By NUR IHSAN FADHLINA
ihsan@mystar.com.my

“A great city is the city that is built suitable to live by the eight and 80 olds,” said 8-80 Cities director Gil Penalosa during the World Class Sustainable Cities (WCSC) international conference that was successfully held for the ninth time at the Royale Chulan Kuala Lumpur Hotel.

“If the city is safe and convenient for them, then it will be the great city for all. We must stop building cities as if everyone is 30 years old and athletic in order to create the best environment,” Penalosa added.

With the theme “Transforming Cities: Design, Nature and Human Lives”, the event organized by the Real Estate and Housing Developers Association Malaysia (REHDA) Federal Territories branch together with Malaysian Institute of Planners (MIP) and the Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM) with the support of Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL), featured four international speakers from different expertise.

Penalosa in his talk titled “Designing Cities for Children and the Elderly” also said every city should have central park to connect the community.

“In a central park, people will meet each other as equal. The authority should focus on building a park that serves good activities, safety, and has equitable access to be used throughout the year, whether in winter or summer,” said Penalosa.

Municipality of Copenhagen chief architect Tina Sabay also spoke at the conference about “Integrating Nature to Make Cities Resilient & Livable”.

In her talk Tina said, to create a resilient and livable city it should be implemented from large to small scale.

“For the large scale, the government would need to spend more money to create natural spaces within the city. Nature has to be an essential complementary feature to a built environment. Thus the need for more landscape architecture creations.

“Creating a city with an edge, where it shows the flexibility and creativity of the city with trees and flowers planted everywhere, and also creating a unique neighbourhood that can attract people from different area to come to the city, is also the best way to be implemented. This would assist with the commercial maturing of a city, thus aiding a city’s growth,” she said.

According to Tina, among the initiatives that can be implemented in small scale through local methods include the adoption of trees whereby one should be responsible for the tree adopted.