Ecological Urbanism

The twenty-first century is the era when populations of cities will exceed rural communities for the first time in human history. The population growth of cities in many countries, including those in transition from planned to market economies, is putting considerable strain on ecological and natural resources. This paper examines four central issues: (a) the challenges and opportunities presented through working in jurisdictions where there are no official or established methods in place to guide regional, ecological and landscape planning and design; (b) the experience of the author's practice-Gillespies LLP-in addressing these challenges using techniques and methods inspired by McHarg in Design with Nature in the Russian Federation in the first decade of the twenty-first century; (c) the augmentation of methods derived from Design with Nature in reference to innovations in technology since its publication and the contribution that the art of landscape painters can make to landscape analysis and interpretation; and (d) the application of this experience to the international competition and colloquium for the expansion of Moscow. The text concludes with a comment on how the application of this learning and methodological development to landscape and ecological planning and design was judged to be a central tenant of the winning design. Finally, a concluding section reflects on lessons learned and conclusions drawn.

TEMI DEL SEMINARIO: Recentemente il geografo Massimo Quaini ha affermato che il paesaggio non è tanto interessante per leggere l’ambiente in “termini scientifici” quanto invece quale contenitore di miti, sogni e metafore utili ad interpretare le contraddizioni del nostro tempo; in quest’accezione il campo dell’estetica e quello delle rappresentazioni si configurerebbero quali interlocutori privilegiati per “riprogettare” i luoghi in cui viviamo.
Quali possono essere le relazioni tra paesaggi costruiti e paesaggi immaginati o desiderati?
L’affermazione di Quaini tende a delineare un’idea di paesaggio culturale che appare ancora abbastanza nuova anche per gli addetti ai lavori, per questo motivo può essere utile una riflessione multidisciplinare che sviluppi il confronto con le idee e le esperienze già maturate sia nell’ambito della convenzione europea del paesaggio sia in altri contesti.
Il termine stesso sembrerebbe peraltro indicare una differenza tra paesaggi “culturali” e “altri” paesaggi, imponendo un confronto tra punti di vista diversi: da una parte i paesaggi culturali tutelati dall’ideologia della conservazione, attenta ai valori consolidati delle comunità, dall’altra invece quei paesaggi in forte trasformazione, luoghi in cui la città si disperde e si confonde in qualcosa d’altro, oggetto di attenzione da parte delle discipline geografiche e del territorio.
Naturalmente le questioni sono assai più complesse e la schematizzazione è funzionale solo alla necessità di brevità: in altri termini l’idea di paesaggio culturale svilupperebbe una tradizione pittoresca, in un contesto sempre più caratterizzato dall’urbano diffuso, non-città, non-campagna, né tanto meno paesaggio tradizionalmente inteso.
Queste visioni del paesaggio contemporaneo sono realmente contrapposte? Non esistono piuttosto terreni comuni di discussione? Soprattutto, queste forme differenti di paesaggio rispecchiano aspettative, immagini e identità collettive?

This paper presents hybrid and nature-based
solutions (NBS) for wastewater treatment that may
be applied to diverse urban and peri-urban contexts.
They offer multiple environmental and economic
benefits, with the enhancement of human health,
and lower energy consumption. Decentralized
and circular sewage treatment enables to recycle
water, transform sludge in compost, and use gas
to generate energy. NBS promotes habitats for
biodiversity and contributes to mitigate GHG
emissions. Hybrid or NBS systems may integrate
urban parks. In large areas constructed wetlands
are viable, in more restricted spaces compact low
impact systems are smart options. Some innovative
examples are also presented. (in Portuguese, Pages 133-158)

Ainda que as mudanças climáticas, a arquitetura sustentável e as tecnologias ecológicas sejam questões perfeitamente assentadas no imaginário coletivo, o mesmo ainda não ocorreu com aqueles temas relacionados à sustentabilidade urbana. Este livro surgiu exatamente da necessidade urgente de abordar o urbanismo sob um enfoque ecológico como método prático e criativo para enfrentar a realidade da cidade, e assim se constitui em uma aposta deliberada pela consolidação definitiva do conceito de “urbanismo ecológico” por meio da compilação de uma série de textos-chave sobre a matéria.

Urbanismo Ecológico reúne os artigos do simpósio homônimo que ocorreu em 2009 na Graduate School of Design da Universidade de Harvard, bem como outros ensaios, conferências e aulas vinculados a esta linha de pesquisa promovida pela célebre universidade norte-americana. O livro, organizado por Mohsen Mostafavi e Gareth Doherty, parte de um enfoque interdisciplinar no qual se unem os olhares de arquitetos, planejadores e desenhistas urbanos, teóricos, economistas, engenheiros, artistas e cientistas, entre outros profissionais. O resultado é um amplo panorama que contribui para desenhar a imagem plural, complexa e repleta de nuances que o sistema urbano assume quando estudado sob a ótica ecológica. Em suma, trata-se de uma contribuição importante que atesta o nascimento de uma nova ética e estética do meio urbano.

