Canadian Very Impressed

TAGS: news article about Nuvali, Bonfacio Global City, Ayala Land

I’ve come across a news article in The Vancouver Sun (Canadian Newspaper)
whose writer was so impressed with our projects… Sobrang bilib nya that he’s saying
that Vancouver should do the same. =) astig….

Here’s an outsider’s point of view of our projects, especially BGC and Nuvali. I’m a proud Pinoy!

Sustainable-community lessons, courtesy of Manila

Model city on former army base impressive

By Michael Geller, Special to the Sun

Published: The Vancouver Sun, Saturday, June 07, 2008

During a recent visit to Manila I discovered lessons Vancouver can learn from new community developments in the capital of the Philippines.

I set off on the non-stop 13-hour flight at the invitation of Ayala Land Inc., the country’s largest real estate organization. Founded eight decades ago, the scale of its operations is unparalleled in Canada. It currently has 50 ongoing residential projects, 13 shopping centres, 44 construction projects, 174 managed facilities, and two hotels, including the InterContinental, located at 1 Ayala Avenue.

The company developed Makati, Manila’s primary financial district. In recent years, it has embraced sustainability as a key corporate objective, and is searching out good ideas from other projects from around the world. I spoke about UniverCity, the new community at SFU, and other collaborative public-private initiatives in the downtown.

In order to better understand the differences between the two cities and cultures, I was briefed by the company’s architects and planners.

Manila dates back to the 13th century and was a Spanish colony from the 16th to late 19th centuries. From 1898 to 1946, it was controlled by the United States, and today, sites in the city are still legally part of the U.S.

In 1905, a master plan was prepared for portions of the city by Daniel Burnham, the noted American city planner and architect, famed for his plans and designs of Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. Manila’s plan is based somewhat on his plan for Washington DC.

While Vancouver is considered one of the densest cities in North America — with a population density of 5,335 people per square kilometre — Manila has the highest population density of any major city in the world, with over 43,000 people per square kilometre. However, many parts of the city are surprisingly green, with parks, a grand Baywalk promenade, and landscaped boulevards and medians along many streets. Portions of the moat surrounding the original walled city have been converted into the Intramuros Golf Course, which is flood-lit and playable at night.

While I was impressed with many developments, including a downtown retail complex that attracts over 500,000 visitors a day, I was particularly interested in two current Ayala undertakings, Bonifacio Global City (BGC), and Nuvali, a new, sustainable community on 1,700 hectares of land just south of Manila.

BGC is being created on a 240-hectare former army base and military camp close to the downtown. It is planned as a model city with new offices, retail space, housing and community facilities built around a “pedestrian highway”, a 40-metre wide, one-kilometre-long major pedestrian-only promenade.

The predominantly mixed-use buildings incorporate iconic architecture by a variety of international firms, and are surrounded by dozens of intriguing works of public art, fountains, parks and open spaces. The area is one of the few I have ever seen designed to encourage visits by shoppers with dogs.

At the western end of the promenade, across from a new Shangri-La Hotel, will be the Mind Museum, an interactive science centre. While the focus is on Filipino scientists, a Vancouver company, Cobalt Design and Management, was commissioned to ensure optimum energy efficiency and environmental sustainability within the facility.

The density of the new development has a floor-area ratio, or FAR, that ranges from six to 18. (FAR represents the relationship between the total area of a building on a certain location to the size of land on that location.

For example, a FAR of 18 indicates that a building’s total floor area is 18 times the gross area of the land on which it is constructed, as would be found in a multi-storey building.)

By comparison, new mixed-use developments along Vancouver’s arterials generally do not exceed three FAR. Interestingly, retail components are allowed only up to a maximum of three FAR; however, buildings with residential components must have a minimum of four FAR.

BGC incorporates many sustainable features. Much of the exceptional lighting design is photo-voltaic, and in a country known for its colourful Jeepneys, (the most popular means of public transportation in the Philippines, originally made from U.S. military jeeps left over from the Second World War), a fleet of eco-friendly low-emission Mercedes-Benz diesel buses links the city to the surrounding areas.

Nuvali is also being promoted as a future-oriented, mixed-use ecopolis, offering evo-living and a vision of sustainability. It incorporates most of the features found in new North American sustainable communities, and sometimes more. For example, “double-piping” allows the reuse of recycled water in selected areas; stormwater management is achieved with bio-swales and pervious paving, and a lake functions as rainwater harvesting. There is an established “tree-to-house” ratio, something I have never encountered before.

One notable feature is a “back to basics” approach to cooling. Homes are being designed with a focus on “cross-ventilation”, rather than a reliance on air conditioning. This is particularly relevant in a country where the temperature often exceeds 35 degrees. But it is something we need to more fully consider, especially in new apartment developments.

The community features a privately managed system of buses and water taxis to lessen the use of private vehicles. This prompted me to wonder whether the time has come for Metro Vancouver to consider some private transportation options to augment our public system. After all, the increasing demand for transit is now significantly exceeding available facilities.

As I was browsing through a marketing brochure for Nuvali, I was struck by some words that spoke of returning to a simpler life… “of the days before we became enslaved to our automobiles and air conditioners, to clocks and calendars. Of the days when we measured ourselves, not by the sizes of our houses or cars, but by the sizes of our hearts.”

The writer questioned whether those days are gone forever, or are they still to come.

“Will I have to return to the past? Or will I be able to…return to the future?”

I found it ironic that a message that resonates so strongly with many Vancouverites had found its way into a marketing brochure for a new community near Manila. It’s a small world after all.

- Michael Geller is a Vancouver architect, planner and property developer. Last year, he travelled around the world, sharing his observations with Westcoast Homes readers.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoasthomes/story.html?id=a5ddebf0-9082-4c67-ad53-9650c191c9b9&p=3