Salat, S., The art of medieval sustainable urban design – The case of Toledo

Proceedings of the Sustainable building conference SB10mad

The fundamental energy pattern of a city consists of various buildings and spaces. This urban morphology interacts with buildings, with people behavior and with the local climate. The growth in energy consumption in cities obeys quite simple laws derived from physics and thermodynamics. By using the passive zone concept and a set of indicators, such as density, rugosity, porosity, sinuosity, occlusivity, compacity, contiguity, solar admittance and mineralization, and by using an environmental oriented conceptual model of urban fabric, the paper connects architectonics, urban planning, energy flows, climate, and human patterns of behavior. Comparing different urban morphologies, the paper samples such six cities as Beijing, Shanghai, Paris, London, Toulouse and Berlin and makes comparison and contrast of their development in bioclimatic and energy efficiency.