Toukomst of Groningen: linking public with policy (original) (raw)

Design and Ecology. Ecotown

The interest of architectural and urban design in ecology is in part a recent interest, matured in the wake of a lengthy phase of "auto-conscience" at the end of which the disciplines of design achieved a certain level of awareness regarding their objective responsibilities in relation to achieving the objectives of sustainable development through the design of the city. A new ecological ethic now appears to pervade the actions of designers, coupled with a sincere and passionate tension, in some cases naïve, towards the real problems being faced by the planet, re-read through the lens of architecture and design.

From Wastescapes Towards Regenerative Territories. A Structural Approach for Achieving Circularity

Regenerative Territories, 2022

In this chapter, the understanding of circularity goes beyond material resource management, deepening the spatial implications of a more circular management and use of wastescapes, investigated at the urban and metropolitan scale.Besides the health (care) related challenges presented by the current outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, additional ones related to our living environment have been—and will continue to be—an urgent call for academic researchers, designers and policymakers to find (eco)innovative solutions and strategies for enhancing the quality of life of all and the availability of more and more safe public (open) spaces and facilities to sustain this. In this situation, the spaces most at risk of urban and peri-urban areas could be found in the unresolved places which are defined as wastescapes, since they are in general still poorly used and valued. Building on the European H2020 research project REPAiR, the definition of wastescapes, provided in this study, builds upo...

Ecosystem strategies and green infrastructures in symbiosis with the built environment, AGATHÓN 11_2022

AGATHÓN | International Journal of Architecture, Art and Design, 2022

AGATHÓN issue number 11 is a collection of essays, studies, research and projects on Greenery | Its Symbiosis with the Built Environment. It recalls the role that nature and greenery, in general, can play in the short term to address the current global warming and climate change challenges. They are caused by deforestation and forest fires, urban sprawl, indiscriminate use of non-renewable raw materials and an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. These elements cause a devastating impact on our fragile ecosystem, society and the economy. In 1969, Simon had already guessed the potential of a ‘new ecology’ whose animate and inanimate elements of the built environment characterise a ‘unified’ landscape. Beynus’ studies are a knowledge heritage useful for the informed and responsible regeneration of the built environment. Over the millennia, Nature has perfected strategies and solutions, processes and mechanisms to adapt to different climates and physical conditions through the rationalisation of the use of matter and energy by optimising material and immaterial metabolic exchanges. While the Modern Movement has considered landscape, urbanism, architecture and design as separate disciplines, in the new millennium there is a ‘scalar shift’ in which they are considered part of a unified territorial system, in which we are called to overcome anthropocentrism and to design for man and living beings, in a connection made of profound knowledge and understanding of the trajectories and reciprocal needs of human and non-human beings. The relationship between the parts of the system takes on crucial importance when we adopt a broader and more systemic vision, supported by a holistic and participatory approach. Digital technologies can support this ‘double convergence’ in their shift towards a ‘cybernetic ecology’ allowing us to see the natural and artificial world as a unicum. The theoretical and experimental framework presented by AGATHÓN issue number 11, although not exhaustive of the potential of nature-based solutions, shows that their cross-disciplinary essence can relevantly help – both with traditional and vernacular approaches/techniques and using IoT and digital technologies – to counteract the effects of climate change by creating a more resilient built environment, less vulnerable to erosive transformation dynamics, and to create healthier environments, enhance biodiversity, provide ecosystem services, improve quality of life, foster new economic and social opportunities and create value chains, while acting on urban regeneration processes with the circularity and multi-scalar tools as pillars. To achieve these goals in the shortest possible time and overcome the greenwashing bad practice in design, it is necessary to start a new paradigm based on the ‘shift from an economics of growth to an economics of belonging’ and on a ‘new ecology’ in which man and nature characterize an unprecedented ‘unified’ landscape in a profound bond made of mutual knowledge and understanding to build a relationship based on symbiosis, inclusion and adaptation at the different scales of the project. For example, by stimulating training initiatives such as those of the Valldaura Labs of the IAAC in Barcelona, which aim to disseminate practices for holistically integrated ecological and technological landscapes.

A sustainable built environment: a new text book based on ecosystem theory

2010

With half of the world population living in urban areas and with the building sector as the largest industrial sector in the US and Europe, the built environment makes a significant contribution to sustainability problems, in terms of energy use, material extraction, waste production and land conversion. In a search for a common theoretical basis as foundation for the chosen multi-perspective approach, ecosystem theory appeared to be a powerful framework. A transdisciplinary team of teachers and researchers from different faculties and institutes of the Delft University of Technology joint their efforts to write a text book for master students from different disciplines. The book gives insights in important sustainability effects of the built environment and of leading methods and tools to assess and address these problems at various spatial scales: ranging from the building level to the urban plan. It also deals with the specific institutional context of the built environment and its influence on the innovation and implementation of sustainable technologies. The paper goes f into the basis for this book, which is the ecosystem theory and how it was applied on 13 fields relevant to the subject: ecosystems, urban ecology, water flows, materials, energy, air quality, livability, urban transport, urban forms, strategies and tools for sustainability, integrated solutions, governance and transition management.