiet interior sites would then be given over to housing and social amenities. The use of air-conditioning increases as the per capital income increases. Its optional use is facilitated by a cooler and quieter urban environment. The cooling of the urban environment through ameliorating the “heat island effect” can be achieved through high-level shading of the city and through massive planting between and on buildings. Imagine that feeder roads would connect directly into “basement” garages which inter-connect one building to another so that circulation and servicing can take place without clogging the relatively fewer external roads. Noise and dust is also thus contained and filtered. The morphology of the towns and cities are arranged in concentric circles of 400m radius from the transportation nodes. Imagine that a raised landscape deck over the car garages below. The deck serves as the civic platform where the civic life of the city takes place unhassled by traffic, noise and dust. In the denser areas, an upper deck with bridges between buildings connect every building. Dense mix-uses are interconnected one to another to facilitate freedom of movement above the civic pavement below. This upper deck could serve as a community space with kindergartens, community centres, swimming pools and other recreational facilities. All decks could be heavily planted to ameliorate the harshness of the urban environment and provide recreational space close to residences. Above this deck are residences in high rise towers. The sun and the rain are used as positive features in the design. Solar energy is gathered to power a pumping system which irrigates the greenery. Rainwater is collected and distributed through the surfaces of the buildings and structures to cool and to irrigate a community of plant life in the city. Furthermore to provide a more varied employment pattern in cities where activities based on land cultivation is not necessarily precluded as now. To provide incentives for the implementation of such a city various taxes are proposed to reflect the real economics of urban living.

For example : A green tax is imposed whereby to the extent greenery is reintroduced into a building which is deemed to have taken it away from nature, the tax is reduced. A blue tax is also introduced. It works this way. To the extent that a building retains rainwater within its own curtilage without discharging it into the public’s storm water drains, the blue tax is reduced. The causal relationship between the city and the countryside needs to be made conscious through CO2 computation. It is therefore possible to devise a tree planting quota for each individual as a collective and individual responsibility. This can be computed and expressed as a cost reflected as a tax. The tax is related to the total generated CO2 expressed in number of trees to be planted. Trees are the primary absorber of CO2. Through these taxes, a city becomes that much more responsive to the environment and at the same time, produce a pleasant place with much greenery on buildings and many public water features. So long as man needs the city, it is preferable that he builds better cities because in doing so, he will enhancing nature conservation. This is the new spatial hypothesis proposed in this paper.

Imagine living in such a city. There should be spatial choices reflecting family life-cycle transformation. The mono-nuclear home should not be the only available spatial configuration. Furthermore, most people will wish to live nearer to their work and the children’s schools in the economically-active phase of their lives. Those nearing retirement, or due to personal inclinations may choose to live closer to nature areas far from town. These will be fewer in number. A varied typology of settlements offering attractive and fulfilling lifestyles can cater to the different needs and preferences. Primarily, three urban forms can be conceived. The multi-function core city, the industrial district town and the agro-eco settlement. In all cases, imagine the spatial sequence of moving from home to work. In the core cities and the district towns, the home would be high above the landscape or provided with private gardens adjacent to public greens. There will be a large garden terrace to each apartment in the case of high-rises. A barbecue pit can be provided with built-in chimneys. The sky garden terrace will overlook greenery and waterways which can thread through the spaces of the city. This is possible due to the dense clustering of buildings which free bio-diversified nature to penetrate the city. The apartments are themselves quite easily remodeled through a total separation between structure and infill in the “open building system” as defined by John Habraken and Age Van Randen. This system will ensure that every apartment can be self designed by the family and will thus be totally suitable to themselves. Furthermore, it will be transformable as the family undergoes structural changes in family life. In the agro-eco settlements, the home is integrated into a landscape of organic farms and a lifestyle devoted to craft activities is possible. Electronic communication makes it possible to be in touch with the information and activities of the core cities. No one needs to be isolated unless by choice.

From the apartment, the family gains access to either an upper level community deck or down to the civic-commercial plane of the city. A short walk to a public transport station is flanked by various services such as post offices, shops, laundries etc. Through the convenient conduct of everyday chores along the route, the community is established and cemented.

