ECO-CITY

B. Arch Dissertation

by

SHIVANGI

(Roll No. 15632)

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

HAMIRPUR (H. P.) – 177005, INDIA

April 2019
 ECO-CITY

A DISSERTATION PROJECT
submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of degree

of

BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTURE

by

SHIVANGI

(Roll No. 15632)

under the guidance

of

DR. PUNEET SHARMA

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

HAMIRPUR (H. P.) – 177005, INDIA

April 2019
Copyright © NIT HAMIRPUR (HP), INDIA, 2019
 NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

HAMIRPUR (HP)

CANDIDATE’S DECLARATION

I hereby certify that the work which is being presented in the project titled ’ECO-
CITY’, is the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the DEGREE OF
BACHELOR in ARCHITECTURE and submitted in Department of Architecture,
National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur, in an authentic record of my own work
carried out during a period from January 2019 to April 2019 under the guidance of DR.
PUNEET SHARMA, Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, National Insti-
tute of Technology, Hamirpur.

The matter presented in this project report has not been submitted by me for the reward
of any other degree of this or any other Institute/University.

SHIVANGI
This is to certify that the above statement made by the candidate is correct to the best
of my knowledge.

Date: (DR PUNEET SHARMA)

Assistant Professor
Department of Architecture
NIT Hamirpur
.
The Project Viva Voice Examination of SHIVANGI has been held
on……………….

Signature of Coordinator Signature of Head of the Department

 DISSERTATION REPORT

2018-2019

ECO-CITY

DISSERTATION GUIDE SUBMITTED BY:

DR. PUNEET SHARMA SHIVANGI / 15632

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

On the outset of this report, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude towards all
the personages who have helped me in this endeavor. Without their active guidance and
encouragement, I would not have made headway in the dissertation.

First and foremost I offer my sincerest gratitude to my dissertation guide and Assistant
Professor, Dr. Puneet Sharma for his insight, patience and knowledge in helping me
during the course of my dissertation. His valuable inputs were indispensable during the
project guiding the exploration forward.

I would also like to thank Dr. Bhanu Marwaha, Professor and Head of Department, for his
valuable guidance and support.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our Dissertation Coordinator,
Dr. Aniket Sharma, Assistant Professor, whose constant efforts and valuable criticism
made this journey a smooth one.

I also express my sincere thanks to all my friends, especially Mayank Gupta, Aparna
Shaw and Meenu Chauhan who have directly or indirectly helped me to complete this
dissertation report.

Lastly, I dedicate this dissertation report, with deep respect and great love, to my par-
ents, who not only gave me the gift of life but an unrelenting passion to live it fully.
And for that, I am grateful.
 ABSTRACT

The purpose of this dissertation is to conserve & enhance the existing ecosystems, i.e.
their plant & animal populations, natural & semi-natural wildlife habitats & the ecosys-
tem characteristics of local areas; & to contribute to reginal conservation of biodiversi-
ty & habitats

The key references used were:

(1) Building & Designing with Nature Urban Design - Joan Roelofs
(2) Sustainable Urban Forms - Yosuf Rafeq Jabareen
(3) Sustainable City Developing World – ISOCARP
(4) Urban Design: Green Dimensions - Cliff Moughtin
(5) Eco-Master Planning - Ken Yeang
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................1
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... 3
CHAPTERS
I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................4
1.1. Aim .............................................................................................................................4
1.2. Objectives ....................................................................................................................4
1.3. Scope of study .............................................................................................................5
1.4. Hypothesis ...................................................................................................................5
II. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................7
2.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................7
2.2. Design Concepts for a Sustainable City Form ...........................................................7
2.3. Sustainable Urban Forms ............................................................................................7
2.4. Assessment of the Sustainability of Urban Forms.......................................................7
2.5. Eco-city Infrastructure .................................................................................................8
2.6. Site and Context ..........................................................................................................8
2.7. Summary....................................................................................................................12
III. CASE STUDIES .......................................................................................................14
3.1. Green Square Town Centre, Sydney, Australia .........................................................14
3.2. SOMA, Rajarajeshwari Nagar, Bangalore, India ......................................................14
IV. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................20
V. REFERENCES ........................................................................................................21
LIST OF FIGURES

