The building sector contributes around 39% of global carbon dioxide emissions and consumes nearly 40% of all the energy produced. Over the whole life cycle, the building sector yields over 35% of the EU's total waste generation. These facts substantiate the necessity to implement circular economy in the built environments, in order to mitigate global warming and climate change emergency. This chapter highlights the state-of-the-art knowledge and research gap with respect to the stakeholders’ influences, inter-relationships, and obstacles for circular economy implementation on building stocks. In this chapter, a robust critical literature review of key documentations such as research articles, industry standards, policy reports, strategic roadmaps, case studies, and white papers has been rigorously conducted together with expert interviews. The state-of-the-art review addresses multi scales of CE practices adopted within the built environments. This chapter spells out current challenges and obstacles often encountered by various stakeholders. Case studies related to circular economy implementation have been drawn in order to promote such the CE practices across value chains in different regions and counties; and to overcome the barriers for circular economy implementation.

This study explores winter settlement urban design principles to begin to identify climate related conditions that are affecting soft mobility (walking and cycling) in these communities.

Winter communities have evolved lifestyles and means that fit with working and living with local conditions and seasonal variations. With climate change, however, comes evolving weather’s that these communities need to adapt too. These changes may present new risks and unexpected challenges to outdoor soft mobility in the community.

Public policy highlights physical inactivity as a major health concern. For these communities, winter has always limited outdoor soft-mobility. Here, we understand that in winter outdoor activity can be reduced by weather and fear of accidents.

People’s understanding of the barriers and enablers to soft mobility are also often based on experience and ability to detect environmental clues. To help winter communities maximise the opportunities for outdoor soft mobility and the wellbeing benefits this can bring, built environments need to be designed with an understanding of climate change. 

This study explores barriers and enablers to soft mobility in winter and discusses them in light of climate change and human wellbeing. It is argued that established principles of urban design may require re-evaluation if we want to increase outdoor soft mobility in winter. Increases in physical activity could help reduce costs and pressures on health services by creating safer and more walkable communities. The paper concludes by suggesting that communities should focus on more context based winter urban design principles that account for ongoing climate change.

This study explores connectivity for soft mobility in the winter season. Working with residents from the sub-arctic city of Luleå, Sweden, the research examines how the interaction between the built environment and winter season affects people’s use of the outdoor environment. The research questions for this study are, 1) how do residents perceive the effects of winter on an areas spatial structure and pattern of streets and pathways? and 2) what enablers and barriers impact resident soft mobility choices and use of the public realm in winter? Methods used were mental mapping and photo elicitation exercises. These were used to gain a better understanding of people’s perception of soft mobility in winter. The results were analysed to identify how soft mobility is influenced by the winter season. The discussion highlights that at the neighbourhood scale, residents perceive that the winter alters an areas spatial structure and pattern of streets and pathways. It was also seen to reduce ease of understanding of the public realm and townscape. In conclusion, it is argued that new and re-tooled town planning strategies, such as extending blue/ green infrastructure planning to include white space could help better enable all year outdoor activity in winter cities.

Urban form can moderate the effects of weather on human movement. As such, the interrelationship between built environment, weather and human movement is a critical component of urban design. This paper explores the impacts of weather on non-motorised human movement (soft-mobility). Throughout we look at soft-mobility from the citizen’s perspective and highlight the barriers to soft-mobility in winter.

The aim of this study was to test the traditional pallet of winter city urban design considerations. Those of solar-access, wind and snow management and explore other weather and terrain conditions that act as barriers to soft-mobility in winter. This study is based on survey responses from 344 citizens in the sub-arctic area of Sweden. Outcomes from the research highlight that rain, icy surfaces and darkness are today’s most significant barriers to soft-mobility in winter.

Results from this study link changing barriers to soft-mobility in winter with climate change. The paper concludes that future urban design and planning for winter cities needs to consider a wider pallet of weather conditions, especially rain.

Interest in climate-sensitive urban design has grown in recent decades. Nevertheless, there are various difficulties associated with such an approach. One of these is the lack of simple comfort assessment tools. This paper presents a method for microclimate assessment that is composed of a wind comfort analysis and a microclimate assessment based on measuring a combination of solar access and wind velocity. The study includes analysis of a proposed urban project situated in Kiruna, a Swedish town located in the subarctic region of the country. The results from the simulations were then overlaid to produce combined microclimate maps for three specific dates: winter solstice, spring equinox and summer solstice. The maps illustrate relative microclimate differences between areas in the proposed project based on combinations of wind/lee and sun/shadow conditions. The outcomes showed that only a small proportion of the area studied had favourable microclimate conditions at the winter solstice and spring equinox. The thermal comfort Index OUT_SET* was calculated for the summer solstice in the study area. Comparisons between the spatial distribution of OUT_SET* values and the microclimate assessment map showed a large degree of correlation. The method is intended to be a simple and representative evaluation of microclimate.

