Sustainable Urban Environments

A ‘nonplace’, in Marc Augé’s view, may be defined in contrast to what he refers to as anthropological place’. It is spaced that cannot be defined as relational, historical, or concerned with identity. This article explores the sense of (non)place by answering these questions: if it is true that ‘who’ we are is defined by ‘where’ we are, insinuating that places do have an important role in shaping our identities, then what do these nonplaces tell us about us? In places that lack any defining features and reflect little of the unique local geography in which they are in, can we still develop a sense of place? What is needed now is a shift from the initial prioritizing of ‘cultural contexts’, to the ‘context of the ‘embodied’, emplaced, individual subject, a context that precedes any cognitive framework. Bearing in mind this shift in focus to the body, a phenomenological analysis of nonplaces then becomes necessary. The experiential value of a place must be assessed according to a lived, embodied engagement with it. Rem Koolhas’ view of a ‘generic city’ in which urban dwellers now live has worldwide reverberations. This paper argues that a phenomenological analysis that emphasizes on subjective, embodied, lived experience is a necessary step to make. By focusing on the body, the strict categorisations that have led to negative connotations to nonplaces begin to lose their rigidity.

Keywords: Nonplace, space, identity, urban environment, a sense of place, embodiment, generic city

"Since its very inception, social work has been considered an organizationally based profession, with the majority of its workforce employed within formal organizations. Whether in nonprofit, for-profit, or governmental agencies, the practical realities of human service organizations are a central element of professional social work. This book explores the climate and culture of these agencies and provides essential information for surviving and thriving in this setting. It prepares students for their future careers so that they will feel empowered in their work and be able to fulfill their responsibilities toward organizational, community, and social change. Using real-life examples, the authors examine the internal structures of management, financing, and supervision and discuss common conflicts between agencies and professionals. The book’s straightforward tone and practical advice make it an asset to anyone entering human service organizations.

This new edition contains updated examples, case studies, and references. It also contains valuable information on the effects of the recent financial crisis on human service organizations. Agencies now face increased caseloads and more complex social problems with fewer resources and less money. Understanding how these events have changed the nature of human service organizations will allow students to be better prepared for the work ahead of them.

Features

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Expanded content on the practical aspects of organizational theory and suggestions for developing leadership skills
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Updated examples, case studies, and references throughout the book
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Key points and discussion questions following each chapter
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Updated instructor’s manual available online as a PDF or Word document"

Under the consideration of different measures adopted by most United Nations (UN) states members, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) included in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development aim to address main challenges related to social, economic and environmental issues. Numerous single indicators have been established to monitor progress towards sustainable development; however, the need for benchmarking the degree of sustainability of countries triggered the creation of the composite SDG Index, which originally compiled 77 indicators and has evolved to 99 at present. This research analyses the suitability of applying this composite index for assessing the fulfilment of the 2030 Agenda. The scarce availability of information resulted in 60% of the SDGs indicators being disregarded in the SDG Index. The scores obtained through the application of this index clustered UN countries according to specific geographic areas, highlighting the need for developing regional SDG Indices to emphasize the achievement of lower-performed goals.

This doctoral design research thesis documents a process of rethinking user participation in the design of the urban built environment. It investigates options for the roles of architects and designers as generators and facilitators of design processes that enable designing with people. Its aim is to investigate the tactical knowledge of participation in design and explore how architects’ and designers’ knowledge can be transferred to, shared with and developed together with non-experts. First of all, the theoretical discourse centres on Henri Lefebvre’s distinction between the ‘abstract space’ of designers and experts and the ‘concrete space’ of people and day-to-day life, in spatial practice. This dialectic model of space was developed as an analytical tool to define, understand and re-appropriate the term ‘participation’ in the environmental design field. This new Design Participation analytical tool is then further developed to demonstrate two contributions of this design research. 

