Circular Urbanism :: CU 20.1

Abstract

With the Millenium Development Goals the United Nations are setting a framework to foster a more sustainable development world-wide. The goals are ambitious and their realistation challenging, especially when it comes about responding to changes in developing countries. In this study project, we are adressing these challenges by creating models for the development of small cities in Ethiopia.

Ethiopias ongoing transformation from a mainly agricultural society to industrialisation is linked to substantial changes of the country’s rural and urban areas. In their current “Growth and Transformation Plan II“ the Ethiopian government plans to develop a large number of small cities in order to ensure the provision of water, food, energy as well as social and traffic infrastructure to foster economic growth.

For a sustainable development of these new towns the consideration of flows of resources and people within the urban system is crucial. To better understand how such flows are linked to building activities in rural urbanisation processes and their impact on the existing environment, we are referring to urban metabolism as a framework for urban design and planning of small cities. Participants will be analysing urban patterns and flows of small cities, learn about urban metabolism and its spatial implications and apply tools and methods for spatial analysis and finally implement that knowledge to simulate possible development scenarios using parametric models.

Requirements

You should have finished the courses “Parametric Urban Design and Analysis” and “Urban Modeling and Simulation”.