What is eco-city design?

The word "ecology" comes from the Greek Oikos, which originally meant "home" and "residence". It was put forward by German scientist ernst haeckel in 1869. This word, as the name of a science that studies the relationship between organic matter and its living environment. The origin of ecology, especially its evolution process, is very different from other disciplines. Because ecology is a confluence of various disciplines, it can deal with increasingly complex environmental problems and touch many aspects of society and nature.

August Thienemann and J Brown in the mid-1920s? The community ecology founded by Blanquer and Charles Elton, that is, the ecology of species living in the same environment, began to be related to people's living environment. Environmental problems affecting all countries in the world are directly related to the thin biosphere around this planet. The term "biosphere" was first put forward by Russian scientist V I Wernatsky in 1926. He is a pioneer in ecology. The word "biosphere" points out the ultimate goal of ecology. In the biosphere, man plays a leading role, so man's responsibility for biosphere evolution is the most urgent problem we need to consider.

197 1 year, UNESCO launched the "Man and the Biosphere Program" and further developed it, emphasizing that comprehensive interdisciplinary research methods should be adopted to study the problems of man and the biosphere, rather than multidisciplinary methods.

1. Urban planning link in "Man and Biosphere Plan"

In recent years, the research and progress of "Man and Biosphere Plan" has promoted the connotation extension of urban planning discipline in the following aspects:

(1) initiated the interdisciplinary study of cities, making it possible to determine the main relationship between the economic, social and ecological infrastructure of cities and their spatial organization;

(2) To create an overall urban planning method that meets the ecological requirements; (3) A mathematical model is established to predict the "behavior" of urban ecosystem.

The theoretical framework of urban planning ecology was established in the period of 1975 ~ 1977. Its task is to transform the knowledge of ecological society into urban design language.

2. Urban ecological problems

During most of the 20th century, urbanization was a worldwide phenomenon. There are indications that the world is not ready to deal with this explosive influence, so it still cannot fully understand and solve the urbanization problem. The "Man and Biosphere Plan" advocates a comprehensive and multidisciplinary "ecosystem approach" to study urban problems, paying special attention to the "flow" of urban food, energy, raw materials, people and intellectual materials, and puts forward a method to study urban residential areas from an ecological perspective.

In the eyes of ecologists, the city may be a system with strong artificial color. With the development of every new technology, urban residents gradually leave their "natural" environment, and their material and life stability has been difficult to achieve through the automatic adjustment of nature itself to a large extent. Up to now, urban ecosystem, which is most influenced by modern human intervention, often pays too much attention to the sub-ecosystem or smaller ecosystem that constitutes the life process. At the same time, the macro-structure is still ignored by people, and these macro-structures are the only basis for people to correctly understand urban ecological problems.

Urban energy trend is an important means to understand the urban ecosystem in China. Studying the energy form of a society will involve all aspects of social development and arouse people's attention to the important changes that are taking place in ecology. Urban ecological problems have reached a certain critical mass. To solve these problems, it is necessary to put forward that the future prospect of human settlements-cities needs the embodiment of ecological development standards, which requires a deeper analysis of the whole system of "science-urban design-urban environment", thus putting forward the concept of "ecological city".

Premises and levels

1. the premise of building an "eco-city"

Urban development should obey the goal of ecological and social development, because the structure and speed of material and energy flow in the future are very different from those in the current residential areas. The flow of matter and energy constitutes the same characteristics of all urban subsystems. The premise of establishing the concept of "eco-city" is to find out how the social subsystem and ecological subsystem of the city develop in interaction.

Solve the problems of urban design with ecological methods, and strive to meet the needs of culture, economy and ecology at the same time. At the seminar on "Man and the Biosphere" sponsored by 198 1 UNESCO, Giannickli advocated that the main force should be placed on urban planning, rather than academic research on urban issues. Therefore, urban planners began to pay attention to urban ecosystem, and began to treat human settlements as a part of a larger ecosystem, instead of looking at and studying it from the perspective of pure engineering in isolation and unilaterally. On the macro level, the conceptual framework of "eco-city" is established, and all the impacts of the city on the environment are considered. The basic point of "environmental impact assessment method" is to consider the basic interaction. From the microscopic level, this paper investigates all aspects of the "eco-city" system and establishes the logical relationship of the "eco-city" design language.

