Design Region Research Articles

Beneficial reuse of water treatment sludge in the context of circular economy

Water treatment processes produce large volumes of drinking water that must meet regulatory quality requirements. In the process of so doing, the treatment of water generates large volumes of ‘alum sludge’; a by-product typically considered a waste and disposed to landfill. However, reductions in access to landfill sites, increased disposal costs, and concepts of achieving zero-waste are spurring different approaches to sludge management and disposal. Principles of Circular Economy that seek to promote regenerative design, eliminating waste and continual use of resources, are becoming increasingly important for water authorities. This paper comprehensively reviews the general properties of water treatment sludge, contemporary disposal practices, and its sustainable resource management, including sludge reuse, recycling, and recovery options. The paper also discusses potential social, economic and environmental benefits and barriers of implementing sustainable resource management with water treatment sludge in the context of the Circular Economy. Future research opportunities are discussed with a focus on promoting sustainable management practices where water treatment sludge is considered a value-add resource. • An outline of current disposal practices for water treatment sludge (WTS). • Circular Economy framework that can be applied to WTS management. • A detailed summary of recent studies on WTS: recovery, re-use and recycling. • A critical discussion on benefits and barriers of WTS management practices towards Circular Economy. • Recommendations on future research with WTS management.

Fostering communication and collaboration through regenerative design games

This paper explores how regenerative design games might foster the communication and collaboration skills needed to scaffold transitions to just and sustainable futures. It explores three design games, each co-designed with different people, for different intents and purposes but each with the shared aim to build people’s capacity for regeneration, open communication, and effective collaboration. Framed by critical pragmatism and performed through co-design, the paper discusses the role of games in explorations of uncertain futures and highlights the important role played by care practices in co-design processes.

Biomimicry Levels as Design Inspiration in Design

The relationship between design and nature has been intertwined for the past 400 years. Throughout history, designers have adopted nature to build shapes, forms, and ornamentation without understanding nature's behavior biomimicry. Nature's behavior biomimicry is a method that applies solutions to human problems by analyzing natural designs, processes, and systems. This innovative method refers to nature as an inspiration to solve design challenges. The method is the new science that studies nature as a model and inspiration to imitate the design and process of solving human problems. However, there is a lack of widespread and practical application of biomimicry as a design method; architecture commonly uses biology as a library of shapes, which is not biomimicry. Among the levels of biomimicry, the organism level is widely applied as a design tool to achieve a design solution. This paper reviews published research on the applications of biomimicry level, including its formative elements. Organism, behavior, and ecosystem level are mostly inspired or applied in the biomimicry concept. The content analysis was carried out to examine the published research articles on different perspectives of biomimicry and its application in design. The findings produce three levels of biomimicry that can serve as a regenerative design. There is a growing need for designs that work with nature to create a regenerative built environment, and designers can no longer ignore the relevance of bio-inspired theories and approaches to achieve a more sustainable future.

Investigating Regenerative Ideation within Sustainable Development Goals

The rapid deterioration of ecosystems and the growing impacts of climate change, which is expected to increase the average global temperature by 3–6 degrees Celsius by 2100 according to The Paris Agreement, reveals that sustainability is no longer an adequate solution to these ongoing challenges. As a result, a paradigm shift toward a more evolutionary approach has recently become a demand, where regenerative concepts have rapidly replaced current sustainable practices. Rather than minimizing human impacts on the environment, regenerative ideation aims to generate more than consume and tackles many shortcomings of conventional sustainability. Therefore, the study attempts to provide an answer for the debate on how far can regenerative ideation go beyond current sustainability, and to what extent does this concept deliver on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, the study aims first to develop regenerative development goals that adopt an integrated approach and secondly to assure their compliance with the UN’s SDGs. The study employed a qualitative methodology and the case study approach to examine the applicability of the proposed principles. The findings provide clear criteria for architects and urban designers to use in spreading regenerative design to create a more responsible built environment. The study recommends further research on creating regenerative development and design metrics and indicators for practicing the concept within the built environment.

