Sustainable Cities: Urban Form, Spatial Structure and Ecological Integration

Dear Colleagues,

The mutual interrelationship between sustainability and spatial form and structure has been a central question in the study of settlements and urbanism. Traditional questions of scale, land use and transport, energy and infrastructure, growth, and economics have been joined by questions of health and livability, ecosystems, and climate, as well as by those on social organization, communities, and governance. At the same time, humanities research on urbanity has highlighted the pronounced role of cognition and meaning making, whereas the study of the origins and evolution of settlements has provided indispensable insights into present-day urbanism. Research along these lines has yielded an understanding that sustainable and resilient settlements must be approached as complex, adaptive human–environment systems. So, what lies beyond? Given persistent climate, ecosystem, and socioeconomic crises, and the radical digitalization and hybridization of human agency and knowledge with non-human and artificial entities, how do fundamental assumptions on spatiality and place-making change? What kind of spatial entity emerges from our understanding of sustainable urban habitats when advanced forms of climate change adaptation and systemic resilience are achieved?

The aim of this Special Issue is to advance our current state of knowledge about the physical, social, and cognitive spatial–organizational elements of those built environments where humans and nature can thrive in a reciprocally resilient manner. Integrative topics that approach settlements as complex spatial and adaptive human–environment systems are of particular interest. This aim is positioned within the wider scope of Sustainability toward state-of-the-art interdisciplinary research that delineates integrative solutions about sustainability, climate change, and systemic resilience in settlements, as outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by United Nations, as well as by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services of the United Nations.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Within the above context, research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• New forms and structures at the building, neighborhood, or city level;
• Redefining and seamlessly integrating the vertical dimension of cities;
• Spatial networks of self-sufficient regenerative urban habitats;
• Biomimicry, circularity, and nature-based solutions in urban space;
• The intersection of walkability, climate resilience, and ecosystems;
• Historical and future evolution, including long-term existential resilience;
• Information, communication, and knowledge flows in and about urban space;
• Semiotics, posthumanism, and the meaning of sustainable place and spatiality;
• Implications of artificial intelligence and robotics for spatial form and structure.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Athanasios Votsis
Guest Editor

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• spatial design
• complex adaptive spatial systems
• human–environment integration
• urban habitats
• digitalization
• hybridization
• posthuman cities
• semiotics of space and cities