Meet the Energy Leader: Rob Roggema

By Rob Roggema, Professor of Sustainable Urban Environments
School of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney

Date: 3 October 2018
Modorator: professor Andy van den Dobbelsteen

Abstract: As our urban energy and other systems become more and more refined and complex they also become more vulnerable. The urban environment is designed in a way all its functions, uses and means are efficient and fit for purpose. Our urban designs reflect those needs, however creating a fragile and vulnerable city, as we know the future is uncertain, requires novel solutions, and can be unprecedented. Even more so, the current urban lay-out often dictates the urban systems that can be applied, and sustainable alternatives are ruled out because of their ‘misfit’.

This lecture proposes to explore energy and other potentials of the urban landscape first and keep options open until new urgencies are appearing. The use of spaces in the city must therefore be tamed, and some should be declared redundant, waiting for better uses in the future, whether it is needed to generate renewable energy in the best possible areas, or whether land is temporarily needed to accommodate a disaster. In the design of the city we should therefore build in voids, the spaces that make the future possible and overcome the deadlock of vested interests and path dependencies. The lecture presents plans for a Zero-Carbon Sydney and the Sydney Barrier Reef to illustrate how these counterintuitive voids keep our cities prepared for the unknown still beautiful and attractive.