Transitioning to regenerative urbanism

This thesis describes a framework for transitioning to regenerative urbanism. Regenerative urbanism represents a new planning paradigm that optimises urban fabric and applies a regenerative design overlay to deliver highly liveable and sustainable urban development. This approach integrates across systems (energy, transport, water, waste, food, biodiversity), and scales (plot, precinct, city). Mainstreaming regenerative urbanism could usher in a period of planetary biosphere regeneration by facilitating a global network of net positive impact regenerative cities

Green infrastructure and biophilic urbanism as tools for integrating resource efficient and ecological cities

In recent decades, the concept of resource efficient cities has emerged as an urban planning paradigm that seeks to achieve sustainable urban environments. This focus is upon compact urban environments that optimise energy, water and waste systems to create cities that help solve climate change and other resource-based sustainability issues. In parallel, there has been a long-standing tradition of ecological approaches to the design of cities that can be traced from Howard, Geddes, McHarg and Lyle. Rather than resource efficiency, the ecological approach has focused upon the retention and repair of natural landscape features and the creation of green infrastructure (GI) to manage urban water, soil and plants in a more ecologically sensitive way. There is some conflict with the resource efficient cities and ecological cities paradigms, as one is pro-density, while the other is anti-density. This article focusses upon how to integrate the two paradigms through new biophilic urbanism (BU) tools that allow the integration of nature into dense urban areas, to supplement more traditional GI tools in less dense areas. We suggest that the theory of urban fabrics can aid with regard to which tools to use where, for the integration of GI and BU into different parts of the city to achieve both resource efficient and ecological outcomes, that optimise energy water and waste systems, and increase urban nature

A Review of International Low Carbon Precincts to Identify Pathways for Mainstreaming Sustainable Urbanism in Australia

Urban environments, once built, are slow to change, therefore the neighbourhoods we build today, will ideally be designed to meet our future needs. The combined challenges of climate change, population growth and finite resources demand we rapidly decarbonise our cities. Failing to provide the necessary infrastructure to decarbonise Australian cities today will place a social, environmental and economic burden upon future generations of Australian society. At a high strategic level this imperative is acknowledged but in practice government planning agencies have typically placed greater emphasis upon maintaining land supply and housing affordability over effectively fostering a culture of sustainable urbanism. The absence of a strong sustainability culture within the built environment sector, has seen barriers, such as the ‘sustainability cost premium’ and the political ‘short termism’ of a three year electoral cycle, impede more rapid transition to a widespread culture of sustainable urbanism practice. This paper describes six international ‘low carbon precinct’ case studies to show how they were able to overcome some of these barriers. The case studies employ a diverse range of strategies including demonstration project trials, integrated eco-services, and innovative funding models to deliver low carbon precincts. It shows how political, skill and market barriers can be overcome through the use of different delivery models, and how these models may provide useful lessons to help develop pathways to decarbonise urban development in Australian cities

Greening the Greyfields New Models for Regenerating the Middle Suburbs of Low-Density Cities

This open access book outlines new concepts, development models, governance and implementation processes capable of addressing the challenges of transformative urban regeneration of cities at precinct scale

Cities and the Anthropocene: Urban governance for the new era of regenerative cities

The emerging ‘grand challenges’ of climate change, resource scarcity and population growth present a risk nexus to cities in the Anthropocene. This article discusses the potential that rapid urbanisation presents to help mitigate these risks through large-scale transitions if future urban development is delivered using evidence-based policies that promote regenerative urban outcomes (e.g. decarbonising energy, recycling water and waste, generating local food, integrating biodiversity). Observations from an Australian case study are used to describe urban governance approaches capable of supporting regenerative urbanism. The regenerative urbanism concept is associated with macro-scale urban and transport planning that shapes different urban fabrics (walking, transit, automobile), as the underlying infrastructure of each fabric exhibits a different performance, with automobile fabric being the least regenerative. Supporting urban systems based upon regenerative design principles at different scales (macro, meso and micro) can deliver deep and dramatic outcomes for not just reducing the impact of the grand challenges but turning them into regenerative change. In combination, these approaches form the cornerstone of regenerative cities that can address the grand challenges of the Anthropocene, while simultaneously improving livability and urban productivity to foster human flourishing

Greening the Greyfields

This open access book outlines new concepts, development models, governance and implementation processes capable of addressing the challenges of transformative urban regeneration of cities at precinct scale

Greening the Greyfields

This open access book outlines new concepts, development models, governance and implementation processes capable of addressing the challenges of transformative urban regeneration of cities at precinct scale

Plasticity of Acquired Secondary Metabolites in Clathria prolifera (Demospongia: Poecilosclerida): Putative Photoprotective Role of Carotenoids in a Temperate Intertidal Sponge

Several marine sponges sequester high concentrations of carotenoids in their tissues. The diversity of carotenoid compounds has been described in detail for a handful of species, but to date, little attention has been paid to natural variability in the concentration and constituency of carotenoid pools. Also lacking are experimental tests of some of the proposed adaptive benefits of carotenoids to the sponge. To address some of these deficits in our understanding of sponge ecology, we used a combination of analytic chemistry, field surveys, and manipulative experiments to determine what function these compounds might play. Attention was focused on the common, carotenoid-rich intertidal sponge Clathria (Microciona) prolifera from Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, USA. Surveys of pier pilings indicated that C. prolifera was most common towards the surface of the water, with an average depth of 1 m, and also occurred most frequently on pilings exposed to sunlight. Total carotenoid concentrations (as estimated from spectroscopy) were maximal when solar radiation was nearing its northern maximum. However, HPLC analysis of crude acetone extracts highlighted several instances where concentrations of individual putative carotenoids were maximal during thermal (not solar) maxima in Chesapeake Bay. Naturally occurring sponges growing in environments protected from direct sunlight were found to have significantly lower total carotenoid concentration. In a manipulative field experiment, sponges transplanted from exposed habitats to shaded habitats showed significant decreases in carotenoid concentrations. HPLC analysis demonstrated that concentrations for several of the pigmented compounds decreased under reduced light levels. Given that sponges do not produce carotenoids de novo, the ecological role that these compounds play in sponge physiology deserves greater attention. Our findings indicate that solar radiation is an important factor in shaping carotenoid profiles of C. prolifera. While the physiological role and ultimate source of these compounds remains unclear, our data point to an adaptive function and indicate that C. prolifera is a useful species to address these questions