In recent years, the world has seen the emergence of a number of urban projects which, under the banner of experimentation, have promoted alternative models of city-making capable, in theory, of creating sustainable built environments. Among these supposedly experimental models, the smart city and the eco-city stand out in terms of geographical diffusion, and are hailed by their advocates as the mark of an innovative urbanism based on a scientific approach to urban development. Through the analysis of Hong Kong and Masdar City, examples of a smart-city agenda and an eco-city project respectively, this paper questions the sustainability of so-called smart cities and eco-cities, by investigating the extent to which they are developed in a controlled and systematic manner as their developers claim. More specifically, the paper counterclaims mainstream understandings of smart and ecological urbanism, arguing that what are promoted as cohesive settlements shaped by a homogeneous vision of the sustainable city, are actually fragmented cities made of disconnected and often incongruous pieces of urban fabric. Theoretically, these claims are discussed through the concept of Frankenstein urbanism which draws upon Mary Shelley's novel as a metaphor for unsuccessful experiments generated by the forced union of different, incompatible elements.

Exhibition by SNSF Professorship for Architecture and Theory,
Prof. Dr. Sascha Roesler and Dr. Lorenzo Stieger.

Accademia di architettura, September 14 – October 31, 2020.
Mendrisio, Switzerland

This exhibition promotes the notion of “energy landscape” as a conceptual framework to challenge our current understanding of energy as a cheap and abundant source for architecture. It presents concepts and methods for designing the energy landscapes of the future, taking the greater region of Geneva in Switzerland as its case study. While in the last few decades the discipline of architecture was mainly concerned with the self-sufficiency of individual buildings, the exhibition emphasizes the need for a new urban scale for saving energy, integrating technological systems and natural processes. Such a view relies on the idea of the productive urban environment, in which the built fabric, topography, soil, bodies of water, as well as the urban climate serve as potential energy resources. Presented as a pictorial archive, energy landscapes appear as “palimpsests” (André Corboz) in which human-built systems and natural forces overlap. The visual documents and the additional mapping of energy infrastructures and local resources in Geneva are tools for representing an often-unseen territory and for designing the structure and dynamics of a specific energy ecology.

While climate change, sustainable architecture, and green technologies have become increasingly topical, issues surrounding the sustainability of the city are much less developed. The premise of this book is that an ecological approach is urgently needed as an imaginative and practical method for addressing existing as well as new cities. Ecological Urbanism considers the city with multiple instruments and with a worldview that is fluid in scale and disciplinary focus. Design provides the synthetic key to connect ecology with an urbanism that is not in contradiction with its environment. The book brings together practitioners, theorists, economists, engineers, artists, policymakers, scientists, and public health specialists, with the goal of providing a multilayered, diverse, and nuanced understanding of ecological urbanism and what it might be in the future. The promise is nothing short of a new ethics and aesthetics of the urban.
This book is also part of an ongoing series of research projects at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design that explore alternative and radical approaches between ecology and architecture, landscape architecture, planning, and urbanism.

A library is a facility that support the educational curriculum and research at any level of education in institutions of learning at local, state and national scale. With the growing concern about and increasing interest in sustainable built environments around the globe, the agenda of academic libraries is also changing. Library buildings and space designs in Nigeria are rigid, too formal and trivialized nature in its articulation. The study assesses the need for adopting a new design philosophy for the redesign of Nigerian library buildings using biophilic features. This is with the view to catch up with high level international standards and also to negotiate with the traditional library buildings and space designs of Nigerian learning institutions which are energy consuming and thermally uncomfortable. The study methodology employed the case study approach to compare the extent to which some foreign libraries shift from the traditional paradigm to the Green architecture paradigm and the need for our local libraries to adopt this transforming world class approach. The paper looks at the features of biophilic architecture in relation to library building envelope, its surrounding and suggest ways they can be applied in the design and retrofitting of existing library buildings with the view to achieving sustainability by reducing researchers' fatigue and improving productivity through high concentration and assimilation. A need and users satisfactory survey was conducted in some Libraries in ABTI American University of Nigeria in Yola, Covenant University in Otta and Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in Zaria. It was found out that absence of passive design elements increases carbon footprints through high energy demand for cooling and lighting of the building stocks.

Si bien el cambio climático, la arquitectura sostenible y las tecnologías ecológicas son cuestiones perfectamente asentadas en el imaginario colectivo, no ha ocurrido lo mismo con aquellos temas que afectan a la sostenibilidad de la ciudad. Este libro nace precisamente de la apremiante necesidad de abordar el urbanismo desde un enfoque ecológico como método práctico e imaginativo para enfrentarse a la realidad de la ciudad, y constituye, por ello, una apuesta deliberada por asentar definitivamente el concepto de “urbanismo ecológico” a través del compendio de una serie de textos clave sobre la materia.

