Designing sustainable cities - Rachel Cooper

This book offers practical solutions to achieving sustainable urbandesign and development, and helps designers communicate thesesolutions effectively to planners, developers and policy makers.

Addressing sustainability issues in relation to the design andplanning of the urban environment is a complex, multi-disciplinaryissue and solutions never arrive from a single perspective. Theauthors use design as a facilitating factor to consider when and bywhom decisions that contribute to sustainability are made, andthrough three major city-centre case studies - London, Manchesterand Sheffield - they consider social, environmental andeconomic factors and examine their relationship to thedecision-making process.

Designing Sustainable Cities begins by identifying thekey processes and lead decision-makers. The following chaptersdevelop an understanding of the dimensions of sustainability,presenting the tools by which the dimensions can be analysed. Laterchapters illustrate the trade-offs and the relationships betweenthe dimensions of sustainability - with case study examples - aswell as the use of IT in making design decisions. Finally, the bookmakes recommendations for future approaches to the design,development and on-going management of urban environments.

Designing Sustainable Cities covers:

• latest research data on the urban environment and theinteraction between social, economic and environmental issues
• methods of understanding the context in which urban designtakes place
• guidance on the codes of practice
• process maps to help understand the context, make trade-offsand develop design solutions that allow for change
• methods for testing the consequences of design proposals andmonitoring outcomes.