scholarly journals Healthy cities — walkability as a component of health-promoting urban planning and design

Author(s):  
Minh-Chau Tran

Health impairments due to inactivity are related to the car-oriented urban development of recent decades, along with sedentary lifestyles. A health-maintaining environment must therefore not only reduce direct health risk factors (pathogenic concept), but also contribute to health chances that may indirectly support health (salutogenic concept). Walking has been identified as the most influenceable behavior; it is also the most environmental friendly mode of transport, social and health. From the planning view, the concept of walkability therefore aims at a built environment facilitating physical activity. It is increasingly recognized that walkability has become an important topic in the field of planning, urban design and health, since the built environment affects certain behaviors. From practice, concrete guidance is demanded as to the type of urban design features to be captured or applied to evaluate the walkability or to create active cities. The measurement of features of the built environment plays a special role in this context, but also the question of how research results can reach policies as well as planning and building practice

Author(s):  
J.H.M. Tah ◽  
A.H. Oti ◽  
F.H. Abanda

AbstractElements that constitute the built environment are vast and so are the independent systems developed to model its various aspects. Many of these systems have been developed under various assumptions and approaches to execute functions that are distinct, complementary or sometimes similar. Furthermore, these systems are ever increasing in number and often assume similar nomenclatures and acronyms, thereby exacerbating the challenges of understanding their peculiar functions, definitions and differences. The current societal demand to improve sustainability performance through collaboration as well as whole-system and through-life thinking is driving the need to integrate independent systems associated with different aspects and scales of the built environment to deliver smart solutions and services that improve the well-being of citizens. The contemporary object-oriented digitization of real-world elements appears to provide a leeway for amalgamating the modelling systems of various domains in the built environment which we termed as built environment information modelling (BeIM). These domains include architecture, engineering, construction as well as urban planning and design. Applications such as building information modelling, geographic information systems and 3D city modelling systems are now being integrated for city modelling purposes. The various works directed at integrating these systems are examined, revealing that current research efforts on integration fall into three categories: (1) data/file conversion systems, (2) semantic mapping systems and (3) the hybrid of both. The review outcome suggests that good knowledge of these domains and how their respective systems operate is vital to pursuing holistic systems integration in the built environment.


Author(s):  
Hisham Abusaada ◽  
Abeer Elshater

This chapter examines the problem of excessive similarity when designing new cities. It focuses on the generating of innovative ideas through urban design paradigms. The purpose of this work is to support the efforts of planners and designers toward the creation of new cities based on the concept of cities of singularity. This chapter is a bibliographic review of some conventional Western paradigms in urban planning and design. Based on this work, the three initial singularities of cities can be sketched as being architecturally singular (artwork-like/artistic and organic), societally singular (social, economic, and transcultural), or technologically and informationally singular (smart) in nature. The analytical reading depends on content analysis—which follows the potentiality of exploring the meaning of singularity and its characteristics, indicators, and principles. It collects the interrelationships of the old and new paradigms. The outcomes provide a framework for creating ‘cities of singularity' based on a crowdsourcing approach.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Wei Qian

<p>The economy growth has improved the development of cities. In cities' continuous development and construction process, carbon emissions are also gradually increasing, causing serious environmental pollution and energy shortage. At present, low-carbon urban planning and design has become the demand of contemporary urban construction, and sustainable low-carbon economy has become the inevitable choice of urban planning. Based on this, this article briefly introduces the concept of low-carbon city planning and the principles of urban design from the perspective of low-carbon city. By analyzing the existing problems in current urban planning, this article proposes urban design strategies from the view of low-carbon city planning, seeking to make contributions to the improvement of urban planning levels.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuan Gao ◽  
Kun Liu ◽  
Peiling Zhou ◽  
Hongkun Xie

Abstract Background: Physical activity diversity (PAD) is an essential indicator to present the vitality of health city, and how to improve PAD from the built environment perspective is a key issue for healthy urban planning and design, especially in high-density cities; Methods: This study selected Shenzhen, China as a representative case, combined the diversity of PA participants, types and occurrence times for the comprehensive understanding of PAD, fully used multiple source data for the measurement and statistical analysis of PAD and built environments, to discover the relationships between the built environment and PAD, and to explore the different effects in clustered and sprawled high-density urban forms; Results: PAD was unevenly distributed in Shenzhen, higher in the clustered areas and lower in the sprawled ares and the effects of the built environment on PAD were significantly different between two kinds of areas; Conclusions: the built environment supports PAD by progressive effects, in which accessibility is the necessary and funda-mental condition to activate individual PAs, inclusiveness is sufficiently supports the coaction of various kind of PAs to consolidate PAD, and landscape attractiveness furtherly aggregates more PAs to achieve higher PAD. To create accessible, inclusive, and attractive built environments are crucial ways to improve the vitality of healthy city development in high-density cities.