Urbanismo ecológico recopila los artículos del simposio homónimo que tuvo lugar en 2009 en la Graduate School of Design de la Harvard University, así como otros ensayos, conferencias y lecciones vinculados a esta línea de investigación auspiciada por la célebre universidad estadounidense. El libro, editado por Mohsen Mostafavi y Gareth Doherty, parte de un enfoque interdisciplinario donde confluyen las miradas de arquitectos, urbanistas, diseñadores, teóricos, economistas, ingenieros, artistas y científicos, entre otros especialistas. El resultado es una amplia panorámica que contribuye a dibujar la imagen plural, compleja y repleta de matices que adquiere el sistema urbano cuando se estudia desde la óptica ecológica. Una aportación importante, en suma, que da carta de naturaleza a una nueva ética y estética de lo urbano.

A cidade, como um sistema vivo, depende de fluxos de energia, matéria e informação para sintetizar a oferta e a demanda de serviços ecossistêmicos urbanos e assim, garantir a qualidade de vida de seus habitantes. A sustentabilidade urbana e seus instrumentos de aplicações conformam-se como otimizadores da eficiência dos fluxos de recursos das cidades contemporâneas. No urbanismo, o planejamento ambiental voltado ao desenvolvimento sustentável auxilia a prática da sustentabilidade urbana através de políticas públicas. No meio físico, esta prática tem no desenho urbano seu método de efetividade.  Amparado em teorias e conceitos relacionados a problemática ambiental urbana, pode-se apontar três perspectivas de sustentabilidade urbana que tratam o desenho urbano como método: Urbanismo Sustentável, Ecologia Urbana e Urbanismo Ecológico. No presente trabalho, as diretrizes correspondentes a estas perspectivas são categorizadas para analisar  suas semelhanças e diferenças.

While climate change, sustainable architecture, and green technologies have become increasingly topical, issues surrounding the sustainability of the city are much less developed. The premise of this book is that an ecological approach is urgently needed as an imaginative and practical method for addressing existing as well as new cities.

Ecological Urbanism considers the city with multiple instruments and with a worldview that is fluid in scale and disciplinary focus. Design provides the synthetic key to connect ecology with an urbanism that is not in contradiction with its environment. The book brings together practitioners, theorists, economists, engineers, artists, policymakers, scientists, and public health specialists, with the goal of providing a multilayered, diverse, and nuanced understanding of ecological urbanism and what it might be in the future. The promise is nothing short of a new ethics and aesthetics of the urban.

This book is also part of an ongoing series of research projects at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design that explore alternative and radical approaches between ecology and architecture, landscape architecture, planning, and urbanism.

This dissertation is a study conducted to draw on the Governance of an Urban River, which here is Mithi commonly refer to as a Nallah rather than a river in the city. The study has rigorously and comprehensively looked into the various aspects of urban river which unlike a natural river has a more complex context thus making the act of governance crucial and challenging.
The different layers in the system – social, political, economic and ecological all come together to form a narrative for Mithi which here is not a story with a happy end but marked with contestations and struggles where the Forgotten River tries to build an identity in the complex urban space. The Governance plays the key role in allowing and also preventing Mithi to battle the odds of utilitarian values. The perception different agencies and institutions have for the River and their interaction amongst each other results in urban political economy which is based on vested here is the resultant of the vested interest of the few over the grievance of the rest. The only mechanism in this situation that can work for an Urban River is the citizen rising up to the occasion and demanding the experts to change their lens to River’s Rejuvenation and Restoration.

This book tells the story of visionary urban experiments, shedding light on the theories that preceded their development and on the monsters that followed and might be the end of our cities. The narrative is threefold and delves first into the eco-city, second the smart city and third the autonomous city intended as a place where existing smart technologies are evolving into artificial intelligences that are taking the management of the city out of the hands of humans. The book empirically explores Masdar City in Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong to provide a critical analysis of eco and smart city experiments and their sustainability, and it draws on numerous real-life examples to illustrate the rise of urban artificial intelligences across different geographical spaces and scales. Theoretically, the book traverses philosophy, urban studies and planning theory to explain the passage from eco and smart cities to the autonomous city, and to reflect on the meaning and purpose of cities in a time when human and non-biological intelligences are irreversibly colliding in the built environment. Iconoclastic and prophetic, Frankenstein Urbanism is both an examination of the evolution of urban experimentation through the lens of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and a warning about an urbanism whose product resembles Frankenstein's monster: a fragmented entity which escapes human control and human understanding. Academics, students and practitioners will find in this book the knowledge that is necessary to comprehend and engage with the many urban experiments that are now alive, ready to leave the laboratory and enter our cities.