The important thing, ecologically, is that the total curtilege of such a spatial pattern is a lot smaller that the sprawling cities that we know. From a gross suburban residential plot ratio of 0.2 : 1, the gross density of the new spatial pattern could be 4.5 : 1, i.e., 22.5 times less land intensive than now. This means that the city can sit comfortably in the landscape while allowing it to obey the economic and social imperatives of our times. Human habitation can therefore have the best of both worlds. Be near economic action and close to nature at the same time. Safe-guarding of nature through compact urbanization enables economic logic to sustain an active nature plan of layered concentric zones spreading outwards from the cities and settlements. On the immediate fringe and sometimes penetrating into the city itself are the poly-cropping agro plantations at the fringe of cities. This merges into the managed agro-eco forests devoted to renewable forestry and forest product extraction. Further outwards are located the preserved eco-core areas. The spatialization of the city and the countryside is conceived as a total co-supportive spatial system. As a result of such a spatial scheme, the total Co2 emission would be lower as the reliance on the private motor car is greatly reduced through the availability of public transport which can operate economically at the higher densities encountered along the route. The eco-forests are now seen as the correlate of the life of the city and not as wasteland to be indiscriminately exploited and expropriated. This is the primary concept of the new spatialization strategy.

CO2 OUTPUT AND THE FORM OF CITIES
While the lay-person believes, sometimes passionately, that cities are a curse in ecological terms, the truth is that cities are actually more environment-friendly than thought, depending on the structure and form of the cities. For instance, it can be shown that high density or compact cities use less energy for the same level of material life they afford their citizens than sprawling urban conurbations.

Compact cities are, therefore, more desirable from the green-house gas-emission standpoint. Their physical characteristics need, however, to be carefully designed and managed. For example, designs which reduce the need to travel have to be equally considered as with the provision for the means of travel. In short, the spatial pattern and the transportation technology needs to be strategically designed and relationally considered with the appropriate administrative and constructional technology involved.

THE CITY’S SELF INTEREST IN FOOD AND WATER
As the logic-of-commerce in the post cold war period deepens in the globalization of economies centres in cities and towns, the vulnerable underbelly of development is the assured supply of food and water at affordable prices. In their own self-interest, therefore, cities have to be as concerned about the reliability of their strategic supplies while they pursue their economic growth objectives. An estimate of the food responsibility is as follows : It will be necessary to undertake a land-use inventory using broad spectrum remote-sensing technology to quantify the dynamics of land-use. In the meantime, for the purpose of broad brush understanding of the size of the problem and the possibilities, let us proceed as follows : If the total world arable land is 1.43 billion hectares and the world population is 6 billion, the arable land is 0.238 hectares or 0.6 acres per person. Assuming an average family size to be 5, the average farm land per family is therefore 3 acres or 1.22 hectares. On this basis, if we were to use Singapore as a case, the total land for food has to be 10 times the size of Singapore to feed its 3 million population, i.e., 606,000 hectares.

Calculation of water catchment area Singapore, for example, can be computed by dividing the total water consumption per year of 1 million m3 per day X 365 days by the average yearly rainfall of 2.4m. The total catchment area therefore equals 15,200 hectares or 26% of the island. It is interesting that for tropical areas, the catchment area is relatively small and this can easily be accommodated into the forest areas intended for conservation.

The solution to water supply is therefore tied to the maintenance of water-sheds and the preservation of ecological cores. In the case of Singapore’s limited land area, mutually beneficial arrangements with direct investments have to be made with neighbours. The preservation of eco-cores and watersheds is incidentally connected to the absorption of CO2 and methane which forests provide in absorbing a city's output. The accounting of is of course global and regional in nature. A generalized calculation of the extent of rain-forest required to absorb CO2 is as follows:

Different city-forms produce different CO2 output for a comparable standard of living. Compact cities produce less CO2 output per capita than sprawling cities. Adjusting for the different cities, it is possible to compute the CO2 burden of responsibility. For example, the CO2 output of Singapore is relatively modest compared with major cities in USA where the output is likely to exceed 30 tonnes per capita per year whereas Singapore’s output is only 7. Being so, and if we assume trees to be the principal fixer of CO2, the total number of trees can be computed and therefore the total forested area too. If a typical hardwood tree is 16 tonnes of wood of which almost all is carbon in various forms, and if each tree takes 30 years to be commercially harvestable, and if trees are distributed at one per 20 m square, then the total forested area is 1.56 million hectares i.e. 36 times the size of Singapore island. Also, each person in Singapore has to be responsible for planting 13 trees every 30 years in order to sustain the equation. If, however, the CO2 output is reduced by even better technology and the use of non-fossil fuels, the responsibility can be correspondingly reduced in so far as CO2 is concerned. Other factors still need to be taken into account. It is obvious that the CO2 versus population versus standard-of-living equation needs to be computed regionally and globally to assign responsibilities. Furthermore, it follows that wood economy has to be enhanced if the strategy is to succeed. The sustainability of managed forests as a key plank in the eco/urban strategy depends on the logic of timber prices. This can be enhanced through R&D into large scale timber utilization as a permanent building material.