The first contribution is through a critical assessment of different practices of Design Participation, as first defined in the 1971 Design Participation Conference in Manchester (UK) organised by the Design Research Society (DRS), to provide a new viewpoint to understand design practices with participation. Different Design Participation practices were assessed for their appropriateness and effectiveness within past and current contexts, and in different stages and tasks within the design process. Practices within the realm of collaboration between the abstract space of designers and the concrete space of users were tested through a comparative study of design participation projects in three social contexts: Sweden, the United Kingdom (London) and Hong Kong, in which different social attitudes to design prevail. A rethought definition and typology of design participation was developed based on relations between the two ‘worlds’ of experts/designers and users/people. This new understanding of Design Participation is articulated with a new Design Participation Benchmark and Taxonomy.

The research endeavours to define Design Participation Tactics that avoid mere ‘tokenism’ and aims at articulating tactics for a transformation of the traditionally conceived process of design. Through action research methodology, the second contribution of this research is to further define the term ‘participation’ within the greater social context and its relation to the subject of design by learning through doing. Three levels of Design Participation Tactics were introduced which are working with three newly defined modes of participation: Community, Public and Design Participation. The Design Participation analytical tool was used to compare different practices between different modes of participation. The relevance and validity of the research is supported through real-world cases involving co-designing with grass-roots user groups, children’s groups and older users, as well as collaboration with professional designers of housing, exhibitions and other types of environments, and other disciplines such as social work and public policy.

The re-writing of the roles of designers, architects and other ‘experts’ in the design process is an important component in achieving Design Participation. Positions on the agendas, methodologies and epistemologies involved in the Design Participation process were developed during this study. ‘Agenda’ refers to how the Design Participation process addresses the social context, reflecting social changes and needs. ‘Methodology’ applies to devising holistic Design Participation processes developed through working with users and matching appropriate tactics to each different situation. ‘Epistemology’ evokes the important question of how Design Participation tactics can be transferred to become a foundation and tool for future development. The pursuit of increasing user participation in the design process implies a realignment of designers’ roles (generator, facilitator and developer) from that of producing objects, environments and systems, to that of facilitating innovative collaboration and creating platforms for social inclusion in design practice.

Municipal solid waste generation is a rapidly increasing challenge that is leading to severe pollution and environmental degradation in many urban areas of developing countries. Globally, the solid waste sector accounts for 18% of methane emissions and 3e4% of greenhouse gas emissions overall. Waste handling and disposal systems in most large cities have largely been designed with minimal accounting of environmental issues. This study presents the Waste to Energy Recovery Assessment (WERA) framework, a new quantitative decision support model for initial evaluation and alternative comparisons of different thermochemical treatments of municipal wastes. The framework not only accounts for benefits through electricity generation but also accounts for emissions from facilities and the associated social cost of carbon in a cost-benefit assessment. The assessments are conducted with Monte Carlo simulations that explicitly account for uncertain factors such as future composition and generation of solid waste, technical efficiency of treatment processes, capital and operating costs, as well as future policies. The framework is used to study waste-to-energy (WtE) systems for Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Tokyo and New York. The results show that WtE systems can fulfill only 1.4e3.6% of 2014 electricity demand in the analyzed cases. Furthermore, the net present value for different technologies can be positive if collection fees and electricity rates (potentially set through feed-in-tariff policies) are sufficiently high. The analysis for Abu Dhabi and Riyadh also reveals that in a limited set of conditions (of technology efficiencies, and waste collection rates etc.) the WtE facilities can be self-sustaining investments.

