No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Anthropic space and design for all. New knowledge paths for urban planning strategies
Abstract
Nowadays city environment shows the presence of a mixed variety of elements, as natural, semi natural and anthropic components that build up both structure and connections of the urban context.
This specific structure shapes and directs space and its functions strictly connected with their sustainable potential uses and sustainable development opportunities.
The lack of rules and proper planning methods produces inefficient use conditions by resident citizens, entropy, functions' reduction of ecological networks and deep environmental impacts.
The consequence comes out to be a great widespread life quality decrease in urban areas.
These thoughts lead the authors to rethink the definition first and then the place concept own interpretation, as a theoretical reference approach and in a particular way of the urban place, as an anthropic action useful in a multidimensional relationship analysis.
Based on these considerations, the aim of the paper is that to introduce design for all as an efficient and effective planning action tool able to get sustainable operating strategies to match both people needs and urban system quality of life protection and enhancement in a long term timeline analysis.
... For example, the needs of future occupants must be considered when planning a new house -both in the near and distant future. In short, D4All must guarantee the environmental sustainability and economic viability of the design (Prestamburgo et al., 2019). This approach has accessibility as the main goal: D4All aims to achieve solutions that respect human diversity, social inclusion, and equality. ...
Given that the average age of the European population has been increasing, physical spaces need to be adapted, so that older adults may stay independent for as long as possible. Towards that aim, building constructors, furnishing designers, and social care and health sectors need to be aware of the difficulties that older adults face in their homes. Design for All, Universal Design, and Smart Healthy Age-Friendly Environments are approaches that build and promote more inclusive spaces for everyone, regardless of their gender, age, ethnicity, or functional limitations. The present study aims to identify the needs and gaps at different educational levels, concerning the implementation of D4All methods in educational programmes in four European countries (Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Spain). Desk research, interviews, and workshop sessions were conducted for the purpose of building a Matrix of Gaps, comparing the approach and availability of this topic in different educational fields and levels. Results show that there are differences between the countries, and that these topics are not sufficiently addressed in formal curricula, highlighting the need for this to be changed in the near future.
... Urban blocks usually have a rectangular or square shape and can be of various sizes. An urban block can be created on an existing city territory or on a new piece of land [8]. The urban block can be built as a whole and is designed for comfortable living and work of people. ...
Modern urban planning sets itself the task of creating sustainable urban environments that would provide comfortable living and work for the population, while not harming the environment. In this regard, green construction has become one of the most relevant areas in urban planning.Green construction is a construction concept that takes into account environmental aspects and is aimed at creating environmentally friendly and energy–efficient buildings and infrastructure. Green construction includes the use of environmentally friendly materials and technologies, improving the energy efficiency of buildings and infrastructure, as well as the creation of green areas in the city.With the rapid growth of cities and an increase in the number of people, the problem of preserving ecological cleanliness and sustainability of the urban environment is becoming more and more urgent. Environmental problems of cities, such as air, land and water pollution, noise and vibrations, lead to deterioration of public health and negative impact on the environment. In this regard, there is a need for new approaches to urban planning that would take into account environmental aspects.In Russia, as in many other countries of the world, there is a need to create sustainable urban environments. One of the ways to create such an environment is to use urban blocks. Urban blocks are a modern approach to the construction of the urban environment, which allows you to create compact blocks that include residential buildings and infrastructure facilities. They allow for more efficient use of urban space and create comfortable conditions for the life and work of the population. In this article we will look at the practice of using urban blocks in construction, how they differ from other forms of urban development and what advantages they provide for residents and urban infrastructure in general.
... With the continuous development of social economy, urbanization is an important trend, but disorderly urbanization will not only cause the waste of urban land resources, but also destroy the ecological environment to a certain extent [1,2]. erefore, many industry experts have put forward the concept of combining design with nature; that is, reasonable design and planning are needed to transform nature rather than destroy nature [3,4]. ...
With the continuous development of social economy, the expansion of cities often leads to the disorderly utilization of land resources and even waste. In view of these limitations and requirements, this paper introduces the automatic extraction algorithm of closed area boundary, combs the requirements of urban boundary extraction involved in urban planning and design, and uses the technology of geospatial analysis to carry out spatial analysis practice from three angles, so as to realize the expansion of functional analysis of urban planning and design and improve the efficiency and rationality of urban planning. The simulation results show that the automatic extraction algorithm of closed area boundary is effective and can support the functional analysis of urban planning and design expansion.
