TABLE OF CONTENTS - The Professional Green Building Council

Theme B: Creating a livable, healthy and environmentally viable citiesTraditional European urban texture was complex and fragmented at differentscales. Lead by Le Corbusier, the Modern movement of the 1920’s, still widelyapplied in Asian cities has favoured simple, repetitive mega scale patterns (Fig. 8).Figure 8: The traditional urban texture of Paris versus the modern city, as seen byLe Corbusier in his 1920 theory of modern urban planning. One century later, allstudies show that Le Corbusier theories lead to unsustainable cities.This transformation of city pattern is obvious in Ho Chi Minh City, whichjuxtaposes a classical European pattern, an American pattern and a recent Asianpattern close to le Corbusier theories (Fig.9)Figure 9: At the same scale, left traditional city Saigon centre, right modernistSaigon South5.3 Cases analysedThe comparative analysis of Shanghai and Paris that we are carrying out and thatwe will further extend to mega urban regions of South east Asia will reveal howpopulation and activity density gradients and profiles can be used as variables forurban interactions and the way that these now affect the possibilities of modaltransfers towards other modes of transport with reduced energy intensity and a426