Schlüsselwörter
(Englisch)
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Town planning; theory and history of town planning; infrastructure; environmental history; history of science and technology; air pollution
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Forschungsprogramme
(Englisch)
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COST-Action TU0902 - Integrated assessment technologies to support the sustainable development of urban areas
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Kurzbeschreibung
(Englisch)
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The proposed research project is to follow the development of air pollution and the technologies developed to alleviate it based on the writings of European and North American theoreticians, experts, and laymen from the 18th century to the present. The object of inquiry includes urbanistic tracts, political, philosophical and social reform texts, as well as medical, economic or legal treatises of past centuries. An analysis of these writings provides the basis for investigating the concepts, theories and paradigms of sustainable thinking and action in urban environments, in order to define a scientific pattern of experiences and options in a complex system of interaction and dynamics. The proposed investigation offers a valuable instrument for analysing and comparing not only the problems arising from air pollution in urban areas but also the different resolutive approaches that have been attempted over a long period of time.
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Weitere Hinweise und Angaben
(Englisch)
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Full name of research-institution/enterprise: ETH Zürich Departement für Architektur Institut für Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur
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Partner und Internationale Organisationen
(Englisch)
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AT, BE, CH, CZ, DE, DK, EE, EL, ES, FI, FR, HU, IE, IL, IT, LT, LU, LV, MK, NL, NO, PL, PT, RS, TR, UK
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Abstract
(Englisch)
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In spite of its current urgency, the idea of the sustainable city is not new: the concept has a long history built on a variety of ideas on the improvement of the urban environment, rethought and revised over the course of the past few centuries. These ideas have had a definitive impact on today's image of sustainable urban design. The problematic of air pollution and the diverse approaches developed to alleviate it have a long history that can be followed all the way back to ancient times, gaining a new dimension with the emergence of industrialisation in the 18th century. Since the beginning, the main idea behind sustainable urban design and the solution of environmental problems such as air pollution has been the improvement of the urban environment. This development is, out of necessity, an urbanistic and architectural issue; it must never be allowed to ensue on an empirical basis, for from the very beginning a sufficient understanding of long-term change, impacts, and uncertainties must be an integral part of the decisions underlying an urban designer's concepts, aims and stipulations. The investigation traces the development of air pollution and the technologies developed to combat it through the writings of European and North American theorists and laymen from the 18th century until today. The object of inquiry includes urbanistic tracts, political, philosophical and social reform texts, as well as medical, economic or legal treatises of past centuries. An analysis of these writings provides the opportunity for investigating the concepts, theories, and paradigms of sustainable thinking and acting in the urban environment, thereby defining a scientific pattern of experiences and options in the complex system of urban interactions and dynamics. This investigation offers a valuable instrument for analysing and comparing not only the problems arising from air pollution in urban areas but also the different resolutive approaches that have been attempted over a long period of time. This research project is one part of a larger research enterprise based at the ETH that is still being conceived under the working title 'On a parsimonious approach to urban resources: strategies of sustainability in the history of European urban design theory' that will investigate the historical discourse on sustainability. Within the framework of the COST Action TU0902 our project aims to provide the historical, conceptual and theoretical basis for investigations, which deal with an application-oriented approach to current issues in environmental design and management in urban areas. The importance of the historical dimension of the concept of sustainable city and specific occurrences, such as the handling of air pollution issue, has great relevance both for present day discourse as well as urban planning, offering exploitable parameters and comparative models for interventions and strategies to develop urban infrastructure and new technologies.
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Datenbankreferenzen
(Englisch)
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Swiss Database: COST-DB of the State Secretariat for Education and Research Hallwylstrasse 4 CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland Tel. +41 31 322 74 82 Swiss Project-Number: C10.0112
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