A NEW CITY DESIGN SENSIBILITY: A SCIENCE BASED APPROACH TO ACCOMMODATING RISING GLOBAL POPULATIONS

Abstract

We see a different future…..

It is projected that by the year 2050, about 9.7 billion people, roughly 66% of humans on our planet, will live in cities. As populations swell and our population urbanizes rapidly, design becomes ever important in providing quality places for people to live, while responsibly leveraging global resources to maintain the health of our people and planet. The resilient cities of the future must be born and supported from the strength of their environment, and in turn if we are to thrive as a species we must respect, enhance and protect the natural systems that support us all. Therefore, we must explore a new city design sensibility that once again subordinates mankind to the power of nature, and compels designers, policy makers and scientists to re-evaluate choices based more on input from the environments that surround us and systems-based thinking rather than our opinion of what is beautiful. The new way to approach city design allows science and ecology to shape its form, rather than allowing form to shape the ecology.

Keywords

Sustainable Urbanism / Science / Technology / Ecology / City Design / Ecosystem

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press