The linear pattern of production-consumption-disposal of cities around the world will continue to increase the emission of pollutants and stocks of waste, as well as to impact on the irreversible deterioration of non-renewable stocks of raw materials. A transition towards a circular pattern proposed by the concept of 'Circular Cities' is gaining momentum. As part of this urban transition, the emergent use of Nature-based Solutions (NBS) intends to shift public opinion and utilize technology to mitigate the urban environmental impact. In this paper, an analysis of the current research and practical investments for implementing NBS under the umbrella of Circular Cities is conducted. A combined appraisal of the latest literature and a survey of ongoing and completed National-European research and development projects provides an overview of the current enabling tools, methodologies, and initiatives for public engagement. It also identifies and describes the links between facilitators and barriers with respect to existing policies and regulations, public awareness and engagement, and scientific and technological instruments. The paper concludes introducing the most promising methods, physical and digital technologies that may lead the way to Sustainable Circular Cities. The results of this research provide useful insight for citizens, scientists, practitioners, investors, policy makers, and strategists to channel efforts on switching from a linear to a circular thinking for the future of cities.

The energy performance of heritage buildings is attracting growing interest in research and practice. Accordingly, as shown by our literature review, increasing numbers of articles on energy-efficiency measures for heritage buildings are being published in peer-reviewed journals. However, there is no overview of how energy efficiency and heritage conservation have been approached in the studies. To address this gap we categorized and assessed the identified studies in terms of two key elements of such investigations: energy analysis and analysis of cultural heritage values. Most of the studies evaluate and propose measures to reduce the operational energy use of single heritage buildings, and fewer have applied a broader system perspective. Moreover, the underlying notion of the buildings’ cultural heritage values seems to have been derived mainly from international conventions and agreements, while potentially significant architectural, cultural and historical factors have been rarely discussed. Our findings highlight that, when considering energy improvements, cultural heritage values should be more explicitly articulated and analysed in relation to established conservation principles or methodologies. Besides further scientific study, this point to the need of designing best-practice approaches that allow transparency and knowledge sharing about the complex relationships between energy efficiency and heritage conservation of buildings.

Arctic cities are often perceived as exceptional and uniquely challenged by extreme conditions, leading to their treatment as special cases in urban planning and development. However, this perception overlooks the reality that Arctic cities share similar issues common to many small and medium-sized urban centers globally, such as mobility, climate adaptation, and aging populations. By recognizing Arctic cities as ordinary cities, we can better address their needs and foster effective solutions. This article reflects on the results of a fourth-year Master-level course in Sustainable Urban Development, where students researched urban sustainability aspects (e.g., mobility, green infrastructure, energy, public spaces) in northern regions of Finland, Sweden, and Norway. It analyzes pedagogical approaches, highlighting challenges in integrating sustainability perspectives into architecture and planning curricula. Findings hold relevance for educators seeking to address similar challenges in the Arctic or other ordinary cities worldwide, contributing to more resilient and sustainable urban development across diverse environments.

This article—framed as a methodological contribution and at the intersection between the critical urban, urban political ecology and world-ecology disciplines—builds on Corboz’s metaphor of ‘territory as a palimpsest’ to explore the representation of the socio-economic and ecological processes underpinning uneven development under extractive capitalist urbanization. While the palimpsest approach has typically been used to map transformations of more traditional urban morphologies, this work focuses instead on remote extraction territories appropriated by the global economy and integral to planetary urbanization. The article suggests the central notion of ‘palimpsests of appropriation’ as a lens to map the extraction processes. It does so in its multi-scalar and temporal dimensions and on the basis of the three intertwined frames—i.e., the productive, distribution and mediation palimpsest—shortly exemplifying its use on the ground for the iron ore extraction territory in the Swedish-Norwegian Arctic. With this, the article contributes to the development of an expanded representational methodology and conception of territories of extraction—where social and natural production are brought together—illustrating how appropriation has been (re)shaping each of the frames throughout historical thresholds, but also how socio-natures are being (re)made in its image.