Enhancing Spatial Imaginaries of Metropolitan Renaissance: A Regional Design Approach

This paper explores the contribution of Regional Design (RD), as an imaginative and creative practice aimed at the co-production of actual and future visions, to the construction and diffusion of spatial imaginaries (SI) concerning the present and future of our metropolitan cities. Despite recent studies on the performance of RD, an in-depth understanding of the interrelations between RD and SI has not yet been achieved. In order to fill this gap, the performance of RD in enhancing spatial imaginaries is approached by analysing its capacity to make the region visible, providing moments of insight and institutionalising certain imageries through processes of SI resonance. The application of these notions to the case of the Metropolitan City of Florence, by tracing the evolution of multiple spatial imaginaries and the challenges brought by the pandemic, reveals the opportunities and weaknesses of RD for grasping and even changing spatial imaginaries within processes of defining shared visions for the future of cities and regions.

Why Kalina (Ammonia-Water) cycle rather than steam Rankine cycle and pure ammonia cycle: A comparative and comprehensive case study for a cogeneration system

There are many studies on the Kalina cycle and steam Rankine cycles. However, there are not enough comparative and descriptive studies on why the Kalina cycle or steam Rankine cycle should be selected. In addition to that, almost there are no papers on why Kalina cycle and steam Rankine cycle are commonly used systems rather than the pure ammonia cycle. For these reasons, the present paper was designed, analysed and compared comprehensively the Kalina, steam Rankine and pure ammonia cycles as a subsystem for use in a cogeneration cycle. Moreover, the pure ammonia cycle system was analysed for both simple and regenerative designs to comprehensively present all cases. After deciding the best cogeneration system configuration for the present system, the economic and environmental analyses of the best performing system were performed. In addition to all these, during the study, the condensing temperature remained constant to be able to analyse systems in line with real working conditions. As a result of the comprehensive analyses, the Kalina cycle showed the best performance. The maximum net power, thermal and exergy efficiencies of the Kalina cycle were calculated at ammonia-water concertation of X = 25% and a turbine inlet temperature of t = 340 °C as 365.92 kW, 25.52%, 57.96% respectively. Thanks to the power generated by integrating the Kalina cycle into the system, 244.53 kg-CO2/h carbon dioxide was reduced and the total cost of the Kalina cycle and the payback period was found as 343,975.26$ and 2.2 years. The maximum thermal and exergy efficiencies of the Kalina cycle-based cogeneration system were calculated as 72.13% and 78.60%.

The fictional soils of a ‘sustainable’ Anthropocene: A new materialist story of the soils of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London has been celebrated as an exemplar of sustainable landscape architecture and regeneration. Yet tracing the new materialist histories of its enmeshed soils reveals how complex sustainable landscape architecture is. On the one hand, the park has expertly recycled and locally sourced its materials. On the other, the socio-ecosystems of its soil assemblages have been pulverized, treated and mixed to create a new profile of synthetic geological strata. Their history and life have been erased. The subterranean sections through this park are caricatures of a ‘sustainable Anthropocene’. Here, the anthropogenic geology supporting the vision of idealized future ecosystems is used for the global marketing of a nation and property developments. This project indicates a destructive systemic blindness in sustainable approaches and the need for truly regenerative design processes, based on working with a place, including the various (other-than) human inhabitants, instead of solely mining its materials to create a perfect vision anew.

Towards regenerative neighbourhoods: An international survey on urban strategies promoting the production of ecosystem services

Neighbourhoods are a fundamental urban design unit and the focus of many sustainable design frameworks. Although these frameworks were fundamental to mainstream sustainable practices, problems with their use remain, such as their unbalanced sustainability aspects. To face these problems, innovative design approaches emerge, including regenerative design, aiming for urban projects that are net-positive for society and nature. Nevertheless, there is no common understanding of how sustainable urban projects translate regenerative design principles into urbanisation strategies and produce benefits for society and nature. Through a survey with 73 international and certified sustainable neighbourhoods, we explored the use of 42 different urbanisation strategies, the role of diagnostics, the barriers, and the design teams' needs to move towards regenerative design and neighbourhoods that produce ecosystem services. We observed that projects mostly address fundamental urban challenges related to energy, water flows and vegetation, lacking focus on topics such as circular economy, soil and fauna management. We also found that doing an ecological diagnostic positively impacts the diversity of urbanisation strategies. To move towards regenerative design, it is important to formally integrate diagnostics into the design process and combine innovative strategies, like those related to closed systems, fauna, and habitat management, with conventional ones.