Author(s):  
Derya Oktay

Considering the serious environmental and social problems faced during the last few decades and the extensive neglect and devastation of local sources and values, urban development practice cannot be said to be meeting sustainability requirements in most habitats. Urban planning and design are not merely engaged in the visual qualities of urban places but should be recognized as processes through which we consciously shape and manage our habitats with a focus on meeting the requirements of sustainable urbanism. This article firstly explores the logic of sustainable urbanism through a review of its philosophical and practical framework; secondly, it provides a critical assessment of contemporary approaches to sustainable urbanism; and thirdly, it analyses the traditional Turkish (Ottoman) city, which provides valuable clues for sustainable habitats with identity. These evaluations indicate that instead of advocating compactness in all cases, randomly mixing of uses, and promoting car-oriented developments; planners and designers should promote context-sensitive compactness, completeness, and sustainable movement patterns and connectedness. Moreover, rather than relying on standardized urban design guides, practicing ‘green-washed’ architecture and urbanism, creating left-over spaces through planning, and ignoring the peculiarities of the community, practitioners should foster urban identity, promote access to nature and sensitivity to the natural ecology, create sustainable public spaces, and develop social sustainability. These alternative measures are essential for creating sustainability in the urban environment of future habitats.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. p1
Author(s):  
Tigran Haas ◽  
Krister Olsson

This paper is the product of reflections on the consequences of the latest discoveries of Emergent Urbanism that the authors identify as the specific issue dominating today's urban planning and urban design discourse, arguing that urban planning and design not only results from deliberate planning and design measures, but how these combine with infrastructure planning, and derive from economic, social and spatial processes of structural change. In the paper we reflectively also discuss ideas about urban heritage, urban planning & design, and how heritage and planning & design can contribute to urban development. Urban heritage is understood as an infrastructure comparable with other infrastructures that provide an arena for urban planning & design and urban social and economic development. Moreover, the paper includes a remodeled and novel, short discussion and standpoint about five contemporary urban planning & design ideals that dominate the contemporary planning & design discourse, and their different views of the past and urban heritage. The paper concludes that in any given situation and context, the dominating urban planning & design ideal define the specific urban heritage, and, thus, influence how we will understand the past—today and in the future but also the paper maintains that, we must equally recognize how forces of economic, social and spatial structural change contribute to shaping the contemporary urban landscape.


Author(s):  
Shiwei Lu ◽  
Chaoyang Shi ◽  
Xiping Yang

The loss of urban vitality is an important problem in the development of urban central areas. Analyzing the correlation between urban built environment and urban vitality supports urban planning and design. However, current research excludes the study of how consistent built environment factors affect urban vitality of cities with different development situations. Therefore, using social media check-in data, this paper measures neighborhood vibrancy in urban central areas in Beijing and Chengdu, China. Four levels of spatial information were used to measure the built environment: regulatory planning management unit (RPMU), land use, road network, and building. Regression model is used to quantify the correlation between urban vitality and the built environment of these two cities. The study found a strong correlation between built environment factors and urban vitality. Among the built environment factors, points of interest (POI) diversity and public transport accessibility indicators were strongly positively correlated with neighborhood vibrancy. However, the density indicators had totally different effects on urban vitality of cities with different development situations, which is excluded in existing studies. This research strengthens the practical understanding of the compact city concept, and can support the design and planning of urban built environment.