As metropolitan areas around the world keep expanding, behind them, rural areas continue to be affected by greater rates of depopulation. This is not a new phenomenon: rural to urban migration has been reported in the developed world at least from the period between the two world wars. However, recent rural depopulation trends have dramatically intensified in both the developed and the developing countries worldwide. In planning literature, greater emphasis is placed on the “urban–rural” divide, that is, people leaving the countryside to look for better opportunities in urban areas. However, a growing body of literature points to the fact that not all rural areas are declining at the same rate. Indeed, some rural towns have managed to retain population and even to grow. Therefore, at least in developed countries, an “intra-rural” divide notion is emerging. To exemplify this notion, we have studied rural towns in Southern Italy.

The “Green” rhetoric is constantly gaining traction in urban planning research. In line with anthropocenic thinking, the study of green cities and infrastructures has promised a straightforward recipe to solve many urban issues (e.g., climate mitigation and resilience, urban health, etc.). However, green city/infrastructure proponents, while emphasizing the positive environmental, economic, and health aspects of these projects, often neglect important socio-political and spatial considerations that are crucial for understanding the dramatic transformation of non-urbanized and peri-urban territories. Based on my latest research on urban megaprojects in Johor, Malaysia, and Doha, Qatar, in this paper I will critically re-discuss the green city/infrastructure idea by analyzing megaprojects’ biogeophysical and social displacements in peri-urban territories in the global South.

The idea of Helsinki-Tallinn Region as a commonlybranded region is in one sense an obvious and natural extension of the close relationship between Tallinn an Helsinki. Since Estonia’s independence, this connection has expanded rapidly. Region makers such as Euregio and Finpro have explored a number of projects to expand this relationship in order to establish a more systematic and integrated connection. This Book reports on a trans-disciplinary research carried out by Agatino Rizzo, Egzon Bajraktari, Tomas Jonsson, Sukanya Krishnamurthy, Reinhard Micheller, and Ricardo Santacruz at Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in 2008

The aim of this paper is to assess Malta’s government capacity to manage the possible environmental and social conflicts arising from the implementation of its renewable energy agenda to comply with EU’s 2020 energy package. The country has targeted photovoltaic technologies to achieve a 10% of renewable energy share in the final consumption of energy by 2020. Malta is a popular tourist destination, it hosts three UNESCO world heritage sites, and it is one of the smallest, although densely populated, countries in the European Union. From the encroachment of PV parks with the existing urban/rural landscape, we found a number of issues worth to be investigated such as the location of solar power plants, participatory planning mechanisms, and aesthetic-design considerations for integrating photovoltaic into the existing urban fabric. The study is based on exploratory interviews with institutional stakeholders and document analysis.

The emergence of the climate change discourse in urban planning emphasises resilience as a key concept to deal with issues such as climate mitigation and adaptation, and urban health. What we have termed in this article ‘green resilience’, the coalescence of technological solutions and resilience thinking to solve cities’ ecological issues, is constantly gaining traction in urban planning research. However, green resilience often fails to take into account the socio-political and spatial processes that pertain to the exploitation of land for urban development particularly in the global South. Based on our latest research on two urban megaprojects, in Johor-Singapore (Malaysia) and Doha (Qatar), in this article we build a critique of green resilience and urbanism by leveraging research in the fields of environmental humanities and urban planning.

Doha, capital city of the Arab emirate of Qatar, has grown from a small, port city to a bustling capital region with global ambitions. Today almost 85% of Qatar’s total population (1.4 out of 1.7 million inhabitants) live in metropolitan Doha, while before 1971 (pre-independence) its total population was 30 times less. Blessed with generous oil and particularly gas reserves, since the 1970s the country has undertaken urban mega-projects and expensive land reclamations which have increased the built up area in the capital region by 60 times. In this article we review Doha’s past and current urban development, highlighting Qatar’s different urban phases. Also, by comparing Doha to Dubai, we investigate the impacts of Qatar’s ‘‘mega-projects agenda’’ on two important government-led developments: Education City and Mshereib Redevelopment.

