Planning and design strategies for sustainable urban development

In order to create high impact low-carbon architecture it is necessary to address issues at the urban scale. This paper reviews methods adopted in the UK, Hong Kong and America and develops a series of themes that should be incorporated in modern city development strategies to produce green and sustainable outcomes. These are concerned with: planning policies and building regulations; neighborhood and site planning; and building design. Underlying themes which must be incorporated are connected to: building façade, systems design and operation; energy demand and supply; transportation systems; water supply and use; and wastes/pollution issues. To achieve success a number of support mechanisms are needed including strategic and infrastructure development, implementation of assessment frameworks, and the distribution of information and knowledge to stakeholders. The themes are compared to recent developments in the city of Kunming and proposals for future applications are explored. methods have been launched by research organizations in different countries. HK-BEAM was introduced to Hong Kong in 1996 and is an environmental performance-based assessment scheme purpose designed for high-rise buildings. The certification scheme is completely voluntary and is owned by the HK-BEAM Society, a non-profit making organization consisting of industry professionals (Chu 2004). The United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC’s) (established in 1993) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a program that provides third-party certification for green buildings. The first version of LEED was published in 1998 (Floyd & Bilka 2012). There are many other assessment systems currently available, such as GBTool (Canada), Australian Building Greenhouse Rating Scheme and NABERS, Green Star, SAP, Home Energy Rating System (HERS) programs, NatHERS and FirstRate, Eco-Quantum, Green Guide to Specification, ENVEST and Ecopoints, BEES (Pitts 2004). The details of different of BREEAM, HKBEAM, LEED and ASGB (“Assessment Standards of Green Building”) are listed in the Table 2.1. The following sections of the paper focus on the individual methodologies; the purpose of this analysis in the overall project was to enable identification of key and recurring factors and features that could be applied in the setting of the City of Kunming. This then helps set a background against which future development trends might be evaluated. Further information on design and detail is still required, though sometimes this is not easy to obtain