Workshop „Characterizing the built environment stocks: methods and case studies”
Working Group 1Background
Cities are concentrated centers of people, economy, production, and consumption; thus they present both the problems and solutions to sustainability challenges (e.g., resource, waste, and climate). Urbanization is largely a process of the development of urban built environment stocks (e.g., buildings, transport, energy, water, and waste systems). These building and infrastructure stocks, on the one hand, require large amounts of materials in the build-up phase and in maintenance and replacement; on the other hand, they also form reservoirs of materials that can be recovered via urban mining, thereby potentially lowering the energy demand and emissions for materials production. Therefore understanding the physical weight, material quality, and spatial distribution of the built environment stocks (especially in urban areas), would be an essential step to explore solutions for addressing urban sustainability challenges.
Aim, scope and expected output
The workshop aims to bring together active researchers to present and review the state-of-the-art research in the field of characterizing the material stocks of the built environment (buildings and infrastructure). We expect to have presentations of individual case studies from all over the world, with an emphasis on Europa and Asia. We foster the mutual exchange on methods, data and experience. We will also discuss future research collaboration in this field
The workshop is supported by the Danish Agency of Science, Technology, and Innovation (International Network Programme project “The weight of cities: methods and applications”) and the EU COST Association (COST Action “Mining the European Anthroposphere”). It is free for the invited participants to attend the workshop, but they should arrange and cover their own travel and accommodation. Limited budget is available for providing travel grants and you can apply for it by filling the application form.