The Ecovillage: A Sustainable Urban Form?
The built environments of the world’s metropolitan regions have a significant impact on the environment to varying degrees. For instance, miles of pavement in developed nation’s cities create an impermeable shell on the terrain increasing run-off and creating an urban heat island in the immediate vicinity. These expansive networks of paved surfaces provide a platform for transportation. Many methods of transportation to, from, in, and around metropolitan regions are supported by fossil fuels - Their combustion further perpetuating carbon dioxide concentrations in the global atmosphere, contributing to global climate change. In this example, the existence and design of built landscapes and the activities they support have a weighty impact on global ecological systems. Learn more about the impact cities have on the environment in the EPA’s report, “Our Built and Natural Environments.”
Urban design concepts have been furthered by models of smart growth and sustainability. Noting the profound impact urban areas inflict on the local and global ecology, planners, educators, engineers, architects, and policy makers have actively contributed to the philosophical discussion of “What makes a sustainable urban design?” Josef Rafeq Jabareen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has researched and outlined seven principles in his paper “Sustainable Urban Forms: Their Typologies, Models, and Concepts” that are themes of sustainable urban form. I have paraphrased these seven principles below and quoted parts where I felt my interpretation would not be sufficient.
Compactness - Refers to the containment of sprawl and connectedness of existing structures with new developments.
Sustainable Transport – Systems that reflect the true social and environmental costs of their arrangement. Sustainable urban transportation should provide equitable access to people and their goods while limiting emissions and land use, and powered by renewable energy and constructed with recyclable parts.
Density – Ratio of people or units of living to land area. “The relationship between density and urban character is also based on the concept of viable thresholds: at certain densities (thresholds), the number of people within a given area becomes sufficient to generate the interactions needed to make urban functions or activities viable.” – Josef Rafeq Jabareen, pg. 41
Mixed Land Uses - Fosters an urban environment where “heterogeneous zoning” allows for people to have access to the things they need in close proximity. Creating a diversity of land uses throughout an urban area reduces the necessity to use transportation to gain access to goods and services.
Diversity – Represents the social and cultural framework for sustainable urban form. “A multidimensional phenomenon that promotes further desirable urban features, including greater variety of housing types, building densities, household sizes, ages, cultures, and incomes” – Josef Rafeq Jabareen, pg. 42
6. Passive Solar Design – Vital in reducing the demand for energy. Could drastically alter the orientation of cities and the typical housing typology.
7. Greening - Bring nature into the city. Not only facilitates physical alterations of the urban microclimate by cooling and cleaning the air but would play an important part as drainage systems and increasing the diversity of the urban landscape.
Ecovillages share many of the same design concepts that Jabareen suggests are necessary characteristicsof a sustainable urban settlement. Ecovillages implement some of these design concepts very well, such as passive solar design, sustainable transportation, and greening. Other aspects of sustainable urban design are more exclusive to an urban area and may not be applicable to current ecovillage settlements. Design concepts such as compactness and diversity are necessary components of highly populated, large scaled urban areas. Even so, ecovillages do meet density thresholds that allow for necessary interactions to take place, just not at the scale found in cities. Yet maybe ecovillage design can help inform urban design challenges. Tune in next week -
Sustainable Urban Forms - Their Typologies, Models, and Concepts
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