1. Characteristics of Sustainable Urban city form ................................................... 5

(Source: Sustainable Urban Forms - Yosuf Rafeq Jabareen)
2. Sustainable Urban Forms ..................................................................................... 8
(Source: Sustainable Urban Forms - Yosuf Rafeq Jabareen)
3. Infrastructure in Eco-city ..................................................................................... 12
(Source: Sustainable Urban Forms - Yosuf Rafeq Jabareen)
4. Characteristics of Case Studies ............................................................................ 19
(Source: Eco Master Planning – Ken Yeang)
5. View1 of Green Square Town Centre .................................................................. 20
(Source: Eco Master Planning – Ken Yeang)
6. Elevation of Green Square Town Centre ............................................................. 25
(Source: Eco Master Planning- Ken Yeang)
7. View3 of Green Square Town Centre .................................................................. 25
(Source: Eco Master Planning – Ken Yeang)
8. Bio swales ............................................................................................................ 26
(Source: Eco master planning – Ken Yeang)
9. Land use plan SOMA ........................................................................................... 27
(Source: Eco master planning – Ken Yeang)

1
 LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 1 : Sustainble urban form matrix: Assessing the sustainability of urban form ... 11
TABLE 2 : Site development as per context ..................................................................... 14

2
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

1. INTRODUCTION
For a long time urban growth knew no bounds. 200 year ago scarcely 2% of the people
living on earth were city dwellers. Today, more than half the world’s population lives
in an urban area. We live in a world filled with immense vibrant, noisy, overpopulated
cities, where we create, manufacture, trade & consume. Where fabulous wealth & ex-
treme poverty exist side by side. Our urban model now seems to reach its limits.

However, new aspirations are emerging. In a world of global warming & increasingly
scarce fossil fuels. A new vision of the city is making its roots. We are seeing the first
signs of slow but far reaching irreversible change, little by little.

A new model for our cities is developing, we call it the Eco-city. The goal of an eco-city
is to reduce city’s impact on the environment. It is an immense undertaking.

The growth of large population centers, energy consumption, recycling, new urban
landscape and even social diversity. All these issues are a part of the eco-city agenda.
In order to kick start this movement, three major challenges need to be addressed.
(1) We must transform the buildings we live in
(2) Radically change our mode of transport
(3) Implement new ways of supplying electricity

Buildings in the eco-city put energy-efficiency first. They are better insulated and they
even generate energy themselves. They rely heavily on renewable sources of energy.
Today’s buildings do more with less. There are no more energy consumers but energy
producers. Requiring 40-60% less energy than buildings from a decade ago. We call
them positive energy buildings. If a building produces more energy than it needs. It
shares the surplus with its neighbors, we call that peer-to-peer energy. It is revolution-
ary, both economically and socially.

3
 With regard to transport, the change is just as remarkable. In eco-cities, transportation
is electric and whenever possible public. Residents use a variety of interconnected net-
works to get around from tramways to heart of urban landscape.
This change in housing & transport gives rise to a third new network for supplying
power to the city. That is the third cornerstone of our eco-city. The question is how we
power the new electrical infrastructure so as to drive the growth in eco-cities. The an-
swer lies in new networks for distributing electricity. We call them smart grids. Smart,
because they use computer technology to centralize and redistribute power more effec-
tively throughout the city and because they also regulate energy exchanges between
residential buildings through peer-to-peer trading.

1.1. AIM
To conserve & enhance the existing ecosystems, i.e. their plant & animal populations,
natural & semi-natural wildlife habitats & the ecosystem characteristics of local areas;
to contribute to regional conservation of biodiversity & habitats

1.2. OBJECTIVES
1) To study Eco-city development (Design strategies, features & components) through literature
and case studies
2) To study Eco-city Development approaches as per site requirements

1.3. SCOPE OF STUDY

Eco-cities are the cities that embrace the well-being of citizens and society through inte-
grated urban-planning and management that harness the benefits of ecological systems
and protect and nurture these assets for future generations.

1.4. HYPOTHESIS
Eco-city is human settlement modeled on self-sustaining resilient structure and function
of natural ecosystems.

4
 CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter starts with explaining the terms used in the describing the various charac-
teristics of various sustainable city forms. Then an assessment and comparison of vari-
ous sustainable urban forms is done with the Eco-city.
Since the main focus of the study is the Eco-city, further explanations and their possi-
ble applications are illustrated. Four major types of infrastructures, used in an Eco-city
development are described.