In the last 20 years urban development in the Arab Gulf Region has boomed as the combined result of increased oil revenues, diversification of the local economy away from oil and its byproducts, increased immigration flows, and geopolitical transformations (Al Buainain, 1999; Bagaeen, 2007; Elsheshtawy, 2008; Rizzo, 2013). Gulf governments and their agencies - along with members of the ruling families who sit at the same time in ministries and in boards of private companies (Ponzini, 2011) - have been the main players to fund and implement urban mega-projects - i.e. large, themed urban-developments (Rizzo, 2013).Furthermore, in the last ten years there has been a clear tendency in the Gulf Region to build offshore, sea-reclaimed mega-projects (Koolhaas et al., 2007). Amongst the small, rich Arab states of the Gulf, Dubai has been the first and the boldest emirate to implement sea-megaprojects - e.g. Jumeirah’s and Jebel Ali’s Palms, World Archipelago, etc. (Pacione, 2005; Ouis, 2011). Recently, Dubai’s approach to urban development has been exported to several other countries within and beyond the Gulf Region; Elsheshtawy (2010) has labeled this trend/phenomenon “Dubaisation”.In this paper we present the biggest, sea-reclaimed urban project in Qatar (i.e. The Pearl Island) to analyse politics and processes of mega water-developments in the Arab Gulf Region. Also, in our study, we briefly touch on the socio-economic (exclusion/segregation) impacts/sustainability of this sea-megaproject on Doha, Qatar’s capital city.

In this paper, we outline a framework to study what we have termed "Predatory Cities", using the artificial offshore island of The Pearl in Qatar as a case study. By focusing on the nexus between urbanisation and resources, we will argue that the master-planning of new cities in the booming global South implies both the access and cheap exploitation of a set of, on the one hand, intangible and, on the other hand, tangible resources that exceed the traditional boundaries. Our point of departure is that the cheap appropriation and exploitation of alien architecture images and resource networks for the making of new, master-planned cities has become a necessary, but highly unsustainable, strategy to survive an increasingly competitive global offering of new destinations.

In this article we review past and current master planning efforts in Qatar, highlighting the country's inability to manage rapid urban development. We will argue that the failure to implement sound urban planning in Qatar - and by extension, in the rest of the Arab Gulf Region - is the result of a detachment between the master planning phase - usually sub-contracted to external consultants that are insensitive to Gulf dynamics - and the implementation phase - usually carried out by incapable and redundant local government agencies - all in absence of a serious discussion of ongoing mega-projects.

Natural resources (minerals, petrol, wind, solar, forest, etc.) are at the basis of our urban economies. However, under a market-led economic regime, resource-extraction urbanism is a waste-generating, primitive (although pervasive) model that evolves at the planetary scale. At the same time, trends such as decentralization and miniaturization of renewable resource generation and circular economies promise to disrupt the current resource-extraction paradigm. We think that cities need to transition from the primitive, resource-extraction paradigm to a more resilient, resource-integrate urban nexus. In my presentation, I will show some experiences in which, under the umbrella of resource-integrated urbanism, my group and I have dealt with the issues of exploring a new urban aesthetic and the regeneration of resource-extraction spaces. The first project, in the project Food on the Roof, we deploy big data analysis techniques and interdisciplinary thinking to capitalize on waste energy and available space to grow food in cities across seasons. In the second project, MIN-SPIRE, we tackle the issue of extractive spaces and “resource waste” by deploying design and planning as a catalyst for local development.

Over the last decade, governments of the small Arab emirates in the Gulf region have invested billions of dollars in an attempt to foster rapid growth in their capital cities: the results have been truly dramatic and many of the urban centres in the region have been physically transformed. One interesting aspect of this growth is the fact that rhetoric about sustainability has apparently gained traction in the region, as evidenced by a plethora of urban megaprojects that are all carefully branded as green and sustainable. Urban developments in the Gulf have stimulated a spate of scholarly literature in a number of disciplines, and the debates are ongoing; this article will contribute to the discussion in several ways. It begins with a description of recent economic developments in the Gulf, and goes on to explore and expand the modern phenomenon of ‘instant urbanism’ as it applies to the region. We then compare two notable megaprojects in Doha and one in Abu Dhabi, closely analysing the rhetoric of sustainable urban development that surrounds each. We show the limitations of this rhetoric and uncover the covert aims of these projects, and suggest some of their unintended outcomes

Like any other emirate of the Persian Gulf, Qatar has invested billions of dollars to implement ambitious urban transformations. The official aim of these ‘megaprojects’ is to diversify the economy away from oil revenues, by attracting investors, tourists and knowledge workers. However, so far these megaprojects have broadly failed to deliver on this aim. In this chapter, I focus on the ‘state-planning nexus’ to show that despite the unique absolute control that the government has of all the phases needed to deliver a project, from planning to financing, the results have been poor. Megaprojects are disconnected from each other and their surroundings, they reinforce segregation and do not fit within the country’s ecological boundaries (lack of water, high temperatures and so forth). I argue that the lack of understanding of Gulf dynamics by international consultants, poor government capacity and ecological predatory strategies are the underlying causes for Qatar’s megaprojects fiasco.