REGENERATIVE WATER MANAGEMENT ACROSS SCALES: A RETROFIT VISION FOR BIOSPHERE SUSTAINABILITY

There is a need for consistency in water management across scales and sectors, which motivated this paper to formulate a “proactive” retrofit vision seeking to integrate net-positive, sustainable and regenerative design concepts. Since the Planetary Boundaries framework is the key communication tool from scientific knowledge to political instruments (e.g., Sustainable Development Goals), water-related topics are revised accordingly. It is suggested that the role of water management in Climate Change is largely overlooked, which, in turn, is demonstrated to be the driver of change and, at the same time, impacted by these changes. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the link between water-related carbon footprint and energy use presents the Climate Change community with a valuable opportunity to better manage two of the most valuable resources. A new approach is suggested by distinguishing water quality, quantity, and water state. So that beyond qualitative and quantitative goals, the physical state of water, which depends on hydrogen bonding, should help improve water management across scales. Understating water complexity shall facilitate communication raising awareness that every action creates a legacy. Overall, this study strengthens the idea that science-based strategies require better communication where biogeochemical science may serve a model to make knowledge more available to educators and policymakers.
 
 Keywords: water-related carbon footprint, molecular water structure, socio-ecological regeneration.

How to tackle climate fragilities by DMDU. Making possible with regenerative design

The complex interaction between city and climate crisis is converting design-based disciplines from deterministic to flexible approaches. In this regard, Decision-Making Under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU) methods and operational strategies can be valuable support mechanisms to cope with the emerging climate fragilities of urban systems. In light of recent advances in the field of adaptive approaches, this paper discusses key concepts, current limitations and the potential to introduce the DMDU in the method and practices of regenerative design. Our critical discussion aims to restore the designer’s role within the DMDU and to reduce current and future climate fragilities in European cities.

Sustainability in Creative Projects: Biophilia Contributions

The field of biophilia focuses on the innate connection between humans and nature, seeking to promote well-being and quality of life. With this definition in mind, a literature review was undertaken to investigate its contributions to stimulating sustainability in creative projects. Therefore, the descriptors “biophilia” and “sustainability” were used to search the Scopus database from 2003 to 2020. After applying multiple filters, 22 articles were identified covering the themes of urban green spaces, urban biodiversity, gardens, green infrastructures, management of space resources, sustainable policies and certifications, and community environmental projects. It was concluded that the application of biophilic principles stimulate new projects in design, architecture, and urbanism that provide opportunities for the “restoration” of the body and mind, and that can also converge with sustainable aspects. Investigations in other databases are suggested for further understanding the subject, namely in the Brazilian scenario. Key words: biophilia, bioinspiration, sustainability, regenerative design, creative projects

Symbiotic and Regenerative Sustainability Frameworks: Moving Towards Circular City Implementation

Growing in popularity, the circular city framework is at the leading-edge of a larger and older transitional dialogue which envisions regenerative, circular, and symbiotic systems as the future of urban sustainability. The need for more research supporting the implementation of such concepts has been often noted in literature. To help address this gap, this holistic review assesses a range of pertinent sustainability frameworks as a platform to identify actionable strategies which can be leveraged to support and implement circular city goals. This assessment is grounded in a holistic overview of related frameworks across interdisciplinary and scalar domains including circular city, the food-water-energy nexus, circular economy, bioeconomy, industrial symbiosis, regenerative design, and others. Building on these interrelationships, the applied strategies espoused within these publications are synthesized and assessed in the context of circular city implementation. From an initial 250 strategies identified in literature, thirty-four general implementation strategies across six thematic areas are distinguished and discussed, finding strong overlaps in implementation strategies between frameworks, and opportunities to further develop and harness these synergies to advance circular city toward sustainable urban futures.