For the last 15 years Västra hamnen (Western Harbor) in Malmö, and Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm have been the major flagships of Swedish international eco-city ambitions. These city development projects are presented both as leading examples of the conversion of former industrial harbor areas and of environmental adaptation of densely built urban environments. Western Harbor is a centrally located former shipyard area which, since the end of the 1990s, has developed into a mixed city area for housing, schools, offices, shops and other workplaces as well as for recreational areas with beaches, parks and yacht harbors. Since its first phase,
part of a housing expo in 2001, it has attracted international interest for its dense architecture, bold energy goals based on varied local renewable energy production, household waste systems, green and blue structures, and dialogue processes. This article addresses the birth and the further development of this revitalization project.
Twenty years after the ideas of a housing expo and conversion of the harbor area started to develop, it is hard to say anything but that Bo01 and the conversion of the Western Harbor have given very positive impulses to the city. The international recognition has  stimulated the local sustainability agenda and greatly increased the ambitions of the city. The many activities and projects, and the international exposure have also brought both expansion and upgrading of the planning and environmental administration of the municipality.

Greenway planning theory and practice has been largely studied through the perspectives of landscape preservation, conservation and sociology. The future theory building on the topic relies on proper understanding of what the various multidisciplinary theoretical, disciplinary and practical approaches are and how are they shaping the greenway planning theory and practice? This article addresses the gap in understanding through an in-depth study of ecological frameworks employed in greenway theory and practice, especially in the past decade. In the process, the article lends clarity to the emergent, multidisciplinary knowledge base, disciplinary leanings and typology. Ecological frameworks are studied in terms of fundamental drivers, empathies, and disciplinary influences and reveal the broader class of ecological frameworks, in the process. The results reveal that current ecological frameworks employed in greenway planning draw heavily from geographical and mathematical disciplines, besides drawing from biological conservation theories, and that most ecological frameworks are evolving and best classified as " emergent ". A new frame based on genotypic and phenotypic classification is proposed for developing Greenway theory.

Recently, a novel approach to a highly sensitive and quantitative detection of rare earth element (REE) ions including La3+, Eu3+ and Tb3+, by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique, has been reported. The detection of REE ions is based on the catalytic nature of REE ions targeting the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), thus monitoring of the ions can be achieved by reading the level of intact DNA by PCR. Despite of its high sensitivity (at ppb to ppt levels), the conventional PCR-based REE detection protocol requires certain length of time (1-2 hours). In the present study, we modified the PCR-based REE detection protocols by employing the high-speed PCR, and performed the automated and rapid detection of La3+ in small-sized aqueous samples within 5min.

USM has envisioned " sustainability " as a core development theme of the university in light of global sustainability issues. In becoming a world-renowned university for sustainability, USM facilitates sustainability attainment through i) innovations and technology, and ii) changes in lifestyles. Subsequently, CGSS has launched a project that engages its surrounding communities via the dissemination of USM " s sustainability lifestyle practices – focusing on the areas of recycling and composting involving awareness campaigns at stakeholders " venues. It was initiated by conducting situational analyses with stakeholders, after which specific sustainability awareness/practices campaigns were then devised, encompassing the setting-up and monitoring of composting units and recycling bins at six schools (SMK Bukit Jambul, SMK Bukit Gambir, SMK Dato " Haji Mohd Noor Ahmad, SK Minden Height, SK Sungai Gelugor and SK Bukit Gambir), commercial entities (Giant Superma...

The study focuses on the semi-automatic detection of the vegetation on the satellite panchromatic image covering area of Brussels, Belgium. Using functions of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and spectral reflectane parameters of the image, the vegetation was identified on the satellite scene. The research question was to assess, how NDVI measurements can be used for urban studies using remote sensing data. The aim is to distinguish and separate on the map built-up areas from the green spaces (parks, gardens, etc) within the urban landscape. The research is supported by the raster imageand the eCognition software for image analysis. The results show detected vegetation areas in eastern part of Brussels. The research demonstrated methodological applicability of eCognition software for GIS-based urban mapping and ecological assessment (areas and sizes of vegetation coverage).

