Green Cities 2021 is a monthly virtual lecture program organized by the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization on the first Thursday of each month at 12:00 PM ET. The series focuses on innovations and achievements in sustainability and resilience worldwide. More information about Green Cities, including the previous talks on New York, Rio de Janeiro and Barcelona, can be found on the CSU website consortiumforsustainableurbanization.org.
August’s session will focus on Los Angeles. The LA Metro is unique among the nation’s transportation agencies, serving as transportation planner, coordinator, designer, builder, and operator for one of the country’s largest, most populous counties. More than 9.6 million people—nearly one-third of California’s residents—live, work and play within its 1,433 square mile service area. Sustainability is high on the list of agency values, with a commitment to reduce, reuse and recycle all internal resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Integrated Station Design Solutions have created design standards that use a kit of parts assuring system consistency with local variations. Solar canopies over light rail station platforms will be adequate to power the operations of each station. They will provide platform shading as well as energy generation. Landscape plans will use native species instead of imported palm trees, helping with stormwater management. The Twenty-Eight by ’28 initiative highlights 28 Metro projects for potential completion by the 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. The 2028 Games are an opportunity to advocate for resources to accelerate these projects, and a milestone to show what can be accomplished by working collaboratively as a region—with benefits to Los Angeles County for generations to come.
Speaker:
Adam Light, AICP-CUD, Senior Director of Systemwide Design for Los Angeles Metro
Moderator:
Rick Bell, FAIA, Adjunct Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Center for Buildings, Infrastructure and Public Space, Columbia University
About the Speakers:
Adam Light, AICP-CUD, is Senior Director of Systemwide Design for Los Angeles Metro, where he directs a team of planning and urban design professionals responsible for rail station architecture and urban design best practices implementation. Prior to joining Metro, Mr. Light served as urban design and planning lead for Toronto, Canada’s “Spadina Subway Extension”, which opened December 2017. Mr. Light was a major project planner, urban design and preservation specialist, and Manager of the Northeast (downtown) Neighborhood Planning team for the San Francisco Planning Department from 1997 – 2008, and previously worked for the New York Department of City Planning’s Transportation Planning Division, and the Rockville, Maryland Planning Department. Mr. Light has been an avid city dweller and car-free transit rider since 1994!
Rick Bell, FAIA, is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University where he also is Deputy Director of the Center for Buildings, Infrastructure and Public Space. Rick previously served as Executive Director of Design and Construction Excellence at the New York City Department of Design and Construction where he was also Assistant Commissioner of Architecture and Engineering and Director of In-House Design. On leave from DDC he served as Executive Director of AIA New York and helped create and animate the Center for Architecture on LaGuardia Place.
In partnership with UN-Habitat; AIA New York; Perkins-Eastman; Creative Exchange Lab (CEL); NGO Committee on Sustainable Development NY; AIA New York Planning & Urban Design Committee; Habitat Professionals Forum for Sustainable Cities (HPF); Columbia Center for Buildings, Infrastructure & Public Space.
