Ecodesign for cities and suburbs

Abstract

Design professors detail a new ecodesign framework that integrates urban design with environmental conservation to make cities more desirable, low-carbon, transit-oriented communities. Jonathan Barnett and Larry Beasley seek to demonstrate that a sustainable built and natural environment can be achieved through ecodesign, which integrates the practice of planning and urban design with environmental conservation, through normal business practices and the kinds of capital programmes and regulations already in use in most communities. In six comprehensively illustrated chapters, the authors explain ecodesign concepts, including the importance of preserving and restoring natural systems while also adapting to climate change; minimizing congestion on highways and at airports by making development more compact, and by making it easier to walk, cycle, and take trains and mass transit; crafting and managing regulations to ensure better place making and fulfil consumer preferences while incentivizing preferred practices; creating an inviting and environmentally responsible public realm from parks to streets to forgotten spaces; and finally, how to implement these ecodesign concepts.