Reconnecting neighbourhoods with ecosystem functioning: Analysis of solutions from six international case studies

• Projects address energy and materials flows and neglect ecosystem structure. • Urban strategies and solutions focus on reducing human pressures over ecosystems. • A mechanist perspective remains, and projects do not address ecosystems complexity. • Nature-based solutions are the most recurrent type of urban solutions in our sample. Urban design organises and transforms the space, reflecting human context on cities' shape. Since modernism, designers draw urban projects with the goal to improve cities performances based on a mechanistic worldview, in which living systems are almost not considered. This paradigm led to urbanisation that is prominent in ecological process simplification and biodiversity loss. Different emerging urban design frameworks engage with the challenge of integrating ecological information on the design of sustainable urban projects, using this knowledge to guide intervention choices. With a growing application in practice, as through regenerative design and biomimicry, there is still a lack of knowledge on how ecological urban projects operationalise their engagements. We explored this question with a case study approach, generating hypotheses on the topic. We identified that projects focus on reducing human pressures over the ecosystems instead of regenerating the ecosystem's structure. Furthermore, projects mainly deal with energy and material flows. We identified a taxonomy of 36 urban strategies that could inform new design tools. Finally, we argue that the ecosystem biophysical structure needs to be better addressed on urban projects, and that projects would benefit from better articulation between solutions to reduce human pressures with those regenerating the ecosystem state.

Optimization of Embodied energy and operational energy of school design by comparing conventional and sustainable Material configurations

In recent times, the use of sustainable building materials is gaining momentum as the general public has started understanding the energy exploitation and also ill effects of using pollutant emitting materials. Also, usage of high energy-intensive materials is on the decline as all international agencies have started making a strong call on climate change (carbon release). Therefore, usage of materials with less embodied energy is the need of the hour. Hence this study aims at exploring the possibilities to optimize the embodied energy and operational energy by selecting sustainable building materials, ventilation and lighting aspects in the design of school buildings. Two designs of school buildings have been done, namely conventional and Regenerative. The conventional design has typically used construction materials like RCC, fired clay brick etc., whereas in regenerative design materials of less embodied energy like CSEB blocks, no VOC paints, etc., have been used. Also in regenerative design, effective ventilation strategies and more openness to sky areas have been done in order to make buildings more passive. Embodied energy for all building components like floor, roof, foundations, wall has been calculated separately and cumulated for the entire floor area. Operational energy was also calculated for both conventional and regenerative design using modeling software plugin. As findings, both embodied energy and operational energy was found to be low for regenerative design when compared with conventional design. As a result, a design with low embodied energy and operational energy has been proposed with all supporting data. Future studies can be done on different material configurations for wall, roofs, floors, foundations and Embodied energy as output for each variable of input. For different ventilation and lighting configurations, operational energy can be found.

Environmental Assessment of the Fresh Sausage Transformation Process in the Italian Context: An LCA Study

Abstract The problem of Climate Change and the related issues of greenhouse emissions, and energy consumption are among the most debated topics nowadays at international level. It is essential to find viable solutions also in the agri-food sector, moving towards production processes that were more sustainable, energy saver, and possibly follow a circular economy approach. The Circular Economy is not fully a brand-new concept, as it is based on a combination of fundamental and founding concepts such as Industrial Ecology, Regenerative Design, Natural Capitalism, Cradle to Cradle approach and Blue Economy. However, the novelty is in the attention that this concept is gaining among business practitioners, consultancy firms, governments, NGOs and associations, and academics. The aim of this study is to perform a Life Cycle Assessment related to one of the main products of a company of the agri-food sector in central Italy. The product analysed was fresh sausage and the functional unit considered was 100 kg of fresh sausage. The analysis was performed in order to identify the environmental impacts caused by the different transformation processes along the product life cycle, to highlight the critical phases and to plan improvements in terms of efficiency of the production process, with consequent improvement of the environmental performance. Particular attention was paid to the transport and to the energy consumption phases.

Technology as Mimesis: Biomimicry as Regenerative Sustainable Design, Engineering, and Technology

In this article, we investigate how to explain the difference between traditional design, engineering, and technology—which have exploited nature and put increasing pressure on Earth’s carrying capacity since the industrial revolution—and biomimetic design—which claims to explore nature’s sustainable solutions and promises to be regenerative by design. We reflect on the concept of mimesis. Mimesis assumes a continuity between the natural environment as a regenerative model and measure for sustainable design that is imitated and reproduced in biomimetic design, engineering, and technology. We conceptualize mimesis in terms of two interdependent boundary conditions: differentiation and participation. We subsequently develop four characteristics of biomimicry as regenerative design, engineering, and technology: technological mimesis is 1) a participative differentiation of nature; 2) supplemental to natural mimesis in biomimetic design; 3) the participative differentiation of technological mimesis is constitutive of nature; 4) the participative differentiation of technological mimesis is always limited.

