SILVIA TAVARES

Category: City life

Building a climate-proof future

This article was originally published on 28th June on JCU’s Brighter website.

As climate change continues to wreak its path through tropical communities, architects and urban planners are combatting the potentially disastrous effects with innovative design solutions.

Dr. Silvia Tavares “designs cities with an eye on the climate”. A leading urban designer and senior lecturer at James Cook University, Dr. Tavares has a passion for creating places that foster connection and wellbeing, while being sustainable for the future. Read more…

City temperatures and city economics, a hidden relationship between sun and wind and profits

Cairns Lagoon: as a good response to the tropical climate, it’s a very active place but with little business activity. Silvia Tavares, Author provided

 

Silvia Tavares, James Cook University and Taha Chaiechi, James Cook University

Urban design undoubtedly influences the urban economy. A simple thing like designing an area to make it more walkable can boost local business profits. This can also increase real estate value, create more and better jobs and generate stronger local economies.

Street temperatures also determine their walkability. With climate change bringing longer and more frequent heatwaves, street temperatures will become even higher than at present. This will reduce walkability and, in turn, local business profitability. Read more…

Thinkers in the Tropical Shade: Empowering Lessons for Livable Places

Cairns, Queensland, Australia: avoiding the humidity using active transport (Photo by Chuck Wolfe)

Last June, Chuck Wolfe, David Sellars and I published an article on Planetizen about the fundamental relationships at the heart of urban public health and livability, particularly in tropical Australia. In this article we discuss the importance of context, the relevance of the UN-Habitat New Urban Agenda, the Urban Thinkers Campuses recently hosted by JCU (Understanding Cairns and Townsville through the urban diary tool), place-based urban planning and design and the lessons learned so far.

Read more…

Urban Thinkers Campus – Cairns and Townsville, Australia

Urban Thinkers Campus – Cairns and Townsville, Australia

James Cook University‘s College of Science and Engineering and College of Public Health, Medical & Vet Sciences, through myself and David Sellars, with the full support of Nikki Huddy from Planz, have been organising an Urban Thinkers Campus (UTC) framed around the topic of urban planning and design and public health. The UTC entitled ‘Urban Health and Livability in Tropical Australia through urban diaries and community engagement’ will take place on the 8th June in Cairns and 15th June in Townsville, and they are both day-long events (see preliminary schedule here). Read more…

Urban Comfort: The physical and social landscape as constituent of the climate experience

Urban Comfort: The physical and social landscape as constituent of the climate experience

I recently published a paper entitled “Urban Comfort: The physical and social landscape as constituent of the climate experience” (original in Portuguese: Conforto Urbano: A paisagem física e social como constituinte da experiência climática) in Cadernos do PROARQ. This is a Brazilian journal published in Portuguse by the Postgraduate Program in Architecture at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Read more…

A case-based methodology for investigating urban comfort through interpretive research and microclimate analysis in post-earthquake Christchurch, New Zealand

A case-based methodology for investigating urban comfort through interpretive research and microclimate analysis in post-earthquake Christchurch, New Zealand

Simon Swaffield, Emma Stewart, and I recently published in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science a paper titled “A case-based methodology for investigating urban comfort through interpretive research and microclimate analysis in post-earthquake Christchurch, New Zealand”. Read more…