Urban environments consist of a mosaic of natural fragments, planned and unintentional habitats hosting both introduced and spontaneous species. The latter group exploits abandoned and degraded urban niches which, in the case of plants, form what is called the third landscape. In the Anthropocene, cities, open spaces and buildings must be planned and designed considering not only human needs but also those of other living organisms. The scientific approach of habitat sharing is defined as reconciliation ecology, whilst the action of implementing the ecosystem services and functioning of such anthropogenic habitats is called Urban Rehabilitation. However, urban development still represents the main cause of biodiversity loss worldwide. Yet, the approach of planners and landscape architects highly diverges from that of ecologists and scientists on how to perceive, define and design urban green and blue infrastructure. For instance, designers focus on the positive impact that nature (generally associated with indoor and outdoor greeneries) has on human well-being, often neglecting ecosystems’ health. Instead, considering the negative impact of any form of development and to achieve the no net loss Aichi’s objectives, conservationists apply mitigation hierarchy policies to avoid or reduce the impact and to offset biodiversity. The rationale of this review paper is to set the fundamentals for a multidisciplinary design framework tackling the issue of biodiversity loss in the urban environment by design for nature. The method focuses on the building/city/landscape scales and is enabled by emerging digital technologies, i.e., geographic information systems, building information modelling, ecological simulation and computational design.
In 2015, 193 member states of the United Nations (UN) signed the 2030 Agenda, entitled “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,”. The planned implementation by 2030, leaves only a decade to realize the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Municipalities and cities constitute important stakeholders, who are obliged under SDG 11, to find ways to develop realistic solutions. Implementation and strategic planning require, among other things, new instruments to digitally model various sustainable development scenarios. Currently, however, it is still unclear what has to be modelled and how. What is clear is that sustainability and digitalization have to come together to deliver results. Several key challenges need to be overcome. First, is the heterogeneity of existing data and documents used in the built environment. Future solutions will depend on a combination of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Geographic Information System (GIS). Second, is the merging of different existing data on an adequate level of abstraction which allows practical use of GIS and BIM data in a common model. Third, is the development of functioning, cost-effective workflows that will enable broad applications which adequately simulate specific sustainability aspects using spatial and temporal scenarios. This paper shows how these challenges can be systematically addressed in practice. It demonstrates which aspects of sustainability can be made visible and comprehensible for all stakeholders using only one single BIM- and GIS based data model. The proposed workflow could thus be considered as the basis for planning the next generation of smart and sustainable cities.
There is a need for real estate lifecycle instruments to address the new regulations. So far, no instrument includes all sustainability dimensions in all phases of real estate, due to the heterogeneity of the underlying data. In addition, the leverage of the digital transformation in the sustainability transition is yet to be addressed. The aim of this study is how a meta-instrument should be structured to overcome the existing contradictory challenges in sustainability and to enable sustainable decision-making and management for real estate owners. This study examines this question by applying the following methodological approach: 61 literature studies were re-viewed, and concepts and systems were examined, which contain partial solutions at individual levels, be it for sustainability assessment, for the monetarization of sustainability aspects or for the maturity of technical systems. These instruments have their shortcomings as they only map individual aspects, but do not offer a comprehensive life cycle management solution for portfolio holders. Within the framework of this study, a new concept for a tool was developed, allowing to combine the various levels of real estate life cycle, sustainability, and digitalisation in a single holistic model. This multidimensional model was optimised using experts’ opinions collected in 2 workshops. The first results reveal the applicability of the developed instrument but remains difficult to manage by potential users. The novelty of the approach comes from considering the entire life cycle, technical and management processes enabled by digitalisation.
The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development relies on national municipalities to successfully implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Research indicates many of the SDG are related directly or indirectly to activities in the construction industry. Achieving the SDG requires instruments which are able to digitally model various sustainable development scenarios. However, it is still unclear exactly what has to be modelled and how. This paper presents initial findings from the GEOBIM project. The aim was to investigate and show the extent to which it is possible to support the optimisation of the sustainability of construction projects by using BIM and GIS data. A major problem with today’s construction projects is that too often sustainability and digitization are still viewed as two separate topics. This is due to industry uncertainty about to what extent it is possible to benefit from synergies between the two areas. The Swiss certification system developed by the SGNI (Swiss Sustainable Building Council) is used as the basis for the analysis. The system is divided into 7 groups of criteria, with 22 individual topics. The criteria cover the most important sustainability aspects, including key topics, e.g., sustainable development, life cycle management and digitization. A total of 343 indicators are evaluated. The GEOBIM project includes a demonstrator where it is possible to explore and show exemplarily, how the sustainability criteria of the international DGNB system can be supported to a large extent by BIM and GIS data. The findings will be used to develop a new method, which allows a systematic analysis and use of existing BIM and GIS data to optimise the sustainability of construction projects. One of the key findings from combining existing BIM and GIS data is that it allowed a variety of sustainability aspects to be more easily visualised and understood. The corresponding possibilities can be demonstrated exemplarily using the example of the demonstration project. Virtual and augmented reality technologies enable exploring new and innovative ways to improve the design of buildings with respect to sustainability. An example is the visualization of a large number of sustainability aspects as part of the planning process. This enables clients to check and control at an early stage, whether the planned building really supports their specific needs and meets sustainability and other user requirements. The results illustrate the use of BIM- and GIS-data for the optimization and visualization of the sustainability of buildings as part of certification processes, which make digital planning valuable in the long term. In order to achieve a multifactorial optimisation of the sustainability of real estate also requires a high level of understanding of the complexity in the planning-accompanying processes. The project specifically shows how an efficient and sustainable combination of the two methods is possible within the framework of Lean Planning and Construction Management. This is highly relevant and will be absolutely necessary in the future in order to be able to significantly reduce the economic costs of sustainability certification through the intelligent use of this new methods and the resulting synergies.
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