THE ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE OF URBAN FORM

    Project Details

    Description

    One of the main challenges to architects and planners in the next decades will be how to improve the environmental performances of urban contexts. Policies and design choices should aim to fulfill a mix of objectives: building energy performances, optimization of indoor daylight, active and passive collection of solar energy, visual and thermal comfort of pedestrians in outdoor spaces. Furthermore a social sustainable living and use of space should be inspire promoting people security, health and a vibrant environment.
    Old cities show that there is a high potential in urban form related to the creation of efficient buildings, comfortable and livable spaces that interact closely with the climate. Today, rapid urbanization has exerted tremendous pressure on urban development, so that there is urgent to re-think the city planning toward climate-specific designs that provide comfortable outdoor spaces, while providing guidelines for sharing the urban renewable energy potential available for energy efficient buildings.
    In global prospective, there is a population movement from land to cities. In order to proper assimilate this flow, cities must able to propose a urban form that can be sustainable economically, socially and environmentally. The scenarios are two: one is the densification of existing site, the other is the planning of new cities and open lands.
    The Research Questions are:
    Land use - Are there large savings to be made regarding the use of spatial area with compact building types?
    Urban Environment and Open Space - how the compactness and the shape are related to make urban life? how is the climate impacting and impacted?
    StatusFinished
    Effective start/end date01/09/201130/06/2013