Virtual lens for planning evaluation: towards a sustainable urban renaissance

Abstract

This presentation argues that a Sustainable Urban Renaissance implies a new urban planning approach toward the city and the territory. New instruments to better inform on the environmental urban consequences generated by planning decisions and urban design options, as new virtual lens, are therefore need. Therefore, two main tasks are requested for the urban discipline. First, to identify and acknowledge the impacts generated by the city over the environment, informed by methodologies such as Material Flow Analysis (MFA). Second, to search for new simulative tools, as the virtual lens, provided by the virtual architecture science, to simulate and evaluate the effects of urban planning decisions and urban design options over the environmental impacts accessed by MFA.