We spoke to six visionaries who are using their expertise to create a greener and more sustainable future. They include:

Lord Norman Foster, founder of Foster and Partners
Visionary behind Masdar, a proposed eco-city in Abu Dhabi

What inspired your idea?

I think there were a number of inspirations. There is a fine balancing act here between learning the lessons that can be validated by analysis, and capturing the spirit of the place – the kind of genius loci. There is something very evocative about traditional settlements. The way in which you can move from a narrow shaded street in an age before the car, where you plan and the car is on the edges, and everything is within convenient walking distance, and where you have very high-quality public transport. You still have the choice of the car, but can rediscover the magic of private dwellings with their own courtyards and their own private space. A lot of the traditional cities have this magic of personal space – where you really have privacy. You have a sense of the family community within the larger community.

What gives you the most hope that your vision will be implemented?

To be an architect, you have to be an optimist, because so many things are stacked against you. All of the things, in terms of desirability, sustainability and political optimism give me grounds for being positive rather than negative.

Firstly, the initiatives for zero-carbon for communities that are driven by alternative forms of energy is, paradoxically, most likely to come from those societies who have the most in the way of resources. If you don’t have those resources, then that sharpens the mind. It’s probably no accident that the initiative is coming from an oil-rich part of the world. Those newer communities have less in the way of bureaucratic procedures than perhaps more established European and North American societies, where it is highly bureaucratised and therefore subject to more prevarication and less focused thinking.

Secondly, I think what we’re proposing is cutting edge in terms of the technology –paired with something in the very long-standing tradition of a compact city: fairly high-density settlements that treat land as a very precious resource, with an emphasis on pedestrianisation and quality of life.

This is more than architecture, this is actually creating a city. It’s very much about infrastructure as well as buildings. If we examine densities across London, there’s a very close pairing of desirability, high land and property values, and high density. If I reeled off the areas that are high density in London – I could do this for almost any city – it would be Belgravia, Chelsea, Kensington, Notting Hill, Mayfair. All of these are characterised by the ability to have a rich variety of experiences within walking distance, and less dependence on having to get in a car and to park and commute.

What gives you the most fear that your vision won’t be implemented?

The conventional response would be the cyclical nature of economic mechanisms of financing construction. When banks or financial institutions go through a period of confidence into uncertainty – as we’re seeing at the moment – then borrowing becomes more difficult. I’m commenting from the point of view of being, as an architect, generally on the leading edge of investment and development. There is a strong co-relationship between market uncertainty and a kind of construction slow-down.

Have you any idea how far off it might be?

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