2.2. DESIGN CONCEPTS FOR A SUSTAINABLE CITY FORM

Figure 1 : Characteristics of Sustainable city form

(1) DENSITY
It is the ratio of people or dwelling units to land area. At certain densities the number of
people within a given area becomes sufficient to generate the interactions needed to make
urban functions or activities viable. This affects sustainability through differences in the
consumption of energy, materials, and land for housing, transportation & urban infra-
structure.

5
(2) DIVERSITY
Lack of concentrated diversity can put people into automobiles for almost all their needs.
In dense, diversified city areas people still walk, an activity that is impractical in the sub-
urbs and in most grey areas. The more intensely varied and closely grained the diversity
in an area, the more walking. Even people who come into a lively, diverse area from out-
side, weather by car or by public transport, walk when they get there.

(3) MIXED LAND USE

Also known as heterogeneous zoning allows compatible land uses to locate in close
proximity to one another & thereby decrease the travel distances between activities.
The aim is to reduce air pollution and traffic congestion as well as to stimulate the
interaction of residents by increasing pedestrian traffic and generally improving
neighborhood charm.

(4) COMPACTNESS
It refers to the urban connectivity, which suggests that future urban development
should take place adjacent to existing urban structures. When the concept is applied
to existing rather than new urban fabric, it refers to the containment of further
sprawl. Compactness of urban space can minimize transport of energy, water, mate-
rials, products and people. Major strategy to achieve is to increase density of devel-
opment and activity.

(5) TRANSPORT
A sustainable transportation system limits emissions and waste to weather the area’s
ability to absorb is powered by renewable energy sources, recycles its components
and minimizes
the use of land. Provides equitable access for people & their goods helps achieve a
healthy & desirable quality of life in each generalization & is financially affordable, op-
erates at maximum efficiency & supports a vibrant economy.

6
(6) SOLAR DESIGN
The idea of this design is to reduce the demand for energy and to provide the best
use of passive energy in sustainable ways through specific design measures. It is
assumed that design, orientation, layout and landscaping can make optimum use of
solar gin and microclimatic conditions to minimize the need for the space heating or
cooling of buildings by conventional energy sources.

(7) GREENING
A city exemplifies green urbanism if it
1) Strives to live within its ecological limits
2) Is designed to function in ways analogous to nature
3) Strives to achieve a circular rather than linear metabolism
4) Strives towards local and regional self sufficiency
5) Facilitates more sustainable lifestyles
6) Emphasizes a high quality of neighborhood & community life

7
2.3. SUSTAINABLE URBAN FORMS

Figure 2 : Sustainable Urban forms

(1) NEOTRADITIONAL DEVELOPMENT

It advocates design based strategies based on traditional urban forms to help arrest sub-
urban sprawl and inner city decline and to build and rebuilt neighborhoods and cities.
Self-contained, tightly clustered, walkable and have mixed land uses as well as higher
densities street patterns that allow drivers & pedestrians a variety of path options (en-
couraging people to walk from place to place), distinct traditional architectural character-
istics and encouragement of street life through such features as narrower streets, front
porches and public open space.

(2) COMPACT CITY

The vision was to enhance the quality of life but not at the expense of the “new genera-
tion”. The idea includes many strategies that aim to create compactness and density that
can avoid all problems of modernist design and cities. Compact cities offer opportunities
to reduce fuel consumption for travelling, since work & leisure facilities are closer to-
gether. Urban land can be reused, while rural land beyond the urban edge is protected.
Therefore good quality of life can be sustained, even with high concentration of people.

8
(3) URBAN CONTAINMENT
It prevents the outward expansion of the urban field & forces the development market to
look inward. The goal of containment policy varies widely includes preservation of natu-
ral land, as well as farmland and resources extraction land, whose economic value will
not be able to compete with urban development. Greenbelts are a spatial technique for
containment. It refers to a band drawn fairly tightly around a city or urban region that
planner’s intent to be permanent.

(4) ECO-CITY
The eco-city is an umbrella metaphor that encompasses a wide range of urban-ecological
proposals that aim to achieve urban sustainability. These approaches propose a wide
range of environmental, social, and institutional policies that are directed to managing
urban spaces to achieve sustainability. This type promotes the ecological agenda and em-
phasizes environmental management through a set of institutional and policy tools.

