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  • © 2012

Sustainable Urban Environments

An Ecosystem Approach

  • Multidisciplinary ecosystem approach
  • Integration of social, engineering and planning issues
  • Powerful team of researchers
  • Breadth and scale of issues addressed
  • Introduces students (and policymakers/practitioners) to most pressing sustainability challenges in the built environment

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Table of contents (15 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xix
  2. Introduction

    • Ellen van Bueren
    Pages 1-13
  3. Urban Ecology, Scale and Identity

    • Taeke M. De Jong
    Pages 71-89
  4. Water Flows and Urban Planning

    • Sybrand Tjallingii
    Pages 91-111
  5. Energy in the Built Environment

    • Laure Itard
    Pages 113-175
  6. Material City: Towards Sustainable Use of Resources

    • Loriane Icibaci, Michiel Haas
    Pages 177-203
  7. Air Quality and Human Health

    • Arjen Meijer
    Pages 205-221
  8. Liveability

    • Machiel van Dorst
    Pages 223-241
  9. Urban Transport and Sustainability

    • Bert van Wee
    Pages 243-261
  10. Sustainable Urban Form

    • Jody Milder
    Pages 263-284
  11. Climate Integrated Design and Closing Cycles

    • Arjan van Timmeren
    Pages 313-339
  12. Governance Tools

    • Lorraine Murphy, Frits Meijer, Henk Visscher
    Pages 341-363
  13. Managing Change

    • Anke van Hal, Ellen van Bueren
    Pages 365-398
  14. Conclusions and Solutions

    • Thorsten Schuetze, Hein van Bohemen, Ellen van Bueren
    Pages 399-413
  15. Back Matter

    Pages 415-429

About this book

The urban environment – buildings, cities and infrastructure – represents one of the most important contributors to climate change, while at the same time holding the key to a more sustainable way of living. The transformation from traditional to sustainable systems requires interdisciplinary knowledge of the re-design, construction, operation and maintenance of the built environment.

Sustainable Urban Environments: An Ecosystem Approach presents fundamental knowledge of the built environment. Approaching the topic from an ecosystems perspective, it shows the reader how to combine diverse practical elements into sustainable solutions for future buildings and cities. You’ll learn to connect problems and solutions at different spatial scales, from urban ecology to material, water and energy use, from urban transport to livability and health. The authors introduce and explore a variety of governance tools that support the transformation process, and show how they can help overcome institutional barriers. The book concludes with an account of promising perspectives for achieving a sustainable built environment in industrialized countries.

Offering a unique overview and understanding of the most pressing challenges in the built environment, Sustainable Urban Environments helps the reader grasp opportunities for integration of knowledge and technologies in the design, construction and management of the built environment. Students and practitioners who are eager to look beyond their own fields of interest will appreciate this book because of its depth and breadth of coverage.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Faculty of Technology, Policy and Manage, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

    Ellen van Bueren

  • Schipluiden, Netherlands

    Hein van Bohemen

  • OTB Research Institute for the Built Env, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

    Laure Itard, Henk Visscher

About the editors

Ellen van Bueren received her Master’s in Public Administration at Leiden University / Erasmus University of Rotterdam, the Netherlands in 1996. She worked for a couple of years as a consultant at the urban planning firm Zandvoort Ordening & Advies in Utrecht (now part of Royal Haskoning).  By the end of 1997 she started her research and teaching at Delft University of Technology. Until 2002 she worked for the Delft Interfaculty Research Center DIOC-DGO The Ecological City. During these years she was also hired by TNO Building and Construction, a research institute, for one day a week. A synthesis of the research she carried out in this Center will result in a PhD thesis about the design of policy arrangement for a sustainable built environment, which is expected to be published in 2008.

In 2002 she started her work for the section Policy, Organization Law and Gaming, where she continued her research and teaching about the organization and management of complex policy and decision making processes. In 2008 she expects to finish her thesis on Policy-Making for a Sustainable Built Environment, which is part of the Delft Cluster research program. She also participates in the research and management of the Multi-Actor Systems Program of the Delft Center for Sustainable Urban Areas and in the Center for Process Management and Simulation.

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access