Future Urban Habitation: Transdisciplinary Perspectives, Conceptions, and Designs

Presents forward-looking concepts, innovative research, and transdisciplinary perspectives for developing strategies for future urban habitation

Around the globe, urban populations are growing at an unpreceded rate, in particular in Asia and Africa. In view of pressing social and environmental challenges it is essential to reimagine current design strategies to build affordable, sustainable, and inclusive communities that can respond to future demographic dynamics, new social practices, and the consequences of climate change. Future Urban Habitation presents an integrative, transdisciplinary approach for developing long-term strategies for urban housing at a different scales.

With focus on the rapidly growing cities of Asia, and urban processes in Europe and North-America this volume offers perspectives from both researchers and practitioners involved in multiple aspects of urban habitation. The authors address a range of challenges to urban habitation with four intersecting thematic frameworks: Inclusive Urbanism, High-Dense Typologies for Building Community, Adaptable and Responsive Habitation, and New Tools and Approaches. 

Throughout the text, readers are presented with innovative design ideas from different fields, new concepts for social practices and sustainable housing policies, recent research on urban housing, and more.  Exploring both social and architectural strategies for sustainable and livable dwelling models, Future Urban Hanitation:

• Addresses challenges associated with urbanization, population growth, societal segregation, shifting demographics and the crisis of care, and climate change
• Discusses advanced approaches for design thinking and design research and the impact of inclusive people-centric social design
• Explores the building of collaboration-based, cohesive neighborhoods and community-based social and health services
• Describes the use of innovative tools and methods affecting design practices and decision-making processes, such as co-design, social design, parametric design, performance simulation and sustainable construction to develop urban housing
• Includes perspectives and concepts from policy makers in housing boards and social service administrations, urban planners, architectural and social designers, innovators in sustainable construction, and researchers working on urban society

Future Urban Habitation is an invaluable resource for designers from various fields including architecture, urban planning, and social design, for researchers from social science and design fields, and for policymakers, and other practitioners working on the provision of housing and the facilitation of social services in urban environments.

Oliver Heckmann leads the Urban Housing lab founded at Singapore University of Technology and Design and now based in Berlin. His research, teaching, and practice focuses on innovative housing typology, urban habitation, sustainable design, urban revitalization, and adaptive reuse. He is the co-author and co-editor of Floor Plan Manual Housing and Editor-in-Chief of Building Types Online.