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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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NOTE: Original article only available in Chinese. The English summary is below.
Contemporary cities have become "the second nature," professor Perry Yang states in a recent interview where he discussed the need for ecological thinking in planning modern cities. Ecological thinking is urgently needed in planning to set the ecological systems as a framework to guide urban planning practices. The new methods include both “science for design”, an integration of water, energy and material flows, human movement and information in urban systems; and “design in science”, to see city-building as an ecological intervention to nurture new relationships between city and nature. By 2040, Perry argued that the new round of urbanization process in China would push new development to farer away remote areas, where development confronts natural systems. In response to the “zero land expansion” policy in Shanghai, an ecological approach is needed to shape high-density urban living by regenerating existing urban areas to avoid further depletion of surrounding land resources. It’s possible to develop an ecological urban design method by reducing carbon emissions and promoting energy performance while increasing density to a certain degree. The interview closes with a discussion on ecological smart cities that requires a human-centered responsive urban environment in a new urban era that is both physical and virtual. A future eco city will be supported by an augmented environment and bottom-up processes.