REGIONAL CONTEXT
It is obvious that the food, water and CO2 questions have to be considered regionally if not globally. For a start, there should be a regional computation of the total land needed for food supply. The total water catchment area can also be computed including the total forest cover for CO2 absorption. A regional policy of co-operation and complementation is obviously needed. The self interest of all and each of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) dictates this. The new spatial technology has therefore to provide answers.

FIXING CO2 : THE USE OF TIMBER AS A PERMANENT MATERIAL
Again, contrary to lay-person belief, the use of timber is not anti-ecology. The issue is how timber is used rather than its use as such. Timber is condensed CO2 in the form of the celluloid tissue. As long as the timber remains in its structural form, the CO2 remains locked in. If, however, it is destroyed by natural degradation or through disposal by burning, the CO2 is released back into the atmosphere as the principal green-house gas. Thus, the use of timber as disposable plywood for shuttering in reinforced concrete construction is ecologically damaging but not so should timber be used in a permanent manner. The most desirable way of using timber is the transformable permanent construction system as this enables timber to be reused and thus prolong the fixation of CO2 in the wood. The large-scale use of timber will therefore encourage reforestation in a renewable, CO2-fixing economy. The method of timber-extraction and forestry have, of course, to conform to international standards and supervision. Methods such as contour logging, balloon and air-ship extraction need to be considered and applied. See MAB Digest No. 15 written by Illar Muul and published by UNESCO 1993.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF CURRENT PLANNING AND ARCHITECTURE PRACTICES
Current planning regulations tend towards low-density development. This situation is due to the prevalent attitude that the clamor for high-density development by private developers is greed-driven and it is at the expense of the environment. Planning, therefore, predicated more on an attitude of development control rather than strategically anticipating the future. This is despite the existence of Master Planning and Structure Planning processes encoded in law. This is because of the essentially conservative procedures embedded in the planning practices itself. This is why the regime of minimum plot sizes, lower plot ratios tied to development charges for upward rezonings together with bankability practices tied to land subdivisions and traffic planning being more of an engineering practice rather than a land-use strategy altogether conspire toward the production of sub-urban sprawl and a fire-fighting approach towards traffic congestion and environmental degradation despite the best of intentions. Indeed, politicians, bankers, land surveyors and development control planners in many developing countries are the active agents in the land conversion, division, conveyance in the building of the suburbs and the renewal of the city. That the attendant road traffic congestion generated and the high resultant CO2 emission is universally not attributed to the planning and building process is a glaring analytical omission. A procedural and role review is obviously overdue. So long as no such review takes place comprehensively on this situation, the mutually-exacerbating process of environmental degradation, ugly cities and traffic congestion remains intractable. Similarly, without a restructuring of the roles and processes in planning, any viable, ecologically-sustainable social and economic concept on a regional and local basis cannot be implemented. Nor will it be possible to derive a concerted approach towards a balance of co-ordinated urban and rural developments. The achievement of a viable agro-eco-production system serviced by a system of service and production towns and eco-settlements in the overall urbanization pattern depends on this. There will be no solution to the distortion in the core cities themselves and the uncontrollable rural to urban population drift. The ecological crisis will continue.

REFERENCES

Brookfield, Harold & Byron, Yvonne (eds. 1993); South-East Asia’s Environmental Future : The Search for Sustainability; United Nations University Press / Oxford University Press, Singapore

Martin, Leslie & March, Lionel (eds., 1972); Urban Space and Structures; Cambridge Univ. Press, London

Muul, Illar (1993); MAB Digest No. 15; UNESCO

Tay Kheng Soon (1989); Mega-Cities in the Tropics : Towards an Architectural Agenda for the Future; Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Tay Kheng Soon (et. al. 1990); Kampong Bugis Development Guide Plan; Singapore Institute of Architects, Singapore

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