Author(s):  
Milan Sijakovic ◽  
◽  
Ana Peric ◽  

Simply understood as ‘seeking opportunities out of crises’, resilience seems to be a universal approach to cope with contemporary global challenges, such as changing climate, rapid urbanisation, loss of biodiversity, migrations, etc. As a majority of the current problems are of urban origin – i.e. they emerge in cities, where they also cause significant consequences on people, ecosystems and infrastructures, it is a city and its territorial sub-elements (district, neighbourhood, site, and building) that provide a prolific field for exploring the mechanisms towards resilient governance, planning and design. Under such an overarching agenda of urban resilience, in this paper, we focus on exploring the components of architectural and urban design as a tool for mitigating climate change. More precisely, as carbon dioxide emitted from the built environment is released into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, we explore the design patterns that help reduce CO2 emissions to finally lessen the vulnerability index of urban systems. Scrutinising the relationship between the climate change and construction industry, we elucidate the concepts like sustainable construction, green buildings, and design for climate, among others. Finally, through the assessment of the adaptive reuse project in London, this paper identifies strategies of sustainable architectural and urban design aimed at curbing the effects of climate change and helping increase urban resilience.


Author(s):  
Derya Oktay

Considering the serious environmental and social problems faced during the last few decades and the extensive neglect and devastation of local sources and values, urban development practice cannot be said to be meeting sustainability requirements in most habitats. Urban planning and design are not merely engaged in the visual qualities of urban places but should be recognized as processes through which we consciously shape and manage our habitats with a focus on meeting the requirements of sustainable urbanism. This article firstly explores the logic of sustainable urbanism through a review of its philosophical and practical framework; secondly, it provides a critical assessment of contemporary approaches to sustainable urbanism; and thirdly, it analyses the traditional Turkish (Ottoman) city, which provides valuable clues for sustainable habitats with identity. These evaluations indicate that instead of advocating compactness in all cases, randomly mixing of uses, and promoting car- oriented developments; planners and designers should promote context-sensitive compactness, completeness, and sustainable movement patterns and connectedness. Moreover, rather than relying on standardized urban design guides, practicing ‘green- washed’ architecture and urbanism, creating left-over spaces through planning, and ignoring the peculiarities of the community, practitioners should foster urban identity, promote access to nature and sensitivity to the natural ecology, create sustainable public spaces, and develop social sustainability. These alternative measures are essential for creating sustainability in the urban environment of future habitats.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Colin O'Byrne

<p>Because there are many ways of structuring and managing a land development process, this research asks the question: What influence do different decision making approaches have on the built form of the Wellington waterfront redevelopment?  The form of the built environment is shaped by existing physical and economic conditions; the values of those involved in the planning and design of it; and, the activities of those who occupy it. However, the social structure and mechanisms of decision making (i.e. the governance) within the urban planning and design stages of the development process act as a filter for identifying and prioritizing factors that will have the greatest influence on the form. Because of the filter effect, this thesis argues the governance of a development process has observable effects on the built form of the associated development project.  A review of urban design, urban morphology, and land development literature identified related research on the governance-built form relationship. Studies in urban design and development processes have generally identified single, overall governance approaches for development projects and have not effectively identified relationships with the built form. Recent work in the field of urban morphology has more effectively identified relationships between governance practices and the evolution of the built environment; however, these studies have tended to treat governance as a single process rather than a sequence of different governance approaches. Therefore, this study examined the redevelopment of the Wellington waterfront to look for and identify the different governance approaches that were used over the study period and how these influenced the resulting built form.  To address the question of what effect different governance approaches had on the built form, the history of the redevelopment was analyzed in depth. Through analysis of written records, semi-structured interviews with participants involved in a variety of redevelopment related roles, and site visits, it was possible to characterize different governance approaches within the overall project and how these have influenced the form of the built environment. Triangulation of the three methods was used to provide a richer description of the redevelopment and improve confidence in the findings.  Between 1974 and 2012, Wellington transitioned through seven separate governance approaches, each having some influence on the form of the redevelopment. Each governance approach was marked by different driving values and forms of stakeholder involvement that affected the redevelopment. For example, periods dominated by top-down or corporate approaches resulted in larger and more internally focused buildings and building sites than periods with more inclusive governance arrangements.   Characterizing the governance approaches and their effects on the built form provided a useful tool for evaluating and understanding the development process and the evolution of the built form of the Wellington waterfront. This level of understanding of the different governance approaches and their influence on the built form has not been previously described in the literature. While the findings cannot be assumed to be descriptive of other development projects, they do identify patterns that should be investigated in other development contexts. The approach and findings from this thesis therefore contribute to the literature on the relationship between the processes and products of urban design, and the social structures of development processes.</p>


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