Governance for Urban Sustainability and Resilience: Responding to Climate Change and the Relevance of the Built Environment by Jeroen van der Heijden

Cities have been the focus of recent sustainability and climate change mitigation efforts primarily because of unprecedented urban growth and ever-increasing resources consumption. A worrying trend has been the ever-decreasing life of buildings in cities because of premature building obsolescence. Premature building obsolescence has been cited as the major driver of demolition waste which accounts for more than 40% of total waste generated annually. This waste stream poses a bigger challenge as the pressure on natural resources increases with urban growth. A traditional way of looking at the urban sustainability has been from the perspective of the environmental sciences and waste management methods. Analyzing urban areas with design science perspectives could provide novel insights to improve existing resource consumption patterns and transform sustainability growth in cities. This study focuses on the problem of demolition waste arising from the premature building obsolescence in cities. It applies a design research methodology framework for identifying existing problems associated with demolition waste and generating strategies to transform cities into more sustainable urban systems. In the problem clarification phase, a detailed literature review was supported with stakeholder’s interviews to identify the state-of-art for building demolition process and demolition waste. Research was further extended to descriptive study-I phase to carry out a demolition case study and generate support tools to enable transformation in the existing scenario for achieving a desired state. Singapore, a dense city state of South-East Asia has been taken as a case study in this research. Results show that applying design research methods could help open-up a new dimension to solve urban sustainability challenge for built environment. It highlights that material reuse could lead to significant improvement in the built environment sustainability but the challenge associated with realization of material reuse practice needs to be addressed. Descriptive study-I concludes with the strategies on creating a reuse market through entrepreneurial innovation and an alternative material supply chain of secondary materials for regional housing demand. These results highlight the role of design research methods for tackling complex systems level problems in cities.

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Territorial bioethics: participatory design as a catalyst for social welfare in groups vulnerable to climate change

Mexican Bioethics Review ICSA ◽

10.29057/mbr.v1i2.5365 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 6-10

Author(s):

Silvia L. Aguilar-Velázquez ◽

Karina G. Muñoz-Guadarrama ◽

Lilia S. Carrillo-Medina

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Social Welfare ◽

Urban Development ◽

Social Organization ◽

Participatory Design ◽

Urban Sustainability ◽

The Elderly ◽

Theoretical Framework ◽

Social Resilience ◽

The Social

The following work is an approach to the theoretical framework that builds the concept of territorial Bioethics, as part of the paradigm of urban development and the policy of attention to the spatial needs of society; It is part of the project of consolidation of the research line on indicators for urban sustainability and identifies within the process of social resilience, the relations between the territory, the anthropic environment and the attitudes of the social organization as well as models of reconstitution of environments degraded Emphasizes the active attitude of society to promote effective and dignified intervention with participation instruments; that it manages to restore attributions of adaptation and resilience to the environmental emergency; In addition, reference is made to a group vulnerable to such an emergency: the elderly.

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Ontario's public infrastructure : adapting to climate change

10.32920/ryerson.14661111 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Mark Carafa

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Built Environment ◽

Current Literature ◽

Public Infrastructure ◽

Current Management ◽

Management Framework ◽

Built Form ◽

The Face ◽

Rapid Pace ◽

Planned Adaptation

The rapid pace at which the climate is changing has forced governments globally to focus on adaptation techniques for their built environment. This paper will define and explain Ontario's current management framework over its building portfolio and identify gaps in planned adaptation strategies and recommend solutions to fill these gaps. This research will be informed by current literature that details the most appropriate and successful approaches to managing a building portfolio in the face of climate change. Recommendations will be made as to how Ontario's public infrastructure frameworks and strategic approaches can be modified to embody a more holisitic, realistic and result-based approach to built form adaptation.

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Built Environment Education for Sustainability and Climate Change Preparation

Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ◽

10.1007/978-3-319-95717-3_73 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 21-33

Author(s):

Usha Iyer-Raniga

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Built Environment ◽

Education For Sustainability ◽

Environment Education

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Climate Change in the Built Environment

Claiming Identity Through Redefined Teaching in Construction Programs - Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-8452-0.ch006 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 100-121

Author(s):

Jeremy T. Gibberd

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

South Africa ◽

Built Environment ◽

Sierra Leone ◽

Climate Changes ◽

Cape Town ◽

Built Environments ◽

Water Shortages ◽

La Paz

Despite a growing awareness of climate change, there is little evidence that this is being addressed in cities and built environments. Events such as flooding in Houston, USA; landslides in Free Town, Sierra Leone; and water shortages in La Paz, Bolivia and Cape Town in South Africa demonstrate that it is increasingly important that climate change is understood and addressed in built environments to ensure that they become more resilient. This chapter introduces climate change and outlines the implications of this for built environments. It describes measures that can be incorporated into built environments to enable them to adapt to projected climate changes. Understanding climate change and preparing for this by developing built environments that are more resilient will be an increasingly valuable and important skill. Reading this chapter will support the development and refinement of skills and knowledge in this area and it is an essential reference for built environment students and practitioners.

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