... • The availability of industries, resources used by these industries, the degree of environmental hazard of industries [14]. ...
The authors carried out the analysis of the current state of the Russian investment and construction market, theory and practice of project analysis, which made it possible to determine the specifics of housing construction projects development during the crisis and highly uncertain external and internal factors of its implementation. Urban agglomerations development is a continuous process of transformation of the existing urban environment, where daily living activities are carried out, connected with changing social requirements. It includes various components of the integrated organization of the city’s space: ecological, functional, architectural and artistic, socio-cultural aspects, as well as the organization of population activities. At the same time, taking into account the peculiarities of the city as a whole, urban development, in particular, is today the dominant task in urban planning practice. The mechanism of indicative risk assessment was used to develop the author’s matrix for the processing of specific project risks during the crisis. Values of factor risk premiums are based on it, and they are taken into account when calculating the project efficiency. The use of this methodology makes it possible to identify and assess project risks with minimum resources, correct the parameters of the project’s commercial efficiency and, taking into account the results obtained, draw a conclusion about the feasibility of further project implementation. One should choose a certain classification of environmental risks focusing on the goals and objectives of projects. This allows choosing the right methodology for assessing environmental risks at the stage of information collection and analysis, which in the future will make it possible to make the most complete and balanced decision. The use of the proposed recommendations makes it possible to take into account the impact of commercial, financial, legal, production and management risks during the crisis and, as a result, more accurately calculate the commercial efficiency of a development project.
... Organizing discussion forums among different stakeholders, across different disciplines on the public sector as well as with other institutions, is a challenging experience. Concepts such as integrated urban design that embraces the multi-layers and multi-dimensions [17] of designing the built environment [20] must be observed in urban areas fragmented by structures [21]. The main objective of integrated urban design is the recognition and corroboration of all imposed demands, while including them into one process of design thinking [20]. ...
Resume
In developing countries, unplanned urban growth, lack of infrastructure services, pollution, diseases, and flooding generate urgent needs. Floods cause diseases and damage to countries at all levels of development because they usually lack the preparedness for current climate variability. In Brazil, Municipal Civil Defense (JMCD) – in a 600,000 inhabitants city-, together with other city agencies, established a safe route (SRP) to be implemented during flood occurrences. This map is available for download as a PDF. This work aims to present the developed methodology, tools, and ways to design, in a collaborative way, a conceptual, innovative system model capable of bringing together needs like resilience, safety and sustainability, contributing to urban resilience, mobility, risks communication and health. Different design processes: design thinking, wayfinding system, signage, norms, and laws were used to create a dynamic conceptual design in the urban development. As a result, visual identity, pictograms icons, totems and luminous panels are presented. Luminous system is projected to be linked to rivers height (measured in hydrological gauging stations) to guide users to safe routes. The information technology which can link water height in rivers, to the different levels of flood in the designed system is not among the objectives of this study. Developing strategies to face the potential effects of climate change in the transportation sector poses a major significant challenge. Proper tools are required to prepare to change and provide meaningful environmental, health, social, and security solutions with the quickness the modern cities demand.
... While these ideas covered social planning, their focus still was on physical landscapes. In urban design, sense of community in urban design is the sense of place (Prestamburgo et al. 2019). This process requires the nurturing of identity as well as connectivity within a community (Gokce and Chen, 2018). ...
The purpose of this study was to inquire into the concept of sense of community in urban design and borrow aspects of pre-colonial urban settlements (Great Zimbabwe and Old Bulawayo) into current urban design. It emanates from the idea that environments can affect human behaviour as highlighted by the environmental determinism theory. Borrowing from the ideas of architectural determinism the study argues that urban design has been responsible for increasing individualism evidenced in current urban settlements in Zimbabwe. The study recognises that concepts like public space planning, street planning, walkability and combination of uses play a significant role in fostering sense of community in neighbourhoods. It pin points that legislation and design standards in Zimbabwe have been too general. This has undermined the development of sense of community in Zimbabwean cities. The study then argues that sense of community was higher in pre-colonial settlements than in current settlements. To understand the sources of higher sense of community in precolonial settlements, the study employed qualitative research methods. Using the case study research design of the two areas, Great Zimbabwe and Old Bulawayo, the study used face to face interviews, cell phone interviews, open ended email questionnaires and observations from primary data and archival methods for secondary data. Data collected was analysed using thematic content analysis and narrative analysis. The Atlas Ti software was also important in data analysis. The study identifies that sense of community in precolonial society was linked to values, norms and beliefs that gravitated into design and settlement layouts. Beliefs of a circular world brought the idea of circular settlement patterns, relationships brought close clusters of related people, sacred perception of kings led to easy control of the people as one as the king was viewed as a god. The study identified that in current communities, design is guided by profiteering mind-sets, political will and government policies. The study recommends that there is need for people-oriented designing, increase walkability, density and combination of uses. There is need for communities to be self-sufficient and compact as such people become familiar and sense of community is enhanced. The study informed the development of a design prototype of a neighbourhood that portrays sustainable sense of community.
