What is Advanced Urbanism?

The Congrès internationaux d’architecture moderne (CIAM), or International Congresses of Modern Architecture, was an organization founded in 1928 and disbanded in 1959, responsible for a series of events and congresses arranged across Europe by the most prominent architects of the time, with the objective of spreading the principles of the Modern Movement focusing in all the main domains of architecture (such as landscape, urbanism, industrial design, and many others). The organization was hugely influential. It was not only engaged in formalizing the architectural principles of the Modern Movement, but also saw architecture as an economic and political tool that could be used to improve the world through the design of buildings and through urban planning. More at: http://bit.ly/1Q8uX1J

New Urbanism is an urban design movement which promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating walkable neighbourhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually influenced many aspects of real estate development, urban planning, and municipal land-use strategies. New Urbanism supports regional planning for open space, context-appropriate architecture and planning, and the balanced development of jobs and housing. They believe their strategies can reduce traffic congestion by encouraging the population to ride bikes, walk, or take the train. They also hope that this set up will increase the supply of affordable housing and rein in suburban sprawl. The Charter of the New Urbanism also covers issues such as historic preservation, safe streets, green building, and the re-development of brownfield land. More at: http://bit.ly/20V2TR4

Principles of intelligent urbanism (PIU) is a theory of urban planning composed of a set of ten axioms intended to guide the formulation of city plans and urban designs. They are intended to reconcile and integrate diverse urban planning and management concerns. These axioms include environmental sustainability, heritage conservation, appropriate technology, infrastructure-efficiency, placemaking, social access, transit-oriented development,regional integration, human scale, and institutional integrity. The term was coined by Prof. Christopher Charles Benninger. The PIU evolved from the city planning guidelines formulated by the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM), the urban design approaches developed at Harvard’s pioneering Urban Design Department under the leadership of Josep Lluis Sert, and the concerns enunciated by Team Ten. More at: http://bit.ly/20KPPkQ

Sustainable Urbanism, as a defined term, is application of sustainability and resilient principles to the design, planning, and administration/operation of cities. Related to sustainable urbanism is the Ecocity movement (also known as Ecological Urbanism) which specifically is looking to make cities based on ecological principles, and the Resilient Cities movement addresses depleting resources by creating distributed local resources to replace global supply chain in case of major disruption. Green urbanism is another common term for sustainable urbanism. Sustainable development is a general term for both making both urban and economic growth more sustainable, but isn’t specifically a mode of urbanism. Sustainable urbanism aims to close the loop by eliminating environmental impact of urban development by providing all resources locally. It looks at the full life cycle of the products to make sure that everything is made sustainably, and sustainable urbanism also brings things like electricity and food production into the city. This means that literally everything that the town or city needs is right there making it truly self-sufficient and sustainable. More at:  http://bit.ly/1orgNN8

Everyday Urbanism eschews a unifying urban plan and aesthetic.  It is more cognizant than most of the manifold cultural differences that citizens bring to urban place-making.  It is keen to let differences in space use and built form proliferate in keeping with these cultural backgrounds and interests.   It celebrates spontaneity in place-making and, famously, the design elements of “ephemerality, cacophony, multiplicity, and simultaneity.” Post Urbanism is Kelbaugh’s term for the work of urban designers and architects like Koolhaas, Libeskind, Hadid, Gehry, and others.  Like Everyday Urbanism, Post Urbanism rejects formal design orthodoxies and principles.  However, there’s a shared commitment to experiment with new designs that make bold, dramatic statements within the urban fabric.  These forms occupy a continuum from broken, fractal designs to sweeping arcs and curves.  In contrast to New Urbanism’s traditional forms and Everyday Urbanism’s vernacular forms, Post Urbanism’s forms are sensational, and clearly designed to “wow.” More information: Three Urbanisms and the Public Realm (pdf)