New computational methods with Sunlight, Daylight, and Quality Views for Regenerative Design

This paper investigates novel computational methods for Regenerative Design by developing further on the European Daylight Standard EN 17037, to make it useful at both urban and architectural scales. Case studies are evaluated for sunlight, daylight and quality views. A computational method, compliant with EN 17037, is introduced for the evaluation of sunlight. An assessment of daylight metrics, for an office building in Helsinki, with a 300 lux target, demonstrates a 12% difference between spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA; occupied hours) and Illuminance levels (EN 17037 method 2; daylight hours), 37% between sDA and Daylight Factor (EN 17037 method 1), and 25% between methods 1 and 2. A new computational method for evaluating ‘views’ on the floorplan is proposed that considers ‘view content’ (EN 17037 View Out layers), ‘view access’, the potential viewpoint-based ‘outside distance’, and can be extended to add the ‘quality of environmental information’. Further research directions and use of spatial metrics are discussed for sunlight, daylight, and view quality.

한국과 중국의 노후산업시설 재생디자인 표현특성 연구 - 복합문화시설을 중심으로 -

As the industrial structure rapidly changes in modern society, industrial facilities that were built in the past are often demolished or neglected after fulfilling their functions. With the recent concept of the urban regeneration, various plans have been proposed to give new functions to these old industrial facilities. This study aims to identify the characteristics of regenerative design expression by comparing and analyzing spatial planning methods and design elements applied in regenerated industrial facilities in Korea and China. For this purpose, Korean and Chinese cultural complexes that were regenerated from old industrial facilities were selected, and images and building data were collected through on-site visits and Internet surveys. The structure and design of each selected spaces were analyzed into five characteristics: complexity, time constancy, space directing, accessibility, and symbolism. After the analysis, the commonalities and differences between Korean and Chinese cases were summarized. Through this, basic data that can be used in future plans for regenerative construction of old industrial facilities were proposed. The old industrial facilities can play an important role as objects of spatial planning that require diversity of spatial functions, flexibility in utilization, and new and unique cultural experiences.

Characterizing sustainability aesthetics of buildings and environments: methodological frame and pilot application to the hybrid environments

Growing environmental awareness and emerging design and performance requirements related with the implementation of sustainability goals inevitably have an influence on construction, architecture, urban design and the development of our built environment in general. This influence is reflected both in the increasingly efficient ecological performance of built structures and the growing array of related technologies, and in the aesthetic expression of these environmentally conscious designs. The aesthetic expression of sustainability concept and values is sometimes referred to as sustainability aesthetics. The aim of this research is to develop and test a methodological framework for characterizing the sustainability aesthetics of the built environments. The elaborated methodological framework integrates biophilic design, sustainability aesthetics, regenerative design and genius loci as the most promising approaches, allowing the integration of human and environmental concerns. To test the framework, we selected historic built environments that reflect long-lasting sustainable co-existence between humans and their environment and represent hybrid characteristics of both architectural and urban space. One of the purposes selecting these environments for the case study was to determine the features of an organically evolved sustainability aesthetics that could become a valuable source of inspiration for architectural design and management of the built environments.

Regenerative Design - General Principles and Implementation Strategies in Building Design

Abstract The built environment, through the consumption of energy from non-renewable sources and the associated CO 2 emissions, as well as through the production of waste throughout its life cycle and the effects of soil and water degradation, contributes significantly not only to the phenomenon of climate change, but also to the irreversible degradation of the natural environment. The concept of regenerative design provides a framework for a holistic approach to these issues in order to identify the most effective remedies, proposing the restoration and regeneration of the global socio-ecological environment through a system of engineering practices suitable to the specific context. The defining aspects of the regeneration applied in the buildings sector refer to the architecture and inserting in the natural environment ensuring a healthy and well-being indoor environment, reducing to zero the consumption of energy from non-renewable sources and promoting renewable energy sources, minimizing carbon footprint by rational use of materials and waste management throughout the life cycle.