Regenerating places sustainably: The healthy urban design

Abstract

Current needs of people are continuously changing due to the rapid transformation of territories, which present more and more social, virtual, environmental and urban infrastructures, which are intersected and overlapped in different and not always sustainable manner. However, some points seem to be important for the well-being of people and sustainability of places. For these reasons, the needs of more healthy, happy and liveable places are increasing, and the studies on these fields are becoming always more important to identify both the intangible and tangible aspects capable of giving a scientific point of view on the above topics. If from a part many indexes have been created, from the other these change continuously and are created with different parameters, which can sometimes give rise to a nonunivocal interpretation. Furthermore, many studies are focused only on one aspect capable of giving health, happiness and liveability and do not consider the intangible aspects suitably. The most happiest city or the most liveable place or, again, the city which is considered the healthiest are data which are more and more used to increase attractiveness and competitiveness to an area of transformation or a whole city. The use of a correct method to collect and use these data suitably is currently a need to obtain a sustainability meant in the threefold meaning, namely, social, environmental and economic one. Starting from these premises, the aim of this study is to present the main research on these topics and illustrate the original Ecoliv@ble+ design method, which was created in order to identify urban health, liveability and happiness from the users’ point of view and identify sustainable design interventions to enhance or create these factors. The emblematic case of False Creek area in Vancouver, British Columbia, interested by a long process of urban regeneration, and relative observation on the method conclude the article.