Designing Sustainable Cities

This book offers practical solutions to achieving sustainable urban design and development, and helps designers communicate these solutions effectively to planners, developers and policy makers. <p>Addressing sustainability issues in relation to the design and planning of the urban environment is a complex, multi-disciplinary issue and solutions never arrive from a single perspective. The authors use design as a facilitating factor to consider when and by whom decisions that contribute to sustainability are made, and through three major city-centre case studies – London, Manchester and Sheffield – they consider social, environmental and economic factors and examine their relationship to the decision-making process.</p> <p><i>Designing Sustainable Cities</i> begins by identifying the key processes and lead decision-makers. The following chapters develop an understanding of the dimensions of sustainability, presenting the tools by which the dimensions can be analysed. Later chapters illustrate the trade-offs and the relationships between the dimensions of sustainability – with case study examples – as well as the use of IT in making design decisions. Finally, the book makes recommendations for future approaches to the design, development and on-going management of urban environments.</p> <p><i>Designing Sustainable Cities</i> covers:</p> <ul> <li>latest research data on the urban environment and the interaction between social, economic and environmental issues</li> <li>methods of understanding the context in which urban design takes place</li> <li>guidance on the codes of practice</li> <li>process maps to help understand the context, make trade-offs and develop design solutions that allow for change</li> <li>methods for testing the consequences of design proposals and monitoring outcomes.</li> </ul>