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Greenwich Millennium Village

Greenwich Millennium Village is often described as 'sustainable' but it is hard to see why. The morphology of the buildings is scarcely designed to conserve energy - it looks more like a traditional architect's ego-trip, however pleasing residents might find it.

The landscape planning for a truly sustainable village would, at least, include:

sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS)
buildings planned for energy generation and conservation
roofs and walls clad with vegetation and photovoltaic cells (to help re-balance the carbon cycle)
garden space for residents
composting of household waste
habitat creation on public open space
a well-planned cycle network with secure covered cycle storage in housing areas and beside transport interchanges

HOMEPAGE - Landscape Architecture London List

The fence bars entry to the wetland. The red notices say 'No Fishing' and 'No Swimming'.

The wetland park is visually and ecologically attractive - but it leaves residents with no garden space and no space for sustainable urban food production.

The white lettering reads: ' 60,000 shrubs have been planted along with 12,000 trees and enough turf to cover 20 football pitches'. This is NOT a sustainable approach to open space design. It produces the type of 'parkland' shown below.

This is Visual Space. It is not Ecological Space and it is not Social Space.