Christie Walk is a model ecological cohousing development in central Adelaide, Australia. It consists of 27 dwellings on a 2,000 square metres site. [1] It was designed by local architect Paul Downton and completed in 2006. [2] Its innovative aspects include energy- and water-saving measures, use of ethical finance and use of recycled non-toxic materials. [3]
Christie Walk was founded by Urban Ecology Australia Inc [4] as a living example of the 10 Ecopolis Development Principles, [5] which were established by Paul Downton, Cherie Hoyle and Emilis Prelgauskas.
The development has been included as a case study in the Australian Government's guide to environmentally sustainable homes [6] and inspired similar projects such as Aldinga EcoVillage and a cohousing development in Canberra. [3]
At the 2021 biennial Carbon Neutral Adelaide Awards event, Christie Walk was made a Carbon Neutral Adelaide Ambassador, an honour given so far to only 3 others of the 200 Carbon Neutral Adelaide Partners. Urban Ecology Australia also won the award for Community Leadership in recognition of three decades of campaigning, researching and educating on the transformation of conventional cities into Ecological Cities. [7]
"We wanted a green community, comfortable for the residents but kind to the environment; something that would significantly cut our environmental footprint. We wanted a working alternative to urban sprawl. We wanted to help heal the web of life by bringing biodiversity back into the city. And we wanted it to be a community, not just a collection of disconnected dwellings." - Brian Loffler - Environmental Planner at Christie Walk. [8]
Construction of Christie Walk was completed in 2006, but efforts to reduce emissions are ongoing through a program of technology upgrades. The Christie Walk community ensures that lessons learned along the way are shared widely through on-site tours, [9] virtual tours [10] and documentation of the upgrades. [11] The documentation is especially relevant to strata groups where upgrades and emissions reduction projects are more complicated than for stand-alone home owners.
Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The desired result is a state of society where living conditions and resources are used to continue to meet human needs without undermining the integrity and stability of the natural system. Sustainable development can be defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
An ecovillage is a traditional or intentional community with the goal of becoming more socially, culturally, economically, and/or ecologically sustainable. An ecovillage strives to produce the least possible negative impact on the natural environment through intentional physical design and resident behavior choices. It is consciously designed through locally owned, participatory processes to regenerate and restore its social and natural environments. Most range from a population of 50 to 250 individuals, although some are smaller, and traditional ecovillages are often much larger. Larger ecovillages often exist as networks of smaller sub-communities. Some ecovillages have grown through like-minded individuals, families, or other small groups—who are not members, at least at the outset—settling on the ecovillage's periphery and participating de facto in the community.
Cohousing is an intentional community of private homes clustered around shared space. The term originated in Denmark in late 1960s. Each attached or single family home has traditional amenities, including a private kitchen. Shared spaces typically feature a common house, which may include a large kitchen and dining area, laundry, and recreational spaces. Shared outdoor space may include parking, walkways, open space, and gardens. Neighbors also share resources like tools and lawnmowers.
The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounting system. The accounts contrast the biologically productive area people use for their consumption to the biologically productive area available within a region or the world. In short, it is a measure of human impact on the environment.
Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED) is an environmentally friendly housing development in Hackbridge, London, England. It is in the London Borough of Sutton, 2 miles (3 km) north-east of the town of Sutton itself. Designed to create zero carbon emissions, it was the first large scale community to do so.
An eco-city or ecocity is "a human settlement modeled on the self-sustaining resilient structure and function of natural ecosystems", as defined by the JOHN-MAGNUS`s. Simply put, an eco-city is an ecologically healthy city. The World Bank defines eco-cities as "cities that enhance the well-being of citizens and society through integrated urban planning and management that harness the benefits of ecological systems and protect and nurture these assets for future generations". Although there is no universally accepted definition of an 'eco-city', among available definitions, there is some consensus on the basic features of an eco-city.
Metabolic rift is Karl Marx's notion of the "irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism", i.e. Marx's key conception of ecological crisis tendencies under capitalism. Marx theorized a rupture in the metabolic interaction between humanity and the rest of nature emanating from capitalist agricultural production and the growing division between town and country.
Environmental art is a range of artistic practices encompassing both historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically motivated types of works. Environmental art has evolved away from formal concerns, for example monumental earthworks using earth as a sculptural material, towards a deeper relationship to systems, processes and phenomena in relationship to social concerns. Integrated social and ecological approaches developed as an ethical, restorative stance emerged in the 1990s. Over the past ten years environmental art has become a focal point of exhibitions around the world as the social and cultural aspects of climate change come to the forefront.
EcoHomes was founded in 2004 by Conor Vanderlip.