See the retraction notice BIO Web of Conferences 84, 00001 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1051/bioconf/20248400001
With the development of the social economy, the scale of cities has expanded rapidly, and the urban ecological imbalance has become increasingly severe, which has caused many urban problems. People gradually realise that cities and human beings develop more harmoniously and healthily by building and developing cities on the basis of natural ecology and seeking the harmonious coexistence of ecology and humanity. The results of the sustainable landscape ecological evaluation of Anhui Shilonghu National Wetland Park show that the park has good ecological, social, and economic benefits and functions. The urban ecological environment and social and economic development have a good supporting effect on the park, and its overall evaluation grade is good. Compared with other waterscape parks, the ecological function of urban wetland parks is the most basic and essential function of the landscape. It has multiple functions, such as popular science education and being close to nature and entertainment. Developing wetland ecological experience tourism activities benefits wetland protection and ecologically coordinated, sustainable development. It can also comprehensively improve wetland parks’ ecological, social, and economic benefits.
Cities are critical to a sustainable future for our planet; still, the construction and operation of cities rely on intensive resource and energy use and transformation, leading to the generation of waste, effluents, and pollution, representing negative externalities outside and inside the city. Within every process, transformation implies the use of energy and the increase of entropy. In an urban system, the transformation of energy and materials will trigger the creation of entropic landscapes, mainly in the informal city and in unguarded natural landscapes, even hundreds of kilometers away, which generates substantial economic, social, and environmental impacts. In this sense, cities are significant contributors to the environmental crisis. Upstream, degradation of landscapes and ecosystems is frequent. Cities’ externalities and exogenous consumptions are directly linked with entropy and entropic landscapes, which are recognized as pollution (in the air, water, and land) or waste and in the degradation of natural ecosystems and communities. Through a systematic review of existing literature, this paper first outlines briefly how entropy has been applied in different disciplines and then focuses on presenting recent developments of how entropy has been defined, used, and characterized in urban studies concerning sustainability in cities and architecture, and presents a definition of the concept in relation to urban systems and key aspects to consider.
Substantial population growth, increasing urbanization, overloaded infrastructure, more energy consumption, environmental impacts, and investment in technological developments are major challenges in city management and development. Municipalities seek to improve their citizens’ wellbeing and quality of life, but the need to find a balance between these complex factors makes decision-making processes more difficult. Experts must analyze the determinants of smart cities, which are urban centers intended to be socially involved, habitable, and economically and environmentally sustainable, and that rely strongly on technology and innovation. Based on multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) principles, this study combines cognitive mapping techniques and the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method to develop a multicriteria model that can help managers analyze smart city determinants in a collaborative manner. The research included identifying these determinants and their respective cause-and-effect relationships using an expert panel’s experience and knowledge related to the subject under analysis. The results were validated by both the panel and the city councilor responsible for mobility and municipal projects within Évora City Council, Portugal, which has implemented smart city strategies. The latter specialist verified that the proposed evaluation system can be used as a tool to facilitate smart city collaborative decision-making processes. The study’s main advantages and limitations are also analyzed and discussed.
Purpose
Urbanization is characterized mainly by changes in land use and conversion of natural areas into built environments, as well as by a series of impacts, such as loss of biodiversity, which interfere with the proper functioning of ecological networks.
Design/methodology/approach
Thus, the authors apply a bibliometric analysis using the term “Urban Trees” in the “Web of Science” database, between 2009 and 2019, as a keyword to include all urban green structures and identify the main aspects of urban ecological relationships. They found 8,367 published articles.
Findings
This review identified the main countries and research institutions that operate in urban afforestation. In general, developing countries seek to understand the environmental benefits that urban afforestation can provide, demonstrating the importance of maintaining existing green areas in urban centers to promote the balance of the ecosystem. It depends directly on the flow of ecosystem services provided by green infrastructures in the city, contributing significantly to carbon sequestration, retention of particulate matter, mitigation of heat islands and reduction of surface runoff, directly favoring the health and well-being of the population. The authors conclude that the actions currently implemented in urban afforestation, especially to increase the richness and abundance of species, will be decisive for the future of urban centers and the construction of more sustainable and egalitarian cities.