Resources in their various forms are at the basis of our urban economies. The extraction, alongside with the distribution, processing and disposal, of resources, being them natural, energy, or human, is a main driver for planetary urbanization. However, under a market-led economic regime, which is characterized by boom and bust cycles, the space produced by the resource-extraction economic model is from time to time discarded with huge environmental and social losses world wide. While recent concerns about climate change and urban resilience have emphasized resource efficiency i.e. consume less and use better each unit of resource, we think that this target alone isn't sufficient to truly transform society towards a more resilient horizon. We need to rethink the resource-urbanization nexus (RUN) and the way it affects our lifestyle and cities. In this article, we suggest resources in its various forms (natural and human) be intimately integrated with humanity and its built environment. To articulate such a vision, we discuss our two latest research projects that deal respectively with energy districts and resource regions in northern Sweden. Methodologically, we deploy assemblage thinking, global production network of resources, and critical urban theory and political ecology as the main pillars of our framework.

In this chapter, we focus on urban space that emerges from transnational social practices related to knowledge megaprojects (Qatar) and cross-border economic integration (Johor in Malaysia). We look at two case studies with two complementary perspectives: that of the space of flows and Metapolis; and that of the transit space. What emerges from this double reading of the global city in Asia is the significance of landscape and social displacements processes. The conclusions point to the importance of understanding sustainability from an inclusive, social perspective by tapping on local expertise and knowledge. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

In the last two decades, resource cities of the Arab Gulf Region have been known to urban scholars and the general public for their extravagant, large-scale urban developments. These so-called megaprojects have allowed Gulf governments to both brand their nations globally and compete regionally and internationally with other global economic centers. However, as oil-rich Gulf countries have attempted to diversify their revenue stream away from fossil fuels, a new urban typology has emerged in their capitals to facilitate the transition to the knowledge-intensive economy. In continuity with previous research on megaprojects in the Gulf and Asian countries, we have called this new typology Knowledge Megaprojects (KMs). In this paper, by using as a reference point for comparisons the existing literature on knowledge developments in the West, we set to exemplify KMs in the Gulf region by analyzing the case of Education City—a large knowledge campus being developed by the Qatari government in Doha. One main result of this study is that KMs replicate the same shortcomings of other more mundane, extravagant megaprojects and thus are unlikely to provide the right urban setting to foster a sustainable transition to the post-carbon economy in the Gulf.

For decades alternative (to carbon) sources of energy in Sweden have been linked to hydro- and nuclear-power. However, this is set to change as the new Swedish government agenda has put an extraordinary emphasis on renewables. The implementation of renewables in Sweden poses several challenges. Three main aspects deter local communities from embracing large renewable projects: Noise, the visual impact, and visual discomfort (reflection). Sweden has a long tradition of stakeholder engagement in state-funded projects in the form of participatory meetings and written feedbacks. However, other participatory techniques are less established. Since 2014, LTU has been engaged in a research project dealing with energy, landscape, art, and participation in LTU campus in Piteå, Norrbotten. The aim of this paper is to discuss this interdisciplinary project and report its results. The main finding of this research is that the use of particpatory design in energy projects such as a smart campus is an important factor to foster collaboration and understanding between end users and stakeholders.

For decades, alternative (to carbon) sources of energy in Sweden have been linked to hydro- and nuclear power. However, this is set to change as the Swedish government’s agenda has placed extraordinary emphasis on renewables. The implementation of renewables in Sweden poses several challenges. Literature shows that two main aspects deter local communities from embracing large renewable projects: lack of acceptance (of the impacts) and lack of participation (in the making and benefits). Sweden has a long tradition of stakeholder engagement in state-funded projects in the form of participatory meetings and written feedbacks. However, other participatory techniques are less established. Since 2014, we have engaged in research projects dealing with energy landscapes, design thinking, and what we have recently named “resourceful communities”. The aim of this chapter is to report on the results of our recent projects that engage with the above-mentioned concepts/strategies to foster collaboration and understanding between end-users and other stakeholders.

The decreasing pace of urban development in economically-troubled Europe allows time for urban practitioners and actors to re-think planning action and its outcomes. In Canada where urban development seems unstoppable, contemplative breaks are as important. From the rubbles of recent environmental and economic crises around the world, in this article we discuss the emergence of a new theoretical approach in urban design and planning that is at the intersection of Socio-Spatial Research, Complexity Theories of Cities, and Urban Activism: Transdisciplinary Urbanism. We deploy three relevant, research projects we have been engaged with to analyze issues, challenges and limitations of Transdisciplinary Urbanism. The time frame of these interventions spans almost a decade.