Re-compacting the city: theorizing sustainability on the urban scale

The theme of the ‘City’ is central to the concern of this paper, which argues that urban design is integral to the practice of sustainable architecture. While more and more of the earth submits to urbanization, we are confronted with a series of new urban design challenges and need for urgent investigations. Among the most significant environmental challenges of our time is the fossil-fuel dependency of cities and buildings and their growing demand for energy. In this context, avoiding mistakes in urban development at the early stages could genuinely lead to more sustainable, compact cities and less greenhouse gas emissions. This paper presents research in the area of Green Urbanism and introduces models for sustainability in urban growth and densification of neighbourhoods, as cities need to transform from fossil-fuel based models to models based on renewable energy sources. It presents work from design studios, which addressed the question: how we can best and cohesively integrate all aspects of energy and transport systems, waste and water management, passive and active strategies, natural ventilation and so on, into sustainable urban design and thus improving the environmental performance of an inner-city district, reducing CO₂ emissions at district level. The author has explored with students the emergent urban patterns for the regeneration of the city centre of Newcastle, for a step-by-step transformation to a sustainable model, and discussed how urbanism is affected (and can be expected to be even more affected in the future) by the paradigms of ecology, and the need to de-carbonize energy supply and transport systems. Case study analysis: The paper is specific in that it describes three recent examples for the application of such urban design principles for the Australian city of Newcastle: the ‘City Campus’, ‘Green Corridor’ and ‘Port City’ studios