Abstract
Sustainable housing and buildings constitute a fundamental part of the future urban fabric. This study aims at clarifying how different actors employ parameters of sustainability in building design and what enables the holistic perspective of the interrelating social, economic and environmental parameters. Interviews with building developers and designers show that decision support tools are used late in the design process and commonly focused on single parameters of sustainability. The analysis shows how practitioners of the planning and early design phases operate at general levels of geometrical clusters and volumes but must continuously evaluate each project from the perspective of the specifications of end-users and the public, to ensure holistic sustainability. This opposing relationship between need and availability of general and specific data, however, challenges the implementation of holistic sustainability. Advancing the interdisciplinary, holistic building design requires systematic aggregation of data from executed projects of this data into applicable rules-of-thumb. In parallel, future tools for simulation and dialogue must employ a broader scope of sustainability parameters. The conceptual frameworks of data and tools presented in this study can be used as a backdrop for developing sectoral
Highlights
More than half of the world’s population live in cities and urbanisation is expected to intensify within the couple of decades (Seto, Parnell and Elmqvist, 2013)
Sustainable housing and buildings in general constitute a fundamental part of the future urban fabric
Urban regeneration projects aspiring for sustainable profiles can find inspiration from the more numerous building scale projects applying sustainability parameters in practice
Summary
More than half of the world’s population live in cities and urbanisation is expected to intensify within the couple of decades (Seto, Parnell and Elmqvist, 2013). Roberts (2000) defines urban regeneration as a comprehensive and integrated vision and action to address urban problems through lasting improvements in the conditions of an area These conditions span economic, physical, social and environmental aspects, and require strategic partnerships between several stakeholders to succeed (ibid.). As outlined by Rockström, et al (2009) in the concept of planetary boundaries, specific and interlinked thresholds are in place for defined environmental areas of concern, e.g. global warming or biodiversity loss. These boundaries reflect the maximum biophysical capacity to absorb the pressure put on the global environmental system by humankind. The pillars express a certain depth that is of relevance when discussing specialisation within specific, measurable parameters
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