From the book:

"With the aim of projecting alternative and sustainable forms of urbanism, the book asks: What are the key principles of an ecological urbanism? How might they be organized? And what role might design and planning play in the process?

While climate change, sustainable architecture, and green technologies have become increasingly topical, issues surrounding the sustainability of the city are much less developed. The premise of the book is that an ecological approach is urgently needed both as a remedial device for the contemporary city and an organizing principle for new cities. Ecological urbanism approaches the city without any one set of instruments and with a worldview that is fluid in scale and disciplinary approach. Design provides the synthetic key to connect ecology with an urbanism that is not in contradiction with its environment.

The book brings together design practitioners and theorists, economists, engineers, artists, policy makers, environmental scientists, and public health specialists, with the goal of reaching a more robust understanding of ecological urbanism and what it might be in the future.

Contributors include:
Homi Bhabha, Stefano Boeri, Chuck Hoberman, Rem Koolhaas, Sanford Kwinter, Bruno Latour, Nina-Marie Lister, Moshen Mostafavi, Matthias Schuler, Sissel Tolaas, Charles Waldheim.

Reimagine fragmented cities and neighborhoods through a design blueprint for healthy communities to Reclaim the Public Realm, and improve mobility and connectivity.
Urban Cores within these neighborhoods will comprise a more
Livable, Walkable and Vibrant City.

‘Defines biomimicry for sustainable design and translates ecological knowledge into practical methodologies for architectural and urban design that can proactively respond to climate change and biodiversity loss. Tests and exemplifies methods through a series of case studies of existing cities in a variety of climates.’

Also available in part for free on google books: https://books.google.de/books?id=aEVbDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Regenerative+Urban+Design+and+Ecosystem+Biomimicry&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQj6rJ_LnbAhXMMewKHTvlCvwQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=Regenerative%20Urban%20Design%20and%20Ecosystem%20Biomimicry&f=false

Routledge is trialling a system of letting their authors share their books in their entirety for free (60 days). So... here is a link to the book 'regenerative urban design and ecosystem biomimicry'  https://rdcu.be/4ftj Valid till late October 2018.  Enjoy!!!

Since the early 20th century various planning movements have been developed. It would be useful to trace the evolution of these movements to see how their underlying principles have changed and how successful they have been in addressing the requirements of sustainable development. Literature on five selected movements is reviewed. These are, namely, Garden City, Neighborhood Unit, Modernism, Neo-traditionalism, and Eco-urbanism. Results show that evolution of neighborhood planning is characterized by the progressive inclusion of different dimensions of the sustainability concept. However, there are still many difficulties in terms of translating the rhetoric into action.

"The theory of metabolic and ecological rift has been elaborated by some scholars, especially by John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark and Richard York, to point in evidence the social and structural roots of the deep contemporary world environmental crisis. This theory is linked to Karl Marx's analysis, that individuated a rift in the mechanism of exchange between human societies and 'nature' because of capitalist agricultural revolution and industrialization and urbanization processes. Then, this Marxian intuition has been strengthened, recognizing the ecological rift that is occurred into the relation build by the capitalist mode of production with the environment in which it works.
Some scholars have accepted and then questioned this kind of analysis. Jason W. Moore has particularly deepened this line of research, sustained the need to transcend the theory of metabolic rift, extending analysis across space and time and assuming a different theoretical perspective. Moore argues that the theory of metabolic rift is not sufficient to understand the long neoliberal crisis of the socio-ecological relations. On the contrary, it is necessary a radical rethinking of natures, going beyond the Cartesian dualism that divides the 'humanity' from the 'nature'. Introducing the concept of oikeios it is possible to comprehend that Nature and Society are not separate worlds but are «specific “bundles” of human and extra-human nature, dialectically joined rather than interactionally fused». (Moore, 2013, 5, unpublished paper).
In this paper it is proposed a review of some topics emerged in the contemporary Marxist debate around and beyond the concept of metabolic rift, recognizing the theoretical value of these debate and category. Assuming and going beyond this category also make visible the need of exceeding the division between 'environment' and 'society' in a political and in a policy sense, calling into question political visions, administrative sectorialization and decision-making procedures that, for example, has created environmental policies disconnected from the other policies on every territorial scale. To conclude, the critical analysis of the theory of metabolic and ecological rift reveals a deep critical analysis of the ruling mode of thinking and governing the relations between human and extra-human factors."

