RESOURCE RECOVERY AND MATERIALS FLOW IN THE CITY

Beyond energy efficiency, there are now urgent challenges around the supply of resources, materials, food and water. After debating energy-efficiency for the last decade, the focus has shifted to include resource and material-efficiency. In this context, urban farming has emerged as a valid urban design strategy in Europe, where food is produced and consumed locally within city boundaries, turning disused sites into productive urban landscapes and community gardens. Agricultural activities allow for effective composting of organic waste, returning nutrients to the soil and improving biodiversity in the urban environment. Urban farming will help to feed the 9 billion by 2050 (predicted population growth, UN-Habitat forecast 2009). This paper reports on best practice of urban design principles in regard to materials flow, material recovery, adaptive re-use of building elements and components (‘design for disassembly’; prefabrication of modular building components), and other relevant strategies to ...