Originality/value
This work sought to develop a bibliographic research based on information obtained by bibliometric analysis that has the ability to identify trends and volumes of scientific production in a given area of knowledge.
In 1998 Molly Follette Story, James Mueller and Roland Mace published the book The Universal Design File; that can be considered the result of a long way, started by Mace in 1985, towards a design approach based on the principles of Universal Design. In 2010 the Centre for Active Design publishes the Active Design Guidelines: Promoting Physical Activity and Health in Design. Between these two milestones, this article offers some ideas about the evolution of the universal approach to design. Assuming that Universal Design approach can present limits, this article aims to reflect on the relationship between universal and particular in developing a theoretical approach to architecture and design, supporting the idea that the wide gray area of the population who need specific access solutions can find answers to their needs only through successive adjustments, time by time plugged on universal solutions. This implies a process of requirementbased retrofitting of existing spaces and goods, to get qualities or perfecting performances otherwise inadequate. From this perspective the project for accessibility should be seen as a never ending process, and not a fix and final product, and Universal Design should be considered as a methodological approach ideally tending towards accessibility as a goal. Having this in mind, the article explores the issues related to how to blend universal and particular in a human centred design strategy, how to combine design actions and awareness by the users to allow an effective mutual adaptation between people and their living environment. The article aims to be further food for thought regarding research to be implemented in future works.
Despite growing knowledge of ecosystem services (ES), and heightened awareness of their political and socio-economic relevance, mainstreaming and implementing ES in landscape planning and decision-making are still in their infancy. The objective of this special issue, therefore, is to explore requirements for, approaches to, and potential impacts of, integrating ES in landscape planning and management. The issue includes three key research themes: (i) Requirements and interests of planners and decision-makers for integrating ES in different application contexts, (ii) Approaches to applying ES in (participatory) planning, and (iii) Potential impacts of integrating ES in policy and decision-making. These themes are addressed by 12 papers that refer to case studies in Africa, Australia, and Europe. Four lessons are highlighted: (i) Information on ES is considered useful by many practitioners, but the type, production and communication of ES information need to be adapted to the specific context of a planning case; (ii) A broad range of approaches are available for integrating the ES concept in (participatory) planning with different and complementary contributions to decision-support; (iii) Effectively integrating ES in planning requires careful scoping of the context, objectives and capacities; (iv) Integrating ES in planning can effectively support the co-production of relevant knowledge and the collaboration of diverse actors. A new research field of ‘Planning-for-ES Science’ is emerging which focuses on, among other issues, the critical evaluation of real-world case studies of applying the ES concept in different fields of practice.
Mountain ecosystems are highly sensitive to global change. In fact, the continued capacity of mountain regions to provide goods and services to society is threatened by the impact of environmental changes on ecosystems. Although mapping ecosystem services values is known to support sustainable resource management, the integration of spatially explicit local expert knowledge on ecosystem dynamics and social responses to global changes has not yet been integrated in the modeling process. This contribution demonstrates the importance of integrating local knowledge into the spatially explicit valuation of ecosystem services. Knowledge acquired by expert surveys flows into a GIS-based Bayesian Network for valuing forest ecosystem services under a land-use and a climate change scenario in a case study in the Swiss Alps. Results show that including expert knowledge in ecosystem services mapping not only reduces uncertainties considerably, but also has an important effect on the ecosystem services values. Particularly the iterative process between integrating expert knowledge into the modeling process and mapping ecosystem services guarantees a continuous improvement of ecosystem services values maps while opening a new way for mutual learning between scientists and stakeholders which might support adaptive resource management.
Ecosystem services, the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems, are a powerful lens through which to understand human relationships with the environment and to design environmental policy. The explicit inclusion of beneficiaries makes values intrinsic to ecosystem services; whether or not those values are monetized, the ecosystem services framework provides a way to assess trade-offs among alternative scenarios of resource use and land- and seascape change. We provide an overview of the ecosystem functions responsible for producing terrestrial hydrologic services and use this context to lay out a blueprint for a more general ecosystem service assessment. Other ecosystem services are addressed in our discussion of scale and trade-offs. We review valuation and policy tools useful for ecosystem service protection and provide several examples of land management using these tools. Throughout, we highlight avenues for research to advance the ecosystem services framework as an operational basis for policy decisions.