There is a disconnection between commercial architecture and environmental thinking, where green features can be included as part of a strategy for gaining approvals and marketing projects, but those features are not reviewed after completion and occupation of the building and knowledge is not shared. High levels of air conditioning are still considered unavoidable. Elaborate double skin facades and complex motorized shading systems are adopted; often masking an underlying lack of basic environmental thinking. This article returns (in principle) to the physics of comfort in buildings and the passive strategies which can help achieve this with a low energy and carbon footprint. Passive and active facade design strategies are outlined as the basis of a critical tool and a design methodology for new projects. A new architectural sensibility can arise based on modeling the inputs of sunlight, daylight and air temperature in time and space at the early stages of design. Early but sound strategies can be tested and refined using advanced environmental modeling techniques. Architecture and environmental thinking can proceed hand in hand through the design process.

Keywords: climatic design; day-lighting; facade design; shading; solar heat gain; cross disciplinary; design workflow; nearly zero carbon; business buildings

En 1995, Marie-Claire Regniers escribió observaba cómo “en el paisaje contemporáneo de la arquitectura belga Luc Schuiten es una figura aparte”, que supera “las líneas de construcción rígidas y tradicionales [y] dibuja incansablementenumerosos proyectos guiados por la búsqueda de otros estilos de vida. Una manera de pensar que ha dado forma a una nueva arquitectura basada en una visión poética, donde dominan la invención y la relación con la naturaleza”. Veinte años después, en un contexto en que el calentamiento global, el cambio climático, las emisiones de carbono y el Protocolo de Kioto están férreamente instalados en nuestra mente colectiva,  Luc Schuiten (Bruselas, 1944) continúa produciendo desde su posición en la periferia de la disciplina. Enfrascado desde finales de los años sesenta en la búsqueda de una fusión entre ciudad y paisaje, arquitectura y naturaleza, e instalado en una posición que aúna el hiperrealismo de la construcción a la utopía militante, Schuiten resulta totalmente ajeno a clasificaciones LEED o certificaciones energéticas. Sus propuestas, que suman el espíritu megaestructural y visionario de los sesenta y setenta con una cierta sensibilidad biomórfica educada en el art nouveau de su Bélgica natal, adquieren un particular atractivo al sugerir una alternativa de desarrollo tecnológico divergente, que se sitúa simultáneamente adelante y a un
lado de las corrientes oficiales, y que dota a su obra, diseminada a lo largo de cuatro décadas, de una coherencia interna estructural más allá de su evidente eclecticismo.

...........................................................................

In 1995, Marie-Claire Regniers observed how “in the contemporary architecture scene in Belgium, Luc Schuiten stands out from the rest,” as someone who goes beyond “the rigid and traditional lines of construction” and “tirelessly draws numerous projects guided by a quest for other lifestyles.” Twenty years later, in a context in which global warming, climate change, carbon emissions and the Kyoto Protocol
are firmly lodged in our collective consciousness, and now that terms such
as “bioclimatic” and “sustainable” have long since passed into common parlance, the position of Luc Schuiten (Brussels, 1944) in the periphery of architecture has not changed that much. Immersed in his search for a fusion between city and landscape, architecture and nature, ever since the end of the 1960s, Schuiten occupies a place in which he combines the hyper-realism of construction with a militant utopia; his work is most definitely not about LEED classifications or energy performance certificates. Schuiten’s proposals—which combine the mega-structural and visionary spirit of the 1960s and 1970s with a certain biomorphic sensibility born of the art nouveau of his native Belgium hold a particular appeal as an alternative form of technological development, which is placed both ahead of, and to one side of, official initiatives, and this gives his work, carried out over a period of forty years, a structural internal coherence that goes beyond its evident eclecticism.

Banjarmasin and Banjarbaru, South Kalimantan, feature prominently in the medium-term plan Indonesia 2014-2019 of the Indonesian government: as large cities, as priority location for a new town, as future growth center, and mainly as (the only) metropolitan area in Indonesian Borneo. It explains the prospects of a doubled population by 2030 (from 652.000 inhabitants in 2010 to 1.27 million in 2030). Simultaneously Banjarmasin is undergoing a dramatic transformation, shifting its water-based origins towards road-based transport.

Recently between 2011 and 2012, Banjarmasin – together with Pekalongan and Solo – was chosen to pilot the ‘City Development Strategies’ (CDS) approach: a tool that helps local city governments develop comprehensive strategies for urban development, in order to link public funding with local amenity investments. This initiative “Making Urban Investment Planning Work” is implemented by UN-Habitat in partnership with the Directorate General of Human Settlements (DGHS) of the Ministry of Public Works. A ‘City Visioning Profile’ was drawn from participatory workshops with local city officials: “Gateway to Kalimantan” . It is based on a threefold vision of Banjarmasin as regional economic hub, as traditional river city, and as livable city. This City Vision Profile is today being implemented by strategic projects within a timeline until 2016.