The distinctive concepts of the eco-city are greening and passive solar design. In terms of
density and other concepts, the eco-city might be conceived as a “formless” city or an
Eco amorphous city. There are some approaches that emphasize the passive solar design,
such as the Ecovillage, Solar Village (Van der Ryn and Calthorpe 1986), Cohousing
(Roelofs 1999, 240-42), and Sustainable Housing (Edwards and Turrent 2000; Boonstra
2000). There are others that emphasize the concepts of greening and passive energy de-
sign, among them the Environmental City, Green City, Sustainable City (Girardet 1999;
Nijkamp and Perrels 1994; Gibbs, Longhurst, and Braithwaite 1998), Eco-City (Rose-
land 1997; Engwicht 1992), Ecological City (OECD 1995), Sustainable Urban Living
(Girardet 1992), Sustainable Community (Nozick 1992; Paulson 1997), Sustainable
Neighborhood (Rudin and Falk 1999), and Living Machines (Todd and Todd 1994).

9
It is remarkable that the core of many approaches is the management of the city, rather
than the suggesting of any specific urban form; it is believed that not the physical shape
of the city and its built environment that is important; it is how the urban society is orga-
nized and managed that counts most. Similarly, Talen and Ellis (2002, 37) argue, “So-
cial, economic, and cultural variables are far more important in determining the good city
than any choice of spatial arrangements.”

Therefore, the city is managed to achieve sustainability through different land use, envi-
ronmental, institutional, social, and economic policies (Robinson and Tinker 1998; Unit-
ed Nations Conference on Environment and Development 1992; United Nations Frame-
work Convention on Climate Change 1992; Council of Europe 1993; European Commis-
sion 1994). For example, the well-known Agenda 21 (UNCED 1992) proposes integrated
management at the urban level to ensure that environmental, social, and economic factors
are considered together in a framework for the sustainable city. In practice, many local
governments, planning consultants, landscape architects, and so on are grappling much
more specifically with aspects of ecological, pedestrian oriented, or otherwise sustainable
urban form. I strongly encourage the reader to look at examples from practice.

10
2.4. ASSESSMENT OF THE SUSTAINABILITY OF URBAN FORMS

TABLE 1 : Sustainble urban form matrix: Assessing the sustainability of urban form
The design concepts of urban forms are the criteria of the proposed matrix (see Table 1).
A scale of 3 points is allocated for each typology (criterion) where 1 represents a low
level of sustainability, 2 represents a moderate level of sustainability, and 3 represents a
high level of sustainability. For example, a high density (scale = 3 points) means the ur-
ban form is more sustainable, and a low density, such as sprawl, means the urban form is
less sustainable (scale = 1 point). Likewise, the more diverse, mixed land-use, and com-
pact, the more the form receives points. In addition, the more the form is based on sus-
tainable transportation, greening, and passive solar design, the more the form contributes
to sustainability, and vice versa. Finally, the urban form that scores higher than the others
contributes more to sustainability than they do.

This provides the sustainable urban form matrix, which helps with assessing the sustain-
ability of different urban forms. In addition, it contributes to our selection of those urban
forms that are sufficiently sustainable that they meet the requirements of the design con-
cepts (criteria) as mentioned above. The sustainable urban form matrix in Table 1 pro-
vides an assessment of the sustainability of the different urban forms. Significantly, this
is a tentative assessment that is based on the literature review of the forms and not on
empirical findings or field work. Obviously, one could change the assessment as more
11
evidence comes to light. My ultimate aim is to provide an example based on the pro-
posed matrix. As shown in Table 1, the scores of the urban forms are highlighted in bold
in each cell of the matrix (1, 2 or 3), and the final score for each form is the sum of these
scores that is presented at the bottom. The results of the assessment, in Table 1, show that
the compact city received the highest score followed by the eco-city and then by the ne-
otraditional development. The urban containment received the lowest score.

2.4. ECO-CITY INFRASTRUCTURE

Figure 3 : Infrastructure in Eco-city

Creating our human built environment invariably entails the imposition onto the land of
built structures and hardscapes together with a myriad of human activities, acts that are
often destructive of the natural environment. Quite how destructive such impositions
prove depends, of course, on their intensity and on the prior ecological condition of the
land in question and its ability to withstand stress.