The services of ecological systems and the natural capital stocks that produce them are critical to the functioning of the Earth's life-support system. They contribute to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent part of the total economic value of the planet. We have estimated the current economic value of 17 ecosystem services for 18 biomes, based on published studies and a few original calculations. For the entire biosphere, the value (most of which in outside the market) in estimated to be in the range of US33 trillion per year. Because of the nature of the uncertainties, thin must be considered a minimum estimate. Global gross national product total is around US$18 trillion per year.
p>Urbanization is a global trend, and consequently the quality of urban environments is increasingly important for human health and wellbeing. Urban life-style is typically associated with low physical activity and sometimes with high mental stress, both contributing to an increasing burden of diseases. Nature-based solutions that make effective use of ecosystem services, particularly of cultural ecosystem services (CES), can provide vital building blocks to address these challenges. This paper argues that, the salutogenic, i.e. health-promoting effects of CES have so far not been adequately recognised and deserve more explicit attention in order to enhance decision making around health and wellbeing in urban areas. However, a number of research challenges will need to be addressed to reveal the mechanisms, which underpin delivery of urban CES. These include: causal chains of supply and demand, equity, and equality of public health benefits promoted. Methodological challenges in quantifying these are discussed. The paper is highly relevant for policy makers within and beyond Europe, and also serves as a review for current researchers and as a roadmap to future short- and long-term research opportunities.</p
Rural and urban environments present significant differences between water and energy consumptions. It is important to know, in detail, which factors related to the consumption of these two resources are different in both environments, once that will be those important to manage and discuss in order to improve its use efficiency and sustainability. This research work involves a survey whose aim is to find the factors that in rural and urban environments may justify the differences found in water and energy consumptions. Besides the collection of water and energy consumption data, this survey analyzed 80 variables (socio-demographic, economic, household characterization, among others), that were chosen among the bibliography as possible factors that should influence water and energy consumptions. After the survey application in rural and urban areas and the data statistical treatment, 42 variables remained as truly differentiating factors of rural and urban environments and so as possible determinants of water and energy consumptions. In order to achieve these objectives, a descriptive data analysis and statistical inference (Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test and the Chi-square test of homogeneity) were performed.
All the 42 differentiating variables that result from this study may be able to justify these differences, however this will not be presented in the paper and it is reserved for future work.
Urban ecological systems are characterized by complex interactions among social, economic, institutional, and environmental variables. These interactions generate complex human-dominated landscapes, which significantly influence the functioning of local and global earth ecosystems and the services they provide to humans and other life on earth. Urban development fragments, isolates, and degrades natural habitats; simplifies and homogenizes species composition; disrupts hydrological systems; and modifies energy flow and nutrient cycling. Urban areas also appropriate a large share of earth’s carrying capacity from other regions in terms of resource input and waste sinks. Change in ecological conditions that result from human actions in urban areas ultimately affect human health and well-being. In this article, the author reviews the empirical evidence on the effects that patterns of urban development have on ecosystem function. Urban development affects the spatial heterogeneity of the landscape (i.e., pattern of variation in land cover) and spread of disturbance (i.e., invasive species). The author proposes that alternative urban patterns generate differential ecological effects. The review reveals that the interactions between urban development patterns and ecosystem dynamics are still poorly understood. The author draws on an empirical study of the Puget Sound metropolitan region currently developed at the University of Washington to propose directions for future empirical research that can inform strategies to minimize urban impacts on ecosystems.
Using data from selected areas in five UK cities, we studied the relationships between urban form and the following measures of ecosystem performance: availability and patch characteristics of tree cover, gardens and green space; storm-water run-off; maximum temperature; carbon sequestration. Although most measures of ecosystem performance declined with increasing urban density, there was considerable variability in the relationships. This suggests that at any given density, there is substantial scope for maximising ecological performance. The social status of residents was related to measures of tree cover. Housing type was significantly associated with some types of ecosystem service provision, indicating that the type of development may be important independent of its density. These findings have implications for understanding the distribution of ecosystem services and biodiversity across urban landscapes, and the management of development aimed at meeting UK government housing density targets.
Accessibilità e valorizzazione dei beni culturali
- Garofolo
Servizi ecosistemici e sostenibilità
- Santolini
Enti locali,qualità dell'ambiente e governo del territorio
- Pareglio