“Today´s eco-cities have one thing in common: they are all small. We cannot make large cities green – or green cities large, yet. But we will have to.”

In order to achieve a greener city, we need to look at the bigger picture. We need to look at Green not only in terms of sustainable architecture, but also from the perspective of politics, technology, economics and our personal lives. We have to consider the whole city, even the region.

The book opens with twenty-two observations on Green that reveal the current state of green – its flaws, contradictions and missed opportunities. Five Outlooks on Tomorrow´s Green contain interviews and essays with John Thackara, James Woudhuysen, Jaap Wiedenhoff and Paul van Bergen. Green City Calculator looks at ways to measure the impact of our Cities. The Greenest City quantifies and visualises a self-reliant city for one million people. Nine Green Dreams presents MSc student projects from two Green Dream studios and projects by the Why Factory.

“Yes, we need to measure ´sustainable´, to be specific about benchmarks, to state clearly how far it is from ´here´to ´there´. But this is not to say lists are all that matters. To-do lists and benchmarks on their own are not enough for us to reorganise society. We need a new synthesis of metrics and aesthetics.” (John Thackara)

Green Dream was a research and design project, including two semester-long MSc studios at the Why Factory, Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology.

Authors: Winy Maas, Ulf Hackauf and Pirjo Haikola
Nai publishers

 

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