Research Seminar – Planning and Design for Health and Sustainability (or Low Fat Cities)

Topic:
Planning and Design for Health and Sustainability (or Low Fat Cities)

Speaker:
Mr. Guy C. Perry
President & Founding Partner
Investment Vision + Environments (IN-VI)

Schedule:
Date: 21 October, 2013 (Monday)
Time: 12:45 – 2:00 pm
Venue: Room 829, 8/F Knowles Building, HKU

Abstract:
The way we create our physical environment at the urban and district scale has a greater impact on our health, than was previously considered. As populations become wealthier, we have new health concerns that are an outgrowth of our new living patterns. The US now devotes 17% of GDP to supporting an increasingly unhealthy population, by 2030 over 25% of UAE citizens will be diabetic and in Brazil 1% more of the population has become obese during each year of the last decade.
Current (2013) research by the NIH (National Institute of Health) in the US, UK, China, India and Brazil has charted a precipitous course of significantly rising sedentary lifestyles from 1990 to beyond 2030. Our increasingly fragmented urban environments discourage basic living patterns that are healthy for humans by raising dependence on automated movement and promoting refuge in a parallel virtual world.

The presentation will focus on case studies in Poland, Brazil and China, analyzing existing planning, urban design and living patterns on the urban frontier of cities. It will examine and compare density, interconnectedness, movement systems, distribution of land uses and microclimates in strategies that attempt to counter key challenges to health within their respective urban edge conditions.

The urgent issue of human health, when seen through the lens of planning, will raise awareness that by building more health oriented urban environments, we are addressing environmental sustainability at a global scale as well.

About the Speaker:
Guy Perry founded IN-VI in 2000 to develop best practices in transition markets. He works from the scale of a room to a region and focuses on the well being of humans and their interface with the environment. He has planned and led the development of Europe’s largest new district of the 21st century, Central Europe’s largest urban regeneration and conceived new development patterns for urban extensions in Brazil and North Africa. His work has received the highest accolades from ULI, ISOCARP, FIABCI, the Bloomberg International Property Awards and the Architectural Review.

Prior to founding IN-VI, Guy was Senior Vice President of TrizecHahn, overseeing the development and design of new communities and mixed-use projects throughout Europe. Guy has also served as Vice President at HOK and worked seven years with Kajima Corporation in Tokyo, Paris and Brussels. Early in his career, Guy worked on the design of the Barcelona Olympics.

Guy has presented keynote speeches on six continents at venues ranging from the United Nations to ULI regarding strategies for sustainable and profitable development. He was initiator and senior coordinator of the Smithsonian Institutions first Emmy Award winning documentary film: Dream Window – Reflections on the Japanese Garden. Over the past few years, Guy has fostered design and development studios at MIT and Harvard University. He holds two masters degrees from Harvard University, graduating with distinction and numerous honors.

Guy will head the jury for the International Shantou Urban Design Competition to be decided on October 18.

~~ ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME ~~

Please visit our website https://fac.arch.hku.hk/upad/cusup
Enquiries: 2859 2721
CENTRE OF URBAN STUDIES AND URBAN PLANNING
THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG