Sustainable urban transformation (SUT)

This International Research and Design Unit (IRU 1, previously called: The Post-Industrial Landscape) of USO-Built Graduate School concerns the paradigms for the post-industrial life-world. Technical and cultural sciences meet here. The emerging post-industrial landscape manifests contradictory aspects of dilution and congestion. Its implications are manifold and must be analysed in terms of lifestyle, cultural identity, and spatial morphology. A continuous urban environment, networked by a huge traffic infrastructure, encompasses not only centres of decision, education, commerce and culture, residential zones, and zones of industrial production, but also (industrial) agricultural country, leisure domains and nature (reserves). The all-encompassing urbanisation process calls for a judicious and creative use of scarce space and of natural resources. In addition to a morphological understanding, historical insights are needed to reflect on the genesis and destiny of the urban-rural continuum. These developments influence all parties involved in the building process. Faster flows of information have to be taken into account in design decisions. The shaping, programming, and constructing of buildings tend to be more complex and flexible and must be tuned to a specific life span. Buildings can be 'tailor made', but the wishes of clients become less predictable. Therefore a constant evaluation of the whole cycle of the built environment is needed. Research methodologies are mainly taken from the humanities. Research and design concern intentions and motives on the micro-level of spatiality, and context and structures on the macro-level. Users are distributed among intuitively defined types of lifestyle. The best Architectural or Urban Design is the ultimate goal. SUT has found consensus for its mission, aims and focussing.