The concept of graphicality first appeared in the work of Edgar Allan Poe. Taking its title from Poe’s painterly metaphor, this paper seeks to understand how graphicality may inform aspects of design thinking that have been neglected. We explore the current use, origins and aspects of graphicality, and contextualise it in some real world scenarios to reaffirm how we live in a graphic age, and how graphicality must be better understood in the way we comprehend other displays of human ability, such as musicality. Poe provides us with a starting point for relating the physical and mental domains of image interpretation. Graphicality is shown to work on a continuum between subjectivity and objectivity, not as something to be measured but appreciated in how it enhances understanding and knowledge. This has implications for many academic disciplines, specifically in how it enhances our appreciation of the graphic in graphic design.

This study is about assessing the social sustainability of the urban landscape, it focuses on the case of Amman, specifically, Abdali urban regeneration project that is known as the “new downtown of Amman”. It focuses on the social dynamic of the urban landscape in its macro scale. The study illustrates the impacts of urban regeneration projects on the physical and sociocultural settings of Amman, and how these impacts affected its social sustainability. The study aims to provide insight into the dynamics of the urban space, especially those occurred by urban regeneration developments, and then assessing the impacts of these transformations on social sustainability of Amman city. Abdali Urban Regeneration Project was selected because it is the first mega project that emerged to the city. The impacts of the project on the social sustainability of Amman is arguable as the project occasionally opened to public and many parts still under construction, therefore, the findings must be und...

In this paper the rationale of the bioclimatic regeneration of part of the commercial triangle of Athens is presented. In this 11 ha area, identified by three streets in the form of a triangle, the most vivid commercial activities have been taking place, from the transformation of Athens into a capital city in the 19 th century, up to late 20 th century, when the upcoming of " malls " displaced consumption habits from small shops to large shopping centres. As it is a place that has been either within the city walls or at the outskirts since antiquity, its geometry is very much affected by ancient and medieval Athenian city planning, which is explored and highlighted in this regeneration project. The commercial triangle area today is characterised by a mixture of neo-classical and modern buildings, as well as simplexes of pedestrian streets. The landscape of the area is being reshaped as the old uses that reflect the former economic backbone of the city, are displaced or replaced by new ones which are more related to the industry of entertainment. In this paper, a brief spatial description and historical review of the area is presented, pinpointing to the political and municipal decisions that have affected the area, highlighting the conflicts that the area faces today. Existing land use is monitored in detail and compared to past ones. The sustainability rationale of the regeneration of the public spaces of this area is presented, taking into consideration environmental issues (pedestrianisation of narrow streets, environmental footprint of used or reused materials, recycling municipal waste, low energy consumption street light, construction site measures), bioclimatic issues (microclimatic considerations, surface materials, placement of vegetation in narrow streets), cultural issues (putting forward the area's historic footprint through the design) as well as social issues (conflicts that might arise from competitive or incompatible land uses), trying to achieve a holistic sustainable regeneration approach.

The city of Frankfurt, 710,000 inhabitants, represents today a business and financial centre, transportation and logistics hub, research and technology location in a national and international context. As a result, the city is experiencing a constant and for European settings considerable population growth. Such increase implicates a high demand for housing, infrastructure and open space development. Urban extensions would be needed, but within the municipal boundary there are no development areas left. Further growth demands will have to be met within the already built-up city. On the one hand, inner city development, re-use of brownfields and densification can reduce the consumption of green fields and suburbanization. On the other hand, it involves an increasing conflict between the demand for new developments and the preservation of open and green spaces and quality of life within the city, leading to risks for climate and environment.
Suitable policies and adaptive strategies have to be prepared to cope with these changes and their impact. In Frankfurt, these include: the Energy and Climate Protection Concept, containing over 50 actions and guidelines, with a particular focus on the construction of “passive houses”; the Master Plan 100% Climate Protection, with milestones that focus on how the city can achieve 100% renewable energy supply by 2050; the Frankfurt Green City municipal platform, which coordinates information on city policies and programmes regarding urban and environmental development; and the Integrated Urban Development Concept Frankfurt 2030 as a vision for environment, housing, economy, mobility and social coherence until that year.
Recently, Frankfurt has been ranked as “the most sustainable city” worldwide by the ARCADIS Sustainable Cities Index. In both the environmental and the economic aspects, Frankfurt was evaluated first, whereas with regards to social issues, it was rated only 9th. This result makes clear that successful urban management in the environment and economy fields alone cannot solve (and may eventually even increase) social disparities, making this a major issue in all future integrated urban development efforts.