Conventional master planning callously disrupts ecosystems. In many cases, it irreversi-

bly devastates and fragments them, as for example, with urban sprawl. The laying of
roads and highways dissects contiguous habitats, breaking them down into multiple dis-
parate parcels that are no longer linked leading to a loss of ecological nexus. This frag-
mentation of land and forests, the diversion and elimination of waterways and other dis-
ruptive acts decrease the effective choices for species survival, threatening or seriously
impairing connectivity. Yet it is.

12
Vital in natural systems such as watersheds streams and open spaces which create pro-
tected ecological corridors for wildlife and plant habitats.
Eco Master Planning, in contrast, is integrative. Through carefully considered custom-
ized design it strives for a seamless and benign biointegration of the human built envi-
ronment with the natural environment. It differs from conventional master-planning by
retaining the ecosystems integrity, connectivity and functioning. It seeks to restore and
repair stressed and disfigured ecosystems, while facilitating our human built develop-
ment within ecologically acceptable bounds. Eco-masterplanning changes the fewest
number of elements in the landscape to achieve the best result, and removes stress from
the system rather than adding to it.

The objectives are ecology driven: to conserve and enhance existing ecosystems, i.e.
their plant and animal populations, natural and semi-natural wildlife habitats and the eco-
system characteristics of local areas and to contribute to regional conservation of biodi-
versity and habitats.

In eco Master planning, the human built environment and the natural environment are
designed as a single living system, not as a composite of the inorganic inert mass of the
built environment disconnected from its organic host (the biosphere), and, worse, dis-
charging emissions that disrupt the latter's natural systems. Eco-masterplanning achieves,
through design one single dynamic living system that is both and functionalism is the bio
integration of four in infrastructural armatures.

 The ‘green infrastructure’: the eco infrastructure, i.e. nature’s infrastructure

 The ‘blue infrastructure’: the water infrastructure, i.e. sustainable drainage and
water conservation systems and the overall hydrological management;
 The ‘grey infrastructure’: the engineering infrastructure, i.e. the roads, drains,
sewerage, utilities etc. as the support systems for any urban development which is
to be environmentally sustainable; and
 The ‘red infrastructure’: the human infrastructure, i.e. the built environment, the
enclosures and hardscapes, including human activities and social, economic and
legislative systems.

13
 The integration of these provides the basis for eco master planning and for the design
of eco-cities

2.5 SITE AND CONTEXT

TABLE 2 : Site development as per context

Eco Master Planning starts with an assessment of the ecology of the site and its context;
we need to know what is there before we can insert anything new This is not a static en-
deavor; rather, it is driven process Ecological analyses emphasize relationships recogniz-
ing that current ecological theory has moved on from one that perceives natural bounda-
ries as clearly defined, to a more dynamic concept of the ecosystem as composed of
shifting modes of interactions with layered boundaries, driven by dynamic temporal rela-
tionships within habitats rather than by a fixed perception of the environment determined
at the time of analysis.

The account of the site includes an understanding of its physical state, its internal ecolog-
ical processes and properties such as its flora and fauna and their geographical disposi-
tion, its energy and material flows, its state of succession, and its biodiversity. Under-
standing the site's ecological history gives further clues as to what design strategies
should be adopted. To be effective, these analyses and ecological studies must be under-
taken prior to any consideration of whether to permit the imposition of human structures
or activities upon it, if at all. These studies enable us to ascertain as far as possible the
resilience of the site's ecosystems (of its biotic and abiotic constituents) ie its ability to
14
adapt and adjust to changing internal or external processes, stresses and impositions. The
emphasis here is not on reaching or maintaining a certain end point or condition of sys-
temic stasis, but one of ensuring that the site's ecology stays viable.

The fundamental premise then, is that every site has its own unique ecology. Each has
varying and limited resilience to accept and withstand the stresses imposed by any in-
tended human built form, system and activity. If an ecosystem's internal integrity and re-
silience (in its carrying capacity) are stressed beyond their limitations, then its ecology
will become irrevocably modified. Even if such stresses are minimal and localized as
with the clearing of a small land area for access), they can have a cumulative effect, lead-
ing to greater negative impacts such as the elimination of the entire landscape through
deforestation and the clearing of all vegetation, erosion, siltation of existing waterways
and loss of aquatic life.

