A sustainable built environment: A new text book based on ecosystem theory

With half of the world population living in urban areas and with the building sector as the largest industrial sector in the US and Europe, the built environment makes a significant contribution to sustainability problems, in terms of energy use, material extraction, waste production and land conversion. In a search for a common theoretical basis as foundation for the chosen multi-perspective approach, ecosystem theory appeared to be a powerful framework. A transdisciplinary team of teachers and researchers from different faculties and institutes of the Delft University of Technology joint their efforts to write a text book for master students from different disciplines. The book gives insights in important sustainability effects of the built environment and of leading methods and tools to assess and address these problems at various spatial scales: ranging from the building level to the urban plan. It also deals with the specific institutional context of the built environment and its influence on the innovation and implementation of sustainable technologies. The paper goes f into the basis for this book, which is the ecosystem theory and how it was applied on 13 fields relevant to the subject: ecosystems, urban ecology, water flows, materials, energy, air quality, livability, urban transport, urban forms, strategies and tools for sustainability, integrated solutions, governance and transition management