Noise is an inevitable part of daily life and has been identified as a cause of several health deficiencies across the world. It has increasingly become a significant concern on the health and well-being of people. Studies are required to advance knowledge on the sources and impacts of noise in residential neighbourhoods of Lagos State, Nigeria. Therefore, this study assesses the spatial variation of noise levels within a section of the Festac residential area in Lagos in line with noise limits specified by the World Bank Group International Finance Corporation (IFC) Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) Guidelines and the Nigerian National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) Noise Standards and Control guidelines for community noise. Data for this research come from a field study comprising measurements of noise levels from 6 observation stations and questionnaire survey with 200 respondents. The criteria for siting the stations was based on factor...

RESUMO A adequação do sector da construção aos objectivos de desenvolvimento sustentável resultantes dos indicadores de pressão sobre os ecossistemas requer: por um lado, uma alteração evolutiva dos standards pelos quais são avaliados ambientalmente os edifícios, e por outro, o incremento de acções de reabilitação do edificado existente, em detrimento da prática de prioridade à demolição e construção nova. Face a esta situação, no âmbito da construção sustentável, o design regenerativo propõe objectivos que excedem os parâmetros definidos pelos actuais sistemas de certificação e os padrões zero de impactes, procurando mesmo produzir contribuições positivas, em direcção a uma acção reparadora local, em colaboração com os sistemas vivos e os ciclos naturais. Em contexto português, onde o parque edificado existente excede as necessidades habitacionais da população, a avaliação das possibilidades e dos limites do design regenerativo em intervenções de reabilitação constitui um caminho essencial para atingir uma sustentabilidade forte. O presente trabalho procura definir algumas directrizes elementares de aplicação de estratégias regenerativas em edificado existente, seguindo uma metodologia de investigação suportada por revisão de literatura, análise de casos de estudo e sistematização de critérios de intervenção, como contributo base possível para o desenvolvimento futuro de investigação. Palavras-chave: Arquitectura integrada, Design regenerativo, Ecologia aplicada, Sustentabilidade, Reabilitação do edificado existente INTRODUÇÃO Apesar da presente consciencialização global sobre ambiente e sustentabilidade, verifica-se na realidade o agravamento dos diversos problemas, de origem antrópica, que afectam o equilíbrio do planeta, entre os quais se podem mencionar o fenómeno do aquecimento global, o esgotamento dos recursos naturais, as elevadas concentrações de resíduos sólidos e de poluição bio-acumulativa, a redução da biodiversidade, a desertificação e a crescente degradação dos solos agrícolas. (WWF: 2008) Assumindo a importância significativa do sector da construção sobre estes impactes ambientais, a partir da década de 70 do século XX, é gerado um movimento de esforços de investigação no sentido de ser garantida uma prática de construção mais sustentável. Ao longo dos últimos 30 anos, as evoluções nesta área foram consideráveis e significativas, incluindo o desenvolvimento e aplicação de sistemas de certificação ambiental de edifícios, em diversos países,-tais como GBTool (Green Building Tool), a nível internacional, o LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), nos Estados Unidos da América, e o LiderA (Liderar pelo ambiente a procura da sustentabilidade na construção), em Portugal-, a criação de instrumentos de análise, modelação e base de dados de suporte aos projectistas nos processos de decisão,-como programas de cálculo e análise de ciclo de vida-, e ainda o desenvolvimento de processos e metodologias de design integrado. Simultaneamente, o campo de pesquisa da construção sustentável foi progressivamente objecto de expansão, alargando-se a mais campos disciplinares, e subsistemas teóricos de índole/preocupação ambiental, vindo também a integrar conceitos de pensamento sistémico. Foram também introduzidas transformações no mercado imobiliário, assistindo-se progressivamente a uma maior penetração do marketing verde, e no domínio regulamentar e normativo,-em particular no caso português, em 2006, com a entrada em vigor do Sistema Nacional de Certificação Energética e da Qualidade do Ar Interior nos Edifícios (SCE).