A preliminary site reading enables the designer to ascertain the extent of ecological anal-
ysis required for that particular site, indicated by reviewing its ecological history and the
extent to which it has already been affected by humans. The site in question may, for in-
stance, be an urban location that has been entirely denuded of its original vegetation, as
in a city center site. Conversely, the site may lie within a verdant landscape that has not
been affected by humans at all, as in a pristine pine forest. It may be one that has been
only partially affected or a semi-natural site. It may be one that supports a single predom-
inant plant species, as with an agricultural field, or one that is part human created and
part natural, as is a city park. Alternatively, it may be a contaminated or brownfield site
which requires careful rehabilitation. Whatever the site, an initial assessment enables the
designer to determine the broad design strategy and tactics to be adopted, and the extent
of any further ecological analyses required prior to design.

Carried out concurrently with this initial evaluation is an assessment of the compatibility
of the type and form of the proposed human and built impositions and activities with the
site's ecology, and the latter's resilience For instance, we might ask whether the proposed
land use is appropriate for the designated site in the first place If the answer is yes, then
what is the level of development and activity intensity that the site’s ecosystem can with-

15
stand? Our design objective must be to seek a mutually beneficial balance between the
intended design, built programme and land use with the site's ecological resilience, and to
ensure positive ecological consequences or, if absolutely necessary, only permissible
negative ones.
Eco Master Planning this enables a level of building to take place that will prove ac-
ceptable to the site's ecology, retain its holistic integrity as a functioning ecosystem
and, where possible, restore and reconnect natural elements that have been damaged
The objective is to design for the successful biointegration of the intended human built
structures (roofs, buildings, utilities) ondactivities (recreational, civic) with the natural
systems of the site's locality.

Designing for biointegration occurs at three levels: physical systemic and temporal. Ad-
dressing each of these aspects successfully constitutes the main challenge for Ecomaster-
planning.

In analysing the site's ecology, we identify geographically those parts that are potentially
ecologically sensitive, those which should not be touched or have any human interven-
tion whatsoever, and those that permit intervention. Finally, we must consider the likely
impact of the intended construction and use. Together all these analyses constitute a ma-
jor undertaking but one that is vital for a comprehensive understanding of the nature of
the site and its environs.

16
2.6. SUMMARY

The debate over the ideal or desirable urban form dates back to the end of the nineteenth
century, to Howard’s Garden City. Obviously, the concept of sustainable development
revives the previous debate about urban form, develops existing approaches further, and
enhances them with environmental rationalization—more precisely, with principles of
sustainable development and ecological design.

This study identifies four sustainable urban forms that have many overlaps among them
in their ideas and concepts. The different form types are compatible and not mutually ex-
clusive. However, there are some distinctive concepts and key differences for each one of
these forms, as follows:

• Compact cities—the distinctive concepts of the compact city are high density and
compactness. It proposes mixed land uses like the approaches of new urbanism or ne-
otraditional development.
• The eco-city—emphasizes urban greening, ecological and cultural diversity, and pas-
sive solar design. In addition, the approaches of the eco-city emphasize environmental
management and other key environmentally sound policies
• Neotraditional development—emphasizes sustainable transportation, diversity (e.g.,
of housing types), compactness, mixed land uses, and greening. In addition, neotradition-
al development has much to do with style and design coding.
• Urban containment—emphasizes policies of compactness.

As this article shows, there are many approaches that aim to achieve sustainable urban
forms. Different approaches use different scales of concepts, as well as emphasizing
some concepts over others. In practice, many local governments, planning consultants,
landscape architects, and so on are grappling much more specifically with aspects of sus-
tainable urban form through a variety of planning and design approaches and policies.
The question is, which form is the most sustainable and environmentally sound?

17
This article outlines a distinctive set of seven concepts by which settlements can be clas-
sified in terms of their “environmental burden” and develops a sustainable urban form
matrix that can aid and contribute to our evaluation of the sustainability of a given form.
Apparently, neither academics nor real-world cities have yet developed convincing mod-
els of sustainable form and have not yet gotten specific enough in terms of the compo-
nents of such form. Regarding that, this article concludes that by using the right scales of
the proposed concepts we might be enabled to produce theoretically and practically dif-
ferent sustainable urban forms.

According to the sustainable urban form matrix, this article concludes that different ur-
ban forms contribute differently to sustainability. Moreover, different planners and
scholars may develop different combinations of design concepts to achieve sustainable
development goals. They might come with different forms, where each form emphasizes
different concepts. However, all should be forms that environmentally contribute benefi-
cially to the planet for the present and future generations.