Today both mentioned partners renew their focus towards ‘Advocating Urban Planning for City Leaders’, revising their guidelines towards a more integrated comprehensive planning across sectors. The focus of UN-Habitat on urban planning is framed against the very rapid and often uncontrolled urbanization, looking for more sustainable, empowering and inclusive ways to guide this expected massive urban growth or urban sprawl. Again Banjarmasin and the Banjarbakula region feature as pilot case.

This studio therefore positions itself within this ambition, thus in a way picking up with the 2009 International Ideas Competition ‘Urban Eco-Planning Concepts and Ideas’. It is clear that growth prospects pose major challenges in the specifically vulnerable and flood-prone context of Banjarmasin. It is also clear that this can only be tackled in a broader perspective, not only focusing on the Banjarmasin city boundaries nor on the short-term feasibility. The studio will learn and comprehend the rather autonomous forces (economies, ecologies, culture…) that may be steered but cannot really be altered. It will subsequently engage with the more supporting systems that translate these rather autonomous systems spatially and thus are able to generate urbanity (mobility, centralities, settlement patterns, identity…). The challenge is to thus try and guide the projected growth in a more structured and qualitative way, addressing different stakeholders public and private; to find ways where a coherent future spatial organization is matched with the very specific site conditions without a necessary fixed and final outcome; to find in other words flexible urban frames that allow for different potential growth paths.

The studio starts from ‘the assumption that even growth of the Asian kind can be canalized in sink with natural processes of the dynamic landscape and in relation to the legacy of the city/region. (…) A productive interplay between water structures and urban structures can once again become a fundamental identity for the city and its environs.

Today, design proposals like ‘Metropolitan Landscapes’ and ‘Metabolism of the Brussels Region’ aim at fusing natural and social sciences to restore the equilibrium between social and natural systems, and in extenso the urban and natural environment. However, this socio-ecological approach, typical of ecological urbanism, is often stripped down to a biological perspective. Metabolic schemes of city systems
demonstrate the current course taken by the design field, by stressing that the city is a natural organism, constructed through biological
flows rather than existing spaces and people. In this paper, I will invoke a historical reading of a biological approach towards the city by
retracing the linkages between ecologists and planners in Brussels. Using the case of Paul Duvigneaud and the Brussels Agglomeration
(1970-1980), I claim that ecology is used to both overcome political opposition and incorporate a specific (political) agenda. By performing a close reading of archival material, this historical analysis raises attention for (contested) socio-political motives and forces, thus leading to a reconsideration of the way in which ecology and design is related to political and social contexts.

Creating spaces that have many concurrent purposes -- social, ecological, and infrastructural-- is a challenge in the urban realm where large infrastructural systems have been inherited and typically serve a single purpose. This study investigates how the spaces surrounding single-purpose infrastructure can make the best use of resources and preserve necessary performance while allowing other, multiple uses to take place. In the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, an infrastructural corridor known as the Whitnall Utility Corridor contains high-tension power lines which deliver energy to the Los Angeles Region, but it is otherwise single-purpose, both socially and ecologically inert. In this study, the corridor is seen as an opportunity to reimagine how design can maintain necessary functions while allowing infrastructural spaces to participate in the larger life of the urban area both socially and ecologically. Such an approach would allow these large swaths of land to be better integrated into a city’s metabolism, transmitting energy but also offering local benefits.

By approaching the Whitnall Corridor through the lens of landscape architecture, this study focuses on reducing energy and resource use in urban ares while increasing the capacity for the corridor to support human and ecological well-being.  The corridor will be envisioned as a strategic site for urban food production, which can increase the sustainability of the city by reducing the number of miles food travels from farm to table.  Such a strategy has implications not only for carbon emissions and air quality, but for urban energy consumption and water use. This corridor can also model sustainable use and treatment of water by incorporating strategic designs to improve water quality and recharge groundwater. These strategies can be used to educate and inspire the public about Los Angeles’ arid climate and the city’s use of this valuable resource.  In addition to modeling sustainable resource use, this study seeks to transform the relationship of the surrounding communities to this neglected corridor by increasing interaction between the corridor and surrounding communities, integrating it into the daily life of residents, and allowing neighborhoods to view the utility corridor as a critical local amenity rather than a liability.

Although the corridor is over seven miles long, it passes through multiple neighborhoods and various contexts, so the specific design solutions that are most appropriate change along its length. Key infrastructural intersections occur along the corridor at several places and this proposal suggests how they can be better incorporated into the function and character of the corridor. Such intersections occur at the Tujunga spreading grounds, the channelized Tujunga wash, as well as the Chandler Bikeway. These areas are catalytic sites for specific interventions to promote recreation, education, and ecological diversity along the Whitnall corridor.