The sustainable city, eco-city, or green city is a city designed with consideration for social, economic, environmental impact, and resilient habitat for existing populations, without compromising the ability of future generations to experience the same. The UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 defines sustainable cities as those that are dedicated to achieving green sustainability, social sustainability and economic sustainability. They are committed to doing so by enabling opportunities for all through a design focused on inclusivity as well as maintaining a sustainable economic growth. The focus also includes minimizing required inputs of energy, water, and food, and drastically reducing waste, output of heat, air pollution – CO2, methane, and water pollution. Richard Register first coined the term ecocity in his 1987 book Ecocity Berkeley: Building Cities for a Healthy Future, where he offers innovative city planning solutions that would work anywhere. Other leading figures who envisioned sustainable cities are architect Paul F Downton, who later founded the company Ecopolis Pty Ltd, as well as authors Timothy Beatley and Steffen Lehmann, who have written extensively on the subject. The field of industrial ecology is sometimes used in planning these cities.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to sustainability:
This page is an index of sustainability articles.
A zero-carbon city runs entirely on renewable energy; it has no carbon footprint and will in this respect not cause harm to the planet. Most cities throughout the world produce energy by burning coal, oil and gas, unintentionally emitting carbon. Almost every activity humans do involves burning one of these fossil fuels. To become a zero-carbon city, an established modern city must collectively reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to zero and all practices that emit greenhouse gases must cease. Also, renewable energy must supersede other non-renewable energy sources and become the sole source of energy, so a zero-carbon city is a renewable-energy-economy city. This transition which includes decarbonising electricity and zero-emission transport, is undertaken as a response to climate change. Zero-carbon cities maintain optimal living conditions and economic development while eliminating environmental impact. Instead of using established cities, many developers are starting from scratch in order to create a zero-carbon city. This way they can make sure every aspect of a city contributes to it being carbon-free.
The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, includes all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth.
The Solar Settlement at Schlierberg is a 59-home PlusEnergy housing community in Freiburg, Germany. Solar architect Rolf Disch wanted to apply his PlusEnergy concept, created originally with his Heliotrope home, to mass residential production. This residential complex won such awards as House of the Year (2002), Residential PV solar integration award (2002), Germany's most beautiful housing community (2006). It is the first housing community in the world in which all the homes produce a positive energy balance and which is emissions-free and CO2 neutral. The settlement also features an underground parking lot to keep the streets car free.
Paul F Downton is a sustainable city theorist and activist, ecological architect, urbanist and professional writer on architecture, ecocities, environment and the arts.
Environmentally sustainable design is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of ecological sustainability.
Green urbanism has been defined as the practice of creating communities beneficial to humans and the environment. According to Timothy Beatley, it is an attempt to shape more sustainable places, communities and lifestyles, and consume less of the world's resources. Urban areas are able to lay the groundwork of how environmentally integrated and sustainable city planning can both provide and improve environmental benefits on the local, national, and international levels. Green urbanism is interdisciplinary, combining the collaboration of landscape architects, engineers, urban planners, ecologists, transport planners, physicists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and other specialists in addition to architects and urban designers.
Sustainable urbanism is both the study of cities and the practices to build them (urbanism), that focuses on promoting their long term viability by reducing consumption, waste and harmful impacts on people and place while enhancing the overall well-being of both people and place. Well-being includes the physical, ecological, economic, social, health and equity factors, among others, that comprise cities and their populations. In the context of contemporary urbanism, the term cities refers to several scales of human settlements from towns to cities, metropolises and mega-city regions that includes their peripheries / suburbs / exurbs. Sustainability is a key component to professional practice in urban planning and urban design along with its related disciplines landscape architecture, architecture, and civil and environmental engineering. Green urbanism and ecological urbanism are other common terms that are similar to sustainable urbanism, however they can be construed as focusing more on the natural environment and ecosystems and less on economic and social aspects. Also related to sustainable urbanism are the practices of land development called Sustainable development, which is the process of physically constructing sustainable buildings, as well as the practices of urban planning called smart growth or growth management, which denote the processes of planning, designing, and building urban settlements that are more sustainable than if they were not planned according to sustainability criteria and principles.
‘Net positive’, from Positive Development (PD) theory, is a paradigm in sustainable development and design. PD theory was first detailed in Positive Development (2008). A net positive system/structure would ‘give back to nature and society more than it takes’ over its life cycle. In contrast, sustainable development - in the real-world context of population growth, biodiversity loss, cumulative pollution, wealth disparities and social inequities - closes off future options. To reverse direction, development must, among other sustainability criteria, increase nature beyond pre-human conditions. PD develops the tools to enable net positive design and development.
Coordinates: 34°56′00″S138°35′47″E / 34.933221°S 138.596475°E