Discute os quintais urbanos enquanto espaços privados das habitações e no contexto urbano de cidades amazônicas. Dada a escassez de registros históricos e acadêmicos sobre os mesmos, procura resgatar referências sobre os quintais urbanos amazônicos na arte literária regional e em reportagens jornalísticas. Sugere que, nas cidades amazônicas, os quintais refletem uma visão de valorização da natureza, além de serem elementos de identidade social. Conclui que, apesar de para os agentes produtores do espaço urbano os quintais representam espaço de valorização econômica, como espaço privado das habitações, proporcionam melhor qualidade de vida para as famílias que deles usufruem, e, na perspectiva do interesse coletivo, podem ser considerados como áreas de conservação do meio ambiente urbano, contribuindo para a sustentabilidade ambiental das cidades.

Singapore effectively extends the distribution of trees into urban areas and consequently challenges the customary definition of "forest". The impacts of these programs and initiatives illustrate how fragmentation characterizes the problem and how green corridors are characterizing the way Singapore is dealing with that problem. The jury is still out on the success of this relatively new strategy, and subsequently the long-term survival of the forest is questionable.

Noise is an inevitable part of daily life and has been identified as a cause of several health deficiencies across the world. It has increasingly become a significant concern on the health and well-being of people. Studies are required to advance knowledge on the sources and impacts of noise in residential neighbourhoods of Lagos State, Nigeria. Therefore, this study assesses the spatial variation of noise levels within a section of the Festac residential area in Lagos in line with noise limits specified by the World Bank Group International Finance Corporation (IFC) Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) Guidelines and the Nigerian National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) Noise Standards and Control guidelines for community noise. Data for this research come from a field study comprising measurements of noise levels from 6 observation stations and questionnaire survey with 200 respondents. The criteria for siting the stations was based on factor...

Urban layout is a key parameter in modifying solar availability in real urban forms.Solar availability on ground and façades is affected by different layout parameters.Urban layout and solar availability relationship varies with solar altitude angles.Urban forms were found with higher mean irradiance in January and lower in July.Seasonal effect on solar availability is found much more pronounced for ground.Availability of solar radiation in the urban environment is determined to a great extent by urban geometry, namely how densely built-up an area is and how the given built volume is distributed spatially within the site. This paper explores relationships between urban geometry and solar availability on building façades and at the pedestrian level, with implications for buildings’ passive potential and outdoor thermal comfort, respectively. The study was based on the morphological and solar analysis of 24 urban forms of London, covering a wide range of built density values found acr...

Access to site-based energy resources is a pre-requisite for natural lighting, solar heating, and natural ventilation in buildings. This paper describes design methods and proposals developed for the City of Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA, to simultaneously address access to daylight, solar radiation and wind for as many buildings as possible in the urban core. The study area is the entire downtown district. Results include specific design proposals as part of the city’s Downtown Plan along with portable design patterns that may be employed in other cities. The organization of buildings, streets and open spaces in higher density areas can either preserve or block access to sun, wind, and light resources. I developed a composite technique, ‘Climatic Envelopes,’ which regulates the shape of buildings on a block or site for the purpose of protecting access to both daylight from the sky and direct radiation from sun. It combines the ‘Daylight Envelope’ with the ‘Solar Envelope’. This technique was applied to the existing pattern of blocks and buildings in the downtown core. Results show that existing buildings were not designed to consider other sites’ rights to light and sun. My team developed building configurations that satisfy the criteria for composite climatic envelopes and follow several design patterns for daylighting, while maximizing development potential. The resulting calculated floor area ratio for the proposed pattern was twice the existing density. The team developed proposals for modifications to cool the city by creating additional shade, channeling winds to bring ventilation to more buildings, and working withthe existing topography, resulting in a ‘Downtown Cooling Plan.’
Keywords: daylight access, daylight envelope, solar access, solar envelope,passive solar heating, urban design, climatic envelope, passive cooling, urbancooling, urban microclimate

