The future of sustainable urbanism: a redefinition

© 2016, The Author(s). In this article the future of sustainable urbanism is discussed. In current times a complex of uncertainties demands sustainable environments. Three uncertainties are distinguished. Firstly, the city needs to deal with uncertain developments, such as the impacts of climate change. Secondly, urban environments are the place where deliberate uncertainties, such as the generation of renewable energy and other sustainability transitions must find a place. The third form of uncertainty is the increased exposure of urban populations to the impacts of a spectrum of uncertain developments, climate impacts. This ‘Triple-U problem’ urges the design of urban areas to be sustainable. Sustainability has long been a part of urbanism, however, in completely different ways in different periods in history. When learning from the past, the analysis of sustainable urbanism in seven periods brings key elements to the fore. Sustainable urbanism has evolved, but key characteristics of each period may and can still be used to design sustainable cities. Based on these characteristics two strategies, and a potential third one, are identified: to fix the future, to indulge the future, and to create anti-fragile urban environments. Where fixing the future implies the reparation of environmental qualities and closing environmental flows within the urban boundaries, indulging the future focuses on the creation of sufficient space to accommodate the possible spatial impacts of unprecedented events and change. Anti-fragility supports the city in raising its resilience under threat of uncertain impacts. The article ends with a proposed renewed definition of sustainable urbanism

The future of sustainable urbanism: Society-based, complexity-led, and landscape-driven

© 2017 by the authors. This article discusses the question: where to with sustainable urbanism? It includes a historic review of the concept of sustainable urbanism and reviews of recent literature in the field of eco-cities. Through these reviews, it deliberately interrogates new pathways for sustainable urbanism. The result of this investigation is the insight that there are six design principles that are required to create a sustainable city: a design in which cycles are closed, redundancy is built in, anti-fragility is created, citizens are seen as (design) experts, the landscape is used as the basis, and innovative, rule-breaking designs are developed. These six design principles are then captured in three comprehensive concepts, which together support the design of a sustainable city: the design approach needs to be a (1) society-based; (2) complexity-led, and (3) landscape-driven design approach

Bypassing the obvious : implementing cutting edge ideas for futuring urban landscapes

Vulnerable regions in particular especially face increased risks in periods of disruptive change. This mechanism is fed by a strongly felt uncertainty about the future, consisting of unprecedented events and is strengthened by an unshakeable faith in past approaches, reinforcing the problems. It is a common response to deal with these risks using traditional planning approaches. In other words, the problem here is that the current ‘regime’ (the set of policy responses) is embedded in the existing landscape of standards, habits, norms and approaches that lead to repetition of former solutions, which are often the obvious ones. This incrementality of the regime is in nature withstanding creative transformations. Unsafe planning is required to overcome a locked-in situation, especially in dynamic circumstances. The Toukomst Groningen project tries to escape this mechanism. In this article the crucial elements to achieve this are investigated and whether this is successful. In the Groningen region incremental planning has led to an increased vulnerability of population, nature and the land. People no longer trust their governments. In this article an alternative approach is investigated giving space to the most peripheric ideas in society, sublimating these into an overall ‘mindblowmap’ and implementing this long-term vision by executing a travelling circus, engaging the local residents in the realisation in order to rebuild local trust

Advanced use of the urban metabolism model in rapidly changing cities

For the calculation of energy and other flows in urban environments, we should take as a starting point relatively stable urban settlements. This makes it possible to calculate in and outgoing flows accurately, but only at a single moment in time. In this paper an adjusted approach to urban metabolism is proposed in which dynamic circumstances can be incorporated, suitable for urban settlements under pressure of rapid and unprecedented change. As examples we take the nearly uncontrollable growth of Almafraq in Jordan as a result of Syrian refugees and the changes in the population of Vlagtwedde in the Netherlands under influence from natural shrinkage and influx of (temporary) asylum seekers. The core questions answered here are: the way to calculate energy flows as input for sustainable urban design when population change is serious and the way to design cities when incorporating the results of dynamic urban metabolism. The research is ongoing and promises innovative results in the near future. © 2014 WIT Press

Towards an integrated vision of a climateproof Groningen

The Groningen province is gathering ideas on spatial adaptations for climate proofing the province. Such ideas on spatial adaptations for climate change have been produced and collected during a number of workshops in which experts on (e.g.) energy, ecology, water, agriculture and the climate shared their vision on how to make Groningen ready for climate change. Two kinds of workshop sessions were organized to define a coherent set of adaptation measures. Sector-specific workshops focused on generating solutions for problems in a specific domain (e.g. nature or energy), while more general sessions aimed to establish integrated visions for climate change adaption in Groningen. In the sector-specific sessions, experts gathered adaptation measures for societal domains such as energy generation, ecology, coastal management and water management. Gathering these ideas led to a large number of maps that show threats and proposed measures for a specific theme. In total, four sessions produced 28 separate maps, each with a (partially) different set of adaptation measures for Groningen