Future City Visions. The Energy Transition Towards Carbon-Neutrality: Lessons Learned from the Case of Roeselare, Belgium

As climate change develops, with most of the world population living in urban areas, decarbonisation of cities is among the greatest challenges of the coming decades. In the framework of the EU City-zen project, a number of so-called Roadshows has been organised in ten cities within and outside Europe in order to plan and kick-off their...

Nature-Based Urbanization: Scan Opportunities, Determine Directions and Create Inspiring Ecologies

To base urbanization on nature, inspiring ecologies are necessary. The concept of nature-based solutions (NBS) could be helpful in achieving this goal. State of the art urban planning starts from the aim to realize a (part of) a city, not to improve natural quality or increase biodiversity. The aim of this article is to introduce a planning...

Nature-Based Deployment Strategies for Multiple Paces of Change: The Case of Oimachi, Japan

In this article a planning approach is proposed to accommodate different paces of urbanisation. Instead of responding to a single problem with a Pavlov-type of response, analysis shows that the transformational tempi of different urban landscapes require multiple deployment strategies to develop urban environments that are sustainable and...

Designing the Future to Predict the Future: An ‘urban-first’ approach to co-creating zero-carbon neighbourhoods

The natural ecotone between people, community and carbon reduction is the zero-carbon community. Over recent decades, the design of zero-carbon communities has focussed too greatly on carbon emissions and not enough on building communities. Anthropogenic climate change is a human problem, yet people are seldom placed at the centre of design...

City-zen: New Urban Energy: Nicosia 'City-zen Roadshow' REPORT

The City-zen Roadshow travels with a team of internationally recognized experts, in the field of energy planning and design to help develop a sustainable agenda for cities and their neighbourhoods. The Roadshow visited 9 cities in total over a 5-year period who sort expert guidance on how to become more sustainable and wish to move towards...

City-zen: New Urban Energy: Amersfoort 'City-zen Roadshow' REPORT

The City-zen Roadshow travels with a team of internationally recognized experts, in the field of energy planning and design to help develop a sustainable agenda for cities and their neighbourhoods. The overall aim of the Roadshow team is to work closely with people from the hosting city, whether they be city leaders, energy planners, local...

City-zen: New Urban Energy: Preston 'City-zen Roadshow' REPORT

The Roadshow travels with a team of internationally recognized experts, in the field of energy planning and design to help develop a sustainable agenda for cities and their neighbourhoods. The overall aim of the Roadshow team is towork closely with people from the hosting city, whether they be city leaders, energy planners, local architects,...

City-zen: New Urban Energy: Roeselare 'City-zen Roadshow' REPORT

The City-zen Roadshow travels with a team of internationally recognized experts, in the field of energy planning and design to help develop a sustainable agenda for cities and their neighbourhoods. It will visit 9 cities in total over a 5-year period who are seeking expert guidance on how to become more sustainable and wish to move towards...

From Problems to Potentials: The Urban Energy Transition of Gruž, Dubrovnik

IIn the challenge for a sustainable society, carbon-neutrality is a critical objective for all cities in the coming decades. In the EU City-zen project, academic partners collaborate to develop an urban energy transition methodology, which supports cities in making the energy transition to sustainable lifestyles and carbon neutrality. As part of...

The Societal Impact Methodology – Connecting Citizens, Sustainability Awareness, Technological Interventions & Co-creative City Visions

Sustainability needs professionals and methodologies that can bring the architecturally qualitative and scientifically quantitative together to reveal the latent potential of our cities and people. These experts must have the necessary communication skills, personalities and backgrounds to firmly place city stakeholders at the heart of this...

City-zen: New Urban Energy: Menorca 'City-zen Roadshow' REPORT

The City-zen Roadshow travels with a team of internationally recognized experts, in the field of energy planning and design to help develop a sustainable agenda for cities and their neighbourhoods. The Roadshow team work closely with people from the hosting city, whether they be city leaders, energy planners, local architect, professionals,...

City-zen: New Urban Energy: Sevilla 'City-zen Roadshow' REPORT

The City-zen Roadshow travels with a team of internationally recognized experts, in the field of energy planning and design to help develop a sustainable agenda for cities and their neighbourhoods. The Roadshow team work closely with people from the hosting city, whether they be city leaders, energy planners, local architects, professionals,...

Belfast (Colin) 'City-zen Roadshow' REPORT

The City-zen Roadshow travels with a team of internationally recognized experts, in the field of energy planning and design to help develop a sustainable agenda for cities and their neighbourhoods. It will visit 8 cities in total over a 4-year period who are seeking expert guidance on how to become more sustainable and wish to move towards...

City-zen: New Urban Energy: Dubrovnik 'City-zen Roadshow' REPORT

The City-zen Roadshow travels with a team of internationally recognized experts, in the field of energy planning and design to help develop a sustainable agenda for cities and their neighbourhoods. The overall aim of the Roadshow is to work closely with people from the hosting city, whetherthey be city leaders, entrepreneurs, energy planners,...

City-zen: New Urban Energy: Izmir 'City-zen Roadshow' REPORT

The City-zen Roadshow travels with a team of internationally recognized experts, in the field of energyplanning and design to help develop a sustainable agenda for cities and their neighbourhoods. It will visit 9 cities in total over a 5-year period who are seeking expert guidance on how to become more sustainable and wish to move towards energy...

Cities ready for energy crisis: Building urban energy resilience

Various sources indicate that threats to modern cities lie in the availability of essential streams, among which energy. Most cities are strongly reliant on fossil fuels; not one case of a fully self-sufficient city is known. Engineering resilience is the rate at which a system returns to a single steady or cyclic state following a perturbation....