For a Sustainable City, a transformation of the underlying system is necessary in addition to spatial changes. This leads to new typologies and forms for buildings, neighborhoods, and landscapes. We are currently overexploiting the urban body. How do we manage resources like energy, food, and materials, and how do we create an exchange of byproducts like waste and heat production? How do we respond to new digital measurement and processing techniques through Artificial Intelligence?
The book delves into envisioning the future of sustainable cities and how we can design them. Difficult problems do not always require far-fetched solutions, but in order to arrive at the solution a change of perspective may be in order. The City as a System advocates such a change in perspective in urban research, arguing that designers must not only focus on the spatial manifestation of a city but also thoroughly investigate the underlying systems and the use and appearance of the urban fabric. This publication was made possible through the support of the Creative Industries Fund NL and the Van Eesteren-Fluck en Van Lohuizen Foundation.

Introduction: a different look at the city
1 Gathering knowledge
Mapping the urban metabolism
2 In real life: Analogue research into the system
Design by organization
3 New fields of activity for spatial design
New territories, new solutions
4 Other types of buildings, neighborhoods and landscapes
Metabolic by design
5 The changing look of the city
Epilogue: with an eye to diversity

• ISBN9789493246140
• TitleThe city as a system- Metabolic design for new urban forms & functions
• AuthorEric Frijters, David Dooghe, Catja Edens, Matthijs Ponte, Thijs van Spaandonk, Christopher de Vries, Jet van Zwieten
• PublisherValiz
• Publication year2023
• BindingSoftcover
• LanguageEnglish

Cities are key to Global Sustainability. They are torch bearers to new Ideas, new thinking, new world. We need to make our cities both sustainable and resilient.