Chennai is the largest metropolitan city in South India (8.7 million in 2011) and the provincial capital of the large state of Tamil Nadu (population 72 million in 2011). Before that, under British rule, the city was the capital of the Madras Presidency, and was known as Madras until 1996, when the name was officially changed to Chennai. Located on the east coast of India, on the Bay of Bengal, sea trade has been an important aspect of the regional economy since at least the colonial period. Still today, the city combines political functions with economic command functions for both manufacturing and services, reflecting the region’s diversified economy. The Chennai metropolitan area has witnessed strong growth over the last 20 years in automobile manufacturing, software services, hardware manufacturing, healthcare and financial services (CDP 2009). However, it should be noted that only 30% of total employment in the city takes place in the formal sector i.e., is covered by contracts...

City-based citizenship (city-zenship) and its ecological ramifications increasingly inform people’s social and political lives, rendering the link between ecological citizenship and political city-zenship a topical subject for analysis. The questions analyzed here are: How can and how do citizens of cities promote sustainable urban development? What are their goals and motivations? And how do these forms of engagement reflect the theory of ecological citizenship in cities? The research is based on semi-structured and in-depth interviews with environmental and political activists in German and Israeli cities. The analysis indicates that the city is a meaningful political arena for ecological citizenship, with distinct patterns of political participation in relation to a city’s particular identity. However, political participation in cities is not independent of the state, but dependent on the political and civic rights enshrined therein.

The City of Mendoza, Argentina, is located in a desert zone, above 3000ft above sea level, with characteristics of an oasis. Historically, its development was based on artificial, human made infrastructure to capture, treat and distribute the limited natural resources available. Development is limited both factually and lawfully by the availability of natural resources, mainly water and suitable land.
This paper summarizes the limiting condition of available resources for development, and growth opportunities by adopting sustainable development practices.

IMM® is International and multidisciplinary Design Laboratory for Urban Sustainability. Our work is driven by the principle that urban design can directly affect the quality of our environment, improve the energy performances as well as the quality of our lives making our future more sustainable and responsible. IMM® is the acronym of Integrated Modification Methodology, an innovative design methodology based on a specific process with the main goal of improving the CAS’ (complex adaptive systems) energy performance, through the modification of its constituents and optimization the architecture of their ligands. Its approach is fundamentally Holistic, Multi-Layer, Multi-scale. In this methodology, the city is considered to be a dynamic Complex Adaptive System comprised of the superimposition of an enormous number of interrelated components, categorized in different Layers or ‘Subsystems’, (also complex adaptive systems) which through their inner arrangement and the architecture of their ligands provide a certain physical and provisional arrangement of the CAS. The IMM® investigates the relationships between urban morphology and energy consumption by focusing mostly on the ‘Subsystems’ characterized by physical characters and arrangement; hence, the text casts spotlight on IMM phasing process. The main object of this design process is to address a more sustainable and better performing urban arrangement.

Foglia L., De Martino R., Ripensare il margine urbano. Strategie di riqualificazione per i contesti sensibili, in “Ricerca tecnologica per progettare nel contesto post-industriale” (M. Perriccioli ed), Gangemi Editore,  Roma, 2012, pp. 101 - 108 - ISBN 978-88-492-2444-3;