Emerging Forms of Sustainable Urbanism: Case Studies of Vauban Freiburg and solarCity Linz

Abstract

This study is an ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration, which discusses possible emerging forms of sustainable urbanism in the 21st century. The idea of sustainable urbanism 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 two case studies discussed embody complex topics of design, dwelling, community in space, building technologies, environmental strategies, as well as models of affordability. At the same time, new trajectories in the development of sustainable urban housing are explored. It is based on the following case studies:

Case Study 1: The new city district of Vauban Freiburg, in Germany, describes the guiding principles and their implementation in the planning and design of this new major development: Vauban comprises 2,000 homes to house 5,000 people, as well as business units to provide about 500 to 600 jobs.

Case Study 2: solarCity Linz, in Austria, currently comprises about 1,300 homes and 3,000 inhabitants. It 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.