Sustainable Cities
Most people live in cities, and the environments they inhabit are predominantly built environments.
Focusing on the physical and social functioning of cities, and particularly the connections between physical outcomes and socio-economic practices, the Sustainable Cities research theme uses its investigations to suggest ways policies and practices might make cities more sustainable.
Questions to be considered include;
- How can the more compact city be designed and retrofitted so that it responds to environmental change, but in ways that allow different social groups and different localities to create varied environments of higher density?
- How may decentralised provision of energy and water be organised within our existing institutional structures of provision, in ways which would allow people to engage with the task of increasing the sustainability of water and energy use in urban landscapes?
Research about the cities of our Asian region will occur, accompanying research on
Research Leader Profile - Ruth Fincher
Faculty: Melbourne School of Land and Environment
Research Interests: Geography, planning, diversity and equity in urban environments
Ruth Fincher is Professor of Geography at the University of Melbourne. With research and teaching interests in the urban outcomes of immigration and multiculturalism, diversity and difference in cities, gender issues, inequality and locational disadvantage, Professor Fincher is widely published internationally. Her books include Creating Unequal Futures? Rethinking Inequality, Poverty and Disadvantage (Allen and Unwin, 2001) co-edited with Peter Saunders, Australian Poverty: Then and Now (Melbourne University Press, 1998) co-edited with John Nieuwenhuysen, and Cities of Difference (Guilford Press, New York, 1998) co-edited with Jane Jacobs. A new book, Planning and Diversity in the City: Redistribution, Recognition and Encounter, co-authored with Kurt Iveson (Palgrave Macmillan, London), was published in July 2008.
Chris Ryan
Faculty: Melbourne School of Land and Environment
Research Interests: Eco-design and innovation
Chris Ryan has worked for over 30 years across various areas of science, technology and environment policy. He was foundation professor of Design and Sustainability at RMIT until his retirement in mid 2004 and Director of the National (Key) Centre for Environmental Design from 1989-98. In this position he directed the National EcoReDesign program, working with 20 Australian companies to develop a new eco-design methodology and new greener products for the market.
Professor Ryan has collaborated with many eco-design related research groups in Europe, including the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands and the UK Design Council in London. He has worked with the UN Environment Program (Division of Technology, Industry and Economics) in Paris on various programs related to sustainable consumption and eco-design. He was the author of the UNEP Global Status Report on Sustainable Consumption for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. He is currently joint editor of a forthcoming UNEP Global Guide to Ecodesign. He holds the position of Adjunct Professor in Design Architecture and Building at the University of Technology Sydney and in Industrial Design at RMIT and is Visiting Professor at the IIIEE at Lund University. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the 'Journal of Industrial Ecology' (MIT Press) and the 'International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development' (Inderscience).