Ramon Gras Alomà, Aretian co-founder and Harvard researcher, recently gave a radio interview to RTVE, the leading public radio station based in Madrid. He presented Aretian’s current research on the relationship between urban design typologies and the 15-minute city, which is central to the company’s mission to create a new Science of Cities, focused on addressing the challenges of the 21st century, such as changing work dynamics, climate change and global migration.
During the conversation with Julia Varela's team, David Asensio and Julie Sigles, Ramon described how City Science techniques can be applied to address urban development sustainability challenges, in both urban and rural environments. In addition, he discussed how the Aretian team works in four phases to develop (1) urban development diagnostics, (2) identification of goals and opportunities, (3) scenario planning alternatives, and (4) urban design and economic development master planning and recommendations.
Listen to the interview (in Spanish): here.
The RNE interview covers how the 15-minute city standards can be applied to the different typologies established in Aretian’s research paper titled: “Geospatial Analysis Framework For Evaluating Urban Typologies In Relation With The 15-Minute City”. Aretian categorized 10 city typologies and found that the fractal city type was the most capable to achieve with the 15-minute city concept due to it’s highly connected urban street network. The Catalan city of Barcelona, is one such city that utilizes the fractal typology and contains a high number of amenities close to work and live neighborhoods and walkable urban spaces.
Ramon also described the evolution that urbanism has seen in recent years: one which presents us with great changes for our cities and infrastructure. Most urban development plans have been created without serious consideration to create sustainable, walkable and livable cities to create sustainable, walkable and livable cities in the last century. It is paramount that new development harness research on city planning in order to create better cities and urban environments for people. Aretian Urban Analytics and Design will continue working on several projects partaking in this effort.
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