Emerging Forms of Sustainable Urban Housing

The idea of sustainable urban housing is examined in this paper in more than environmental and ecological aspects, to highlight the emergent forms of urbanism based on new paradigms that inform on the shape of cities to come. The built experiments discussed embody complex topics of design, dwelling, community in space, building technologies, environmental strategies, as well as models of affordability, but at the same time explore new trajectories in the development of sustainable urban housing. This study is an interdisciplinary collaboration, which discusses possible new forms of urban housing in the 21 st century, based on the following case studies: Case Study 1: Vauban describes the guiding principles and their implementation in the planning and design of a new major development of a sustainable city district: a 38- hectare former barracks site near the town center of Freiburg, Germany that was purchased by the city in 1994 with the goal to convert it into a flagship environmental and social project. Vauban comprises 2,000 homes to house 5,000 people, as well as business units to provide about 500-600 jobs. The project is currently nearing completion and is widely seen as one of the most positive examples in Europe of environmental thinking in relation to urban design. Case Study 2: Linz Solarcity currently comprises about 1,300 homes and 3,000 inhabitants. Solarcity was designed as a flagship development for renewable energies in urban design and includes projects by architects like Foster and Partners, Richard Rogers, and Thomas Herzog. Construction time of the nucleus of Solarcity took place from 1995 to 2005. It will eventually grow to 25,000 inhabitants and become the largest sustainable town-planning example in Europe.