2. "Ecological city"

The basic point of urban planning we study is the impact of urbanization on the natural environment. However, if there were no urban communities and other ecosystems maintained by people, there would obviously be no cities. Therefore, the concept of "eco-city" was put forward in the research process of "Man and Biosphere Plan". In fact, this is a fundamental problem. Because people and nature must be comfortable in the city, making the city a part of the biosphere and social circle. An "eco-city" must be both an organism and an environment that can support people and nature. "Eco-city" is an ideal residential area between man and biosphere, and the social and ecological processes of eco-city are coordinated in a perfect way as far as possible. Eco-city design can be regarded as the best way to understand the basic problems of social ecological complex, which embodies the actual interdependence between science and urban planning. The core idea of "eco-city" is its integrity and harmonious development of ecological society. Policymakers and planners of "eco-cities" face three main problems:

(1) The opposition and coordination between man and nature.

(2) The contradiction between urban-rural division, blind extension of urban areas and rural natural scenery. There are two worlds here, namely, the human world and the natural world, and the contradiction between them should be coordinated.

(3) The conflict between pursuing urban benefits and keeping the environment comfortable.

To solve the above three problems, we should first make a systematic analysis from the following aspects in the urban system research of "Man and Biosphere Plan": ① The focus of the development of "eco-city" is the carrying capacity of the urban system (the city is not only a suitable living environment, but also an ecosystem and supporting system). ② When residents turn from rural areas to "eco-cities", both individuals and society need to make major psychological and physiological adjustments. (3) "Eco-city", as a humanistic environment area, is the natural home of human culture and creativity. ④ Simple protection is not enough, but also needs to be conducive to the development and improvement of the relationship between man and his environment. This is one of the goals of "eco-city".

3. The level of "eco-city"

(1) spatio-temporal hierarchy

The social and ecological processes in an "eco-city" have a clear space-time structure, which reflects the spatial boundary of the whole artificial (technical) environment in an eco-city in the interaction between its social system and biological system. The temporal and spatial structure of eco-city is also the framework of the comprehensive concept of "eco-city". The social relationship of cities is the supporting system of this framework, and the spatial relationship of cities is the representation of this framework.

(2) Social function level

Social function layer is the second layer of urban organization, which is all the knowledge of this organization. The space-time level focuses on the social function level, and the social function level leaves a projection on the space-time level. After the "direct" interaction between artificial environment and nature in eco-city, there will be two organizational systems: ① social system, including production and social infrastructure; ② Biological systems, including natural and artificial biological communities.

(3) Cultural and historical aspects

The highest level of interdisciplinary analysis in the study of "eco-city" is the cultural-historical level. Every city has its own vision for the future, which is an indispensable part of its characteristics. Culture brings consistency to the thoughts and actions of cities, which is different urban cultures formed by different cities.

The cultural and historical level of eco-city lies in analyzing the profound social and economic reasons that cause the contradiction between city and nature, and systematically putting forward the goals that society and individuals should pursue to overcome this contradiction. Social philosophy and historical and cultural analysis play a leading role in this respect. Only through culture can each city influence society and human beings. Although cultural space is not always based on cities or villages, the cultural space of eco-cities always tries to maintain and show its new characteristics at the cultural-historical level.