The ideal sustainable urban form according to the design concepts of sustainable urban
form is that which has a high density and adequate diversity, compact with mixed land
uses, and its design is based on sustainable transportation, greening, and passive solar
energy. Ultimately, sustainable urban forms aim to achieve different objectives. The
most prominent among them are decreased energy use, reduced waste and pollution, re-
duced automobile use, preservation of open space and sensitive ecosystems, and livable
and community-oriented human environments.

18
 CHAPTER III
CASE STUDIES

Figure 4 : Characteristics of Case studies

19
 3.1. GREEN SQUARE TOWN CENTRE, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Figure 5 : View1 of Green Square Town center

Green Square is an area within the city of Sydney requiring urban regeneration. The key
design objective of this scheme is to create a vibrant heart for the community that will
provide it with an enduring sense of Australian local identity, as well as an internationally
recognizable symbol

This new public realm will be thoroughly enjoyed by the entire local community as well
as being an environmental and ecological showcase.

To fulfil this design objective, the concept of a shopping and commercial center sur-
rounding a public plazas introduced as a catalyst to bind the community integrating and
incorporating aspects of living, working studying entertaining public services and shop-
ping in a single coherent mixed development. The cultural plaza will thus be introduced
as the new 'heart of the community!

20
The building design is adaptable for the incorporation of different mimetic ecological
systems and devices including: solar collectors for water heating grey-water recycling
systems, rainwater recycling systems, rainwater collection filtration and recycling for
use, waste management systems to separate materials for recycling and so on The build-
ings are designed to have low energy consumption, achieved through bio-climatic con-
siderations and ecological site planning (eg. solar shading on the north east and west fa-
cades, natural lighting and ventilation for circulation areas). The energy consumption of
the buildings should be between 150 and 200 kilowatt-hours per square meter per annum
and targeted to require mechanical heating or cooling for only 25 per cent of the year.

The town center is designed to have embodied energy of between 10 and 18 gigajoules
per square meter, to minimize the impact on the environment, by selection of materials
that are low in embodied energy and locally available.

Figure 6 : View2 of Green Square Town centre

21
 Green Infrastructure: The green infrastructure is made up of a forested zone
within the cultural plaza and is to be planted with luxuriant indigenous vegetation, repre-
sentative of local and Australian plant species. This urban green 'forest' replaces the ex-
isting chimney stack as the symbol of Green Square and provides a new iconic 'built'-
form character for the town center.

Continuous planting extends from the east-west boulevard to the plaza level and upper
parts of the building and down to Botany Road, facilitating species migration and there-
by engendering a more stable urban ecosystem and enhancing biodiversity. Greenery
also cushions the impact of extreme weather conditions.

The design seeks to increase biomass to this predominantly inorganic industrial site by
providing the development with an equivalent area of vegetation to the site's land area.
The proposed combined green area for the scheme from the boulevard planting, the for-
ested square, planters beside the ramps rooftop gardens, sky courts and so on is 33,800
square meters.

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 Blue Infrastructure: To reflect the site's past relationship with water, and as a
memento of the previous location of the Waterloo Dam, several water features will be
introduced, celebrating the aesthetic and environmental qualities of water and the con-
nection between nature and culture as part of its blue infrastructure.

Our proposed landscape/urban design displays the versatile and ephemeral nature of the
water, providing variety and choice, and creates a high-quality urban environment. The
landscape scheme expresses a new approach to water management infrastructure in the
city that not only is based on ecological principles, but also reduces water consumption.

As the Green Square area has a history of flooding, water retention and management is
one of the vital aspects in our design objectives The key design principles include: an
extensive and intensive planting of greenery on the roof gardens; the collection of rain-
water in cisterns for toilet flushing, irrigation and storm water detention; and maximizing
infiltration into the soil through the use of permeable pavements and pervious substrates
where possible, which aids water retention. The roof garden collects storm water not on-
ly acts as a retention system for the water but, by passing it through a series of cleansing
steps in a closed-circuit system, gives it its first physical and biochemical cleaning for
recycling. The cleaning process is done through the wetland filter beds at the roof garden
and in public spaces Sand filters and sediment traps in the street domain cleanse water
before it is used for recycling. The water is then collected into a tank for reuse in flusing
and irrigation. The green open park at the other end of the east-west boulevard will act as
a collection basin for excess storm water.