For residential areas, design solutions integrate the corridor into daily life and functions, therefore strategies specifically address the interaction of the corridor with front and back yards, streetscapes, and plan for multiple uses such as food production, recreation and social activities. Design interventions proposed for the Whitnall corridor ultimately have the potential to integrate ecological, economic, and social processes. These values, as expressed through a transformed, multi-functional urban utility corridor, can enhance the well-being of the urban area and its residents and allow the city to grow, adapt, and sustain itself into the future."

Urban commons is a concept that is currently ‘trending’ in the social sciences. Most of this presently emerging research more or less uncritically builds upon the influential theory of the commons presented by Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom, and generally focus upon issues regarding the production, maintenance and access to various forms of urban common goods. One thing that the interlocutors in the expanding academic debate on the urban commons appear to take for all but granted is that the subjects of the commons, the commoners, are presumably always ‘human’, and that the objects constituting the commons are presumably always non-human. I want to argue that this taken-for-granted ontological divide between subjects and objects, humans and non-humans, means and ends, resources and extractors, is far too self-assured and remains dangerously unquestioned in this emerging literature. In the light of a dawning understanding of the fundamental ecological entanglements of humanity we must learn to rethink previously taken-for-granted ontological categories such as culture/nature and human/non-human, destabilizing them to do away with destructive preconceptions that place humans on one side and non-humans on the other.

Over the past few decades, both in the USA and Europe, many cultural landscapes (CL's) facing social and economic decline have been revitalized through processes embracing planning, design, touristic ideas, heritage resources, local administrations and communities, resulting in cultural or heritages parks (HP's). This paper forms part of the debate on CL's and highlights their rehabilitation via HP's. The research raises the question of the role HP's have played within the restoration of CL's' while aiming to bring the discussion into the current sustainable planning and land design debate. As a case study, it takes the experience of the Mondego River Heritage Park (MRHP), located in the central region of Portugal. The MRHP builds upon the European Landscape Convention, HP's' accomplishments and academic studies. Conclusions suggest heritage to be an effective driving-force for sustainable development and heritage park as an operative concept in the planning, land design and management of the territory.

Il saggio introduce il tema del numero doppio 25/26 della rivista Piano Progetto Città, del Dipartimento di Architettura di Pescara.  Il numero, dal titolo "Eco.Logics" è curato da Massimo Angrilli e si incentra sul tema del rapporto tra urbanistica ed ecologia. Ospita saggi, tra gli altri, di Gareth Doherty, Virginio Bettini, Francesc Munoz, Pier Luigi Sacco, Carlo Gasparrini, Paola Viganò, Peter Fend ed una conversazione con Mohsen Mostafavi.

Metabolism is an Analogy-based protocol for accounting the material and energy flows within a city, permits quantifying the balance of resource inputs and waste outputs. The concept can relate to urban efficiency account and be explained through the first principle of thermodynamics: the amount of waste depends on inputs, which are the sum of outputs and the stock increase. Applied to architecture the term metabolism was in fact as defective translation of the japanese word shinchintaisha, term rather related to the symbolic replacement of the old with the new.  Coined in May 1960 at International World Design Conference in Tokyo, the word was used by Noboru Kawazoe whilst discussing the organic nature of Kiyonori Kikutake's Marine City Unabara, describing its essential exchange of materials and energy between the city and the exterior world.

Saudi Heritage comprises many experiences, solutions, and values reached by the Saudi person in dealing with the surrounding environment through the ages. So it was passed to the next generations. This includes many of the material. Architectural and urban heritage is distinguished from other heritage elements by its physical existence. This is confirmed the existence of civilizations of previous generations such as the traditional villages in Qassim region (Ayoun Al Jawa, Alkhabraa), which reflected an integrated form of traditional architecture. Hence, significance of the urban heritage is one of the most important facets of the Saudi identity. This paper examined to achieve identity in light of globalization dominating the majority of development projects and urban growth for many of the cities of the KSA. This research concluded that; it was possible to achieve Saudi identity by specifying the visual scope of some new buildings using vocabulary and heritage values; by applying the concept of a service circle in the planning of neighborhoods. Also, it was reached to the sustainability of the vocabulary of urban heritage it was characteristic of identity; reduce the processes of alienation in Saudi urbanism during the current century based on achieving this on the theoretical and analytical approach.

The subject matter of this article is synthetic description of the idea of ecological housing estate, which take the beginning from the principle of sustainable development. This phenomenon is highly diverse since there are no precise definitions that would characterize the criteria that such a settlement should meet. In Poland this phenomenon is still at the stage of the conception and projects, but there are some situations, shows that ecological housing estates will appear in our country in the near future.
[W artykule przedstawiony został syntetyczny opis współcześnie rozumianej idei " osiedla ekologicznego " , wywodzącej się z zasady zrównoważonego rozwoju. W Polsce zagadnienie osiedli ekologicznych pozostaje ciągle na etapie koncepcji i projektów, a pojęcie to stosowane jest bardzo szeroko. Zauważyć można jednak różnorodne zjawiska będące zwiastunami przyszłych realizacji tego typu w Polsce, które będą kształtowane jako zintegrowane obiekty spełniające wyraziste i określone kryteria.]