(4) the social function of "eco-city"

The existing knowledge of urban planning is not enough to develop the functional concept of "eco-city", so it is increasingly necessary to combine urban sociology, urban ecology and urban planning to form a regional model of "eco-city". Due to the interaction among social, ecological and technological systems, the concept of "social-function" of eco-city has interdisciplinary characteristics, and this object must be reflected in space, because the next step related to this is the design stage of space (city). The social function of eco-city is both predictive and retrospective. Due to the changes in human needs and lifestyles, and in response to changes in the new ecological environment, the social functions of eco-cities are always in the process of evolution.

design method

1. Design stage of "Eco-city"

Eco-city design is considered in a wide range of science and society. In other words, eco-city design is only a stage in the whole process from basic research to urban environment formation, which is divided into five aspects:

(1) basic research;

(2) Applied research and development;

(3) Specific urban design;

(4) Construction process; (5) The formation of urban organic organizational structure.

So far, the first to third aspects have been studied in urban design, but the influence of architectural technology and organizational form on urban design process can not be ignored.

2. The main functions of eco-city design

(1) Urban design is the spatial expression of eco-city model. In the process of design, the synthesis of urban design language is correspondingly manifested as the interdependent complex relationship among models, elements and other technical systems closely related to these needs.

(2) Urban design aims to achieve certain goals and specific social needs. The goal of eco-city design is that the newly established urban community must be connected with the surrounding agricultural communities, natural scenery, protected areas and other natural and artificial environments to become an organic whole.

(3) If urban design is raised to the level of creating an "eco-city"-we must know whether this static performance is in line with the ideal and whether it can be used to guide and master the "mature" process of the future urban environment.

(4) Urban design is a social and cultural phenomenon, which has an increasing influence on urban decision makers, managers and public opinion. In contemporary culture, urban design is a method to describe the future urban landscape, a filter for spatial processing of various related information of the city, and an "information relationship" between urban subsystems. More importantly, it is a way to get close to ordinary citizens, which potentially creates the widest opportunities for urban planners to communicate with various social groups. Therefore, modern architects and urban planners are important intermediaries between science and urban social life and between science and public awareness. This is bound to have an obvious feature in eco-city design.

(5) Urban design is an art, because urban design is the foundation on which the future urban "evergreen tree of life" depends. 1960, kevin lynch expounded the image of a big city in the eyes of residents in his book City Image, but the concept of urban environment in the city image has not had any important influence on urban design and urban construction so far. Therefore, only by establishing the concept and method of "eco-city design" can we make great progress in current and future urban design, which needs to integrate science, art, skills, professionalism and multilateral communication skills on the basis of the existing sub-culture of urban planners.

In a word, urban design is both a means and an end, a technical phenomenon and an artistic creation, and a product of knowledge synthesis. One of the goals of modern urban design is "eco-city design", which requires urban planners to cooperate with sociologists and ecologists to formulate eco-city models. This will be a transformation process of urban design methods.

3. The design language of eco-city

(1) Coordination between artificial environment and natural environment.

(2) The traditional spatial representation of objective objects is changing almost at any time. Therefore, urban design can only be considered as various cross-sections of urban four-dimensional space.

(3) Eco-city once again confirms the most basic reason for its existence: to provide people with a central place for face-to-face contact-that is, on the street.

(4) Markets and shopping malls are the unity of streets.

(5) People can't tell where the streets, squares and green spaces meet in the city.

(6) Increase the water available to urban residents.

(7) Ensure that the sun shines on all urban spaces.

(8) The tree is in the city and the city is in the tree.

(9) Where there are seats, there are always people who want to sit. Therefore, facilities for people to rest in cities are very important.

(10) "Behavior Pool" is the premise of urban design.

(1 1) The key factor of urban design is not nationality, but urban characteristics. The similarity of people's behavior between big cities in different countries is greater than that between big cities and local cities in the same country.

(12) Barrier-free design is the basic point of eco-city design.

(13) The downtown area will always be attractive to the citizens.

(14) There are many streets, which are self-contained.

(15) All urban cultural values are historical heritage, but they are also the source of urban design innovation.

(16) Urban landscape is the spatial composition and expression of urban culture.

Eco-city design is a subject in the process of exploration. It is an interdisciplinary comprehensive study under the background of urban social culture, aiming at forming a new urban design method.