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 Grey Infrastructure: The grey infrastructure was designed to address the issues
of the existing condition of the site. To improve connectivity, the railway site. It is with-
in the town center, located by Botany Road, and directly connected up vel where the user
can then proceed t the next level via the continuous ramps or stairs. The bus interchange
is located on Botany Road, which links the Airport to Sydney City central. The inter-
change itself consists of a separate passenger drop-off and lay-by area where three buses
can stop at once travelling both north-south and east west through the area. The podium
level around the station site contains multiple entrances to the towers and re-
tail/commercial outlets, to encourage an even distribution of pedestrian movement. A
proposed new light rail system is to be added in a future development

Car parking is dispersed over different parts of the site, and is easily accessible to all
buildings and facilities. Minimum car parking is proposed due to the scheme's good site
connectivity and pleasant walks to the existing station and bus terminal.

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 Red Infrastructure: The grey infrastructure was designed to address the issues
of the existing condition of the site. To improve connectivity, the railway site. It is with-
in the town center, located by Botany Road, and directly connected up to level 1 where
the user can then proceed to the next level via the continuous ramps or stairs. The bus
interchange is located on Botany Road, which links the Airport to Sydney City central.
The interchange itself consists of a separate passenger.

Figure 6: Elevation of Green Square Town centre

Figure 7 : View3 of Green Square Town centre

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3.2. SOMA Rajarajeshwari Nagar, Bangalore, India
Located in the hot humid tropics in Bangalore, this site occupies 86.75 hectares of formerly
agricultural land that has become fallow and is to be converted into developed land to ac-
commodate urban growth.

Abutting the land is a forested green reserve that runs all the way down the site's west bound-
ary. This boundary edge forms the springboard for the new green infrastructure which
stretches eastwards across the entire site with connected strands and empty voids in between,
like a linear strip of sticky dough that has been pulled sideways
This green pattern takes the form of new wildlife corridors that straddle the land as
a continuous ecological nexus. These are combined with a number of green bridges and tun-
nels that straddle the roads drains and other utilities link all the green spaces together, con-
tributing in aggregate to the enhancement of the site's biodiversity.

Figure 9 : Bio Swales

Underneath this ecological infrastructure is the grey infrastructure that is woven across the
site, together with the architectural built forms and public-realm hardscape spaces.

The masterplan had to be laid out and landscaped to harmonize with the traditional
Indian planning principles of Vastu Shastra as given by a Vastu Master These concepts -
which govern aspects such as the orientation of roads and buildings and decisions on land
useare integrated with the accompanying blue infrastructure (using bio-swales and water re-
tention ponds)

The red infrastructure of the urban developments, recreational spaces and the various hard
and soft public-realm spaces are designed and generated around the eco infrastructure green
corridors and green spaces, in order to enhance views social connectivity and quality of life.

The built systems will be enhanced by green technology through the use of environmentally
responsive and recyclable materials, maximum openings for natural lighting and ventilation
roof gardens and green terraces, rainwater harvesting, and low-energy building design.

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Figure 10 : Land use plan of SOMA

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 CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION

In planning for a sustainable future for our planet, it is vital that we achieve a seamless and be-
nign bio integration of all human interventions in the natural environment. Finding green design
solutions for our built environment must start from the wider scale of regional and urban plan-
ning, and must then be carried right through to infrastructural engineering, architecture and in-
dustrial design. Masterplanning affords the chance to redress current environmental imbalances
and to reduce the consequences of our build systems on the environment, with the greater aim
of reversing climate change.

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CHAPTER V

REFERENCES

I. Books

 Building & Designing with Nature Urban Design - Joan Roelofs

 Sustainable City Developing World - ISOCARP
 Urban Design: Green Dimensions - Cliff Moughtin
 Eco-Master Planning - Ken Yeang, A john Wiley and Sons, Ltd, Publication 2009

2. Research papers

 Sustainable Urban Forms - Yosuf Rafeq Jabareen

 Sustainable Development of Systematical Modularized Low- carbon Low Carbon Eco-
cities - Guo Liqiao
 Low-carbon and Ecological Development Strategies and implementation Measures of
Chinese Cities – Li Xun

3. Internet Sources

 What is an Eco city? A video by WithAlstom

(https://youtu.be/7ygw2L-Qi0c)

 Transforming a former wasteland into Tianjin Eco-City, A video by CAN

(https://youtu.be/6ojOzSikrm0)

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