The Zhaoqing case study: An example of efficient urban design

Purpose – This paper aims to demonstrate how modifications to a city’s morphology can reduce energy consumption and improve the environmental performance of settlements. As many international and European commissions have advised, urban design has become a useful tool in planning the future ‘sustainable’ city. In fact, building-level energy-saving solutions alone are unable to fully overcome previous urban design mistakes, which over time reduce their potency. In seeking a more efficient and sustainable urban form, design tools may be brought to bear on urban spatial structures, reintroducing data regarding local weather and environment to the initial stages of a project’s process. Today, such urban design is supported by powerful software which can analyse a project’s environmental behaviour. Through such software a designer can assess spatial choices and modify these to account for the function of local conditions, improving both environmental comfort and the quality standards of urban living. Design/methodology/approach – In order to verify this theoretical approach, we have explored in depth a project for the Zhaoqing train station area in China. The questions of urban design under discussion here were developed into an academic course in Cagliari in 2011. The Zhaoqing case was analysed, and modifications proposed, through a three-step process: • In the first phase, we analyzed the initial project against local weather conditions to identify critical zones; • in the second phase, we modified the initial urban form using new spatial and typological solutions to ameliorate critical function issues; • and in the final phase, we verified the final design’s environmental behaviour, comparing its data with that of the previous design. The environmental analyses were developed on two software platforms: ENVIMET (wind speed/direction and relative humidity) and HELIODON 2 (solar radiation and shading). The software’s results are merely indicative, and are not intended to be strictly realistic. They show us trends and allow us to compare, quickly and simply, two different urban models. Originality/value – The significant points of this study can be summarized as follows. It demonstrates: • the prominent role of urban design as an ideal tool through which to modify urban form. The urban project, in shaping a city’s morphology, improves comfort standards and reduces energy needs; • the greater efficiency of energy-saving policies applied on the city-wide scale as opposed to an individual building; and • the usefulness of these software tools prior to the beginning of a project’s process. Despite the ability of today’s software to inform us in real time of the environmental behaviour of our designs, such tools should not be considered a substitute for a designer, who still must be considered a strategic necessity in insuring the quality of the human space. Practical implications – This case study demonstrates how a designer can adjust urban morphology to improve a city’s energy consumption and environmental comfort. The software tools examined reveal themselves to be useful instruments, allowing designers to assess and change urban morphology from the earliest stages of the process, in terms of the functioning of local energy and environmental conditions. In this way, good design reduces the ‘hidden’ energy costs which frequently affect a building’s behaviour subsequent to its design and construction.