The Sustainable Urban Design Handbook
By Nico Larco, professor, School of Architecture & Environment; and Kaarin Knudson, BA ’99 (journalism, fine and applied arts), MArch ’07, instructor, School of Planning, Public Policy and Management
March 19, 2024
The Sustainable Urban Design Handbook gathers the best sustainability practices and latest research from the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, planning, development, ecology, and environmental engineering and presents them in a graphically rich and accessible format that can help guide urban design decisions in cities of all sizes. The book presents a comprehensive framework that organizes more than 50 elements of sustainable urban design under five main topics—Energy Use & Greenhouse Gas, Water, Ecology & Habitat, Energy Use & Production, and Equity & Health—and relative to four project scales: Region & City, District & Neighborhood, Block & Street, and Project & Parcel. Each element chapter includes a summary of importance and background, compares typical practices and recommended approaches, explains connections to other elements, and concludes with urban design guidelines that can be used to directly inform projects and decisions.