Just across the Gay Street Bridge from downtown Knoxville there lies 1000 acres of urban wilderness. Complete with herbaceous cover and woody species, karst, wetlands, rivers and bluffs the area has become a safe haven for urban biodiversity. Furthermore, the Knoxville Urban Wilderness provides recreational opportunities for native Knoxvillians and visitors to the city. The urban wilderness system is much more than just a diversity hot spot (of sorts) and place of recreation, however, as it has motivated many Knoxvillians to think about, and conserve, urban biodiversity. The system has introduced many to the very concept of urban ecology and the ecosystem services such an area provides the general population. In addition to the benefits provided for the human population, the wilderness area also assists the fitness of all biotic populations by providing needed habitat. In this essay I explore concepts important to urban ecology, the establishment of the Knoxville Urban Wilderness, the ecosystem services it provides and the ancillary benefits it awards biodiversity.

L’interazione esplosiva tra aumento dell’impronta urbana sul pianeta e crisi di un modello finanziario di sviluppo, tuttavia, ci impone di rivedere i paradigmi che guidano le politiche urbane non più in termini esclusivi di crescita, accumulo e consumo, ma programmando e regolando anche la decrescita e il riuso.
La città espansiva tendeva infatti ad incorporare le aree marginali nell'organismo della città, adottando misure per regolamentare la marginalità (introduzione di servizi pubblici, strade, social housing, ecc.) che spesso hanno contribuito ad aggravare il problema, incentivando l’effetto attrattore e il consumo di risorse (prima fra tutte il suolo). La città che si ricompatta (Shrinking City), invece, richiede che le nuove morfologie insediative siano individuate attraverso uno sforzo creativo di interpretazione delle identità e delle risorse, di integrazione delle azioni e di riconfigurazione degli spazi liberati dal
processo di riduzione, producendo tessuti urbani più “relisienti”, "addattativi" e "fluidi" (Coyle S.J., 2011). E pertanto chiede di essere progettata e regolata con nuovi strumenti di pianificazione e progettazione.

Pamphlet outlining the principle traits of Panarchistic Architecture's 'pyroendurer' pyroachetype for use when exploring how the architectural and urban resilience paradigm may work in policy and professional practice. Part of the wider suite of Panarchic Codex® materials available via www.panarchiccodex.com.

The paper discusses co-design, development, production, application of TreeHugger (see Figure 1). The co-design among community and trans-disciplinary participants with different expertise required scope of media mix, switching between analogue, digital and back again. This involves different degrees of physical and digitaìGIGA-Mapping' (Sevaldson, 2011, 2015), `Grasshopper3d' (Davidson, 2017) scripting and mix of digital and analogue fabrication to address the real life world. The critical participation of this`Time-Based Design' (Sevaldson, 2004, 2005) process is the interaction of the prototype with eco-systemic agency of the adjacent environment-the eco-systemic performance. The TreeHugger is a responsive solid wood insect hotel, generating habitats and edible landscaping (Creasy, 2004) on biotope in city centre of Prague. To extend the impact, the code was uploaded for communities to download, local-specifically edit and apply worldwide. Thus, the fusion of discussed processes is multi-scaled and multi-layered, utilised in emerging design field: Systemic Approach to Architectural Performance.

Installation in "The Competitive Hypothesis", an exhibition at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York City, in collaboration with Think Space, curated by Adrian Lahoud. January 2013. The image, a collage of corporate architectural renderings, was split into 6 layers, each one printed onto separate sheets of acrylic and mounted onto an in-wall light box creating a luminous diorama.

Il saggio fa parte di un volume che ricostruisce la consulenza fornita da tre scuole di Architettura (Pescara, Venezia, Ascoli Piceno) per il disseppellimento di un fiume urbano nella città cinese di Zhongshan, in collaborazione con l'Istituto di pianificazione locale. Il Jiu Qu River renewal project assume la forma del grande progetto urbano, dove gli interventi di restauro del patrimonio edilizio più antico e quelli di demolizione di altri edifici meno significativi si combinano con la creazione di nuovi assetti insediativi e infrastrutturali sostenibili, con l'obiettivo di dare origine a una parte di città vitale e attrattiva quanto dotata di marcati valori figurativi e simbolici. Il modo di intrecciare la memoria  dell'antico con l'espressione della contemporaneità, gli strati di permanenza con le morfologie di una modernità attenta ai rapporti con il contesto, rappresenta il tema portante di un'esperienza in cui il know how italiano in materia di rigenerazione urbana viene messo alla prova di un contesto eccezionale, a una scala inusitata rispetto alla città europea.