Book Review
Sustainable Urban design: An environmental approach,
2nd Edition
Adam Ritchie and Randall Thomas
Taylor and Francis, London, 2009, paperback, 256pp., £29.99, ISBN: 978-0415447829
URBAN DESIGN International (2010) 15, 68–70. doi:10.1057/udi.2009.28
The sustainable urban design referred to here
is essentially environmental. The book steers
away from any concern for social and economic
sustainability, or any concern for how these
themes interact. A sustainable neighbourhood
is not merely a collection of zero carbon homes.
The book, of course, is not so simplistic as to
suggest that it is, but there is an emphasis on
technical solutions rather than a real concern for
wider issues related to urban forms, land uses
and patterns of economic or social activity.
Some general themes run through this book.
The first is that understanding context is critical.
The second is that sustainable solutions to urban
design problems should probably embrace sites
larger than individual buildings – the block,
neighbourhood or region. The third is that demand
for energy should be reduced before approaches
are taken to meeting that demand. There is an
emphasis on the dense walkable community.
There is also an emphasis on passive solutions
to design problems, rather than solutions that
move or are mechanical.
The book is divided into two parts. Part One
provides an overview of the eight issues affecting
sustainable urban design and presents the tools
and resources needed to tackle the issues thrown
up by the book’s focus. The chapters look at urban
form and transport planning, landscape design
and management, passive office and residential
building design, energy consumption, materials,
water and waste management. Each of these
chapters, apart from the first, concludes with a
very brief set of guidelines. Part Two discusses
nine case studies. The focus here is on projects
within temperate climates with chapters looking
at both ‘new build’ and ‘retrofit’ design solutions
for sites typically on previously developed land.
The chapters in Part One seem a little sum-
marative, and clearly the authors have had a tight
brief to work to. Patrick Clarke reminds us of the
well-trodden discussions about the polycentric
r 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1357-5317 URBAN DESIGN International Vol. 15, 1, 68–70
www.palgrave-journals.com/udi/
city and walkable neighbourhoods, using pre-
viously published material to introduce a few
principles of urban design and in particular to
look at some of the form implications of raising
development densities. Three authors, Thorne,
Filmer-Sankey and Alexander, provide a sum-
mary of the broad debate about sustainable trans-
port. They make links between how we travel and
its impacts on the environment, economy, the
distribution of land uses and also its impact
on urban forms. Good connections are made to
the previous chapter, but the general discussion
is brief. Cycling, for example, is dealt within
a couple of paragraphs. Other points are made,
but not always fully explained or illustrated:
‘Block sizes can be designed to give balance
between ease of access, mix of uses and privacy,
whilst the careful layout of connections between
places ensures that routes for pedestrians and
cyclists are as direct as possible’ (p. 26). These are
motherhood statements that are difficult to argue
with, but to be honest the complexities of what
this might mean or how it might be realised in
practice are a little brushed over, probably
because of the lack of space to really illustrate
the discussion. Christina Von Borcke hopes that
the city will ‘grow from its landscape setting
rather than be imposed upon it’ (p. 31), arguing a
little polemically that ‘the straightforward solu-
tion to the urban exodus [y] seems to be more
spacious dwellings, together with more public
and private green space in citiesy’ (p. 32). It is
not really evident that the middle classes have
left cities (if and where they have) only because of
a lack of green space. The impact of vegetation on
microclimate is summarised usefully. The chapter
then strays into dubious territory with social
claims made for the benefits of planting trees:
‘yanecdotal evidence that people living in tree-
lined streets are less prone to show violent
behaviour, be depressed or abuse drugsy’.
It might be better to claim that tree-lined streets

contain more middle class residents better able
to defend their trees from bad council manage-
ment, or that broad avenues tend to also contain
better quality housing. Still the discussion is
interesting, moving on to look a little briefly
again at the impact of landscape on property
values and biodiversity. Finally the chapter makes
some reference to sustainable urban drainage
systems. Unfortunately, despite its importance to
the topic, the notion of a system isn’t really
illustrated clearly and the reviewer hoped that it
might be covered in more depth in the chapter on
water. Thomas and Ritchie review the also well-
trodden themes around the sustainable design of
buildings, referring to the principles of passive
lighting and heating, insulation, natural ventila-
tion, water management, embodied energy in
materials and construction processes and the use
of intelligent services. The chapter often refers
back to traditional buildings. The discussion
debates the role of denser or more compact forms
of development, arguing, for example that heat
losses (and walking distances) will be less but
then so might chances for passive solar gain or
natural ventilation. Although about the design of
buildings, the links to urban design are well
established and the slightly longer chapter allows
for a reasonable debate. The same authors write
the following chapter entitled Energy and Infor-
mation. Here the emphasis is on explaining
various sources of renewable energy, but exclud-
ing the nuclear option. There is some useful data,
although the drift is towards building rather than
urban design when issues are being considered at
this scale. Similarly, the next chapter on materials
by Sarah Royse might be more at home in a book
on sustainable construction. It is very brief, but in
some ways useful. Given that urban design is
concerned with the public realm, some more
emphasis on the materiality of the public realm
might have been expected – there is no mention
of tar macadam, paviours, wood chip or stone;
its all timber, sheep’s wool, concrete, steel and
glass! The chapter entitled Water by Randall
Thomas and Adam Ritchie is also rather brief
(six pages including images and recommenda-
tions). They have a few comments about water
in the environment, but the chapter quickly
moves on to look at the use of water in the home,
and in particular rainwater harvesting and recy-
cling. While the reviewer was expecting to find
a solid discussion of sustainable drainage systems
here, nothing was really mentioned that might
help in the designing of a scheme. Ritchie’s
r 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1357-5317
Book Review
subsequent chapter on waste is an important
topic, but a little tangential for urban designers.
I sense that people interested in waste manage-
ment will probably look elsewhere for details.
However it is useful to be reminded that, of
course, the urban system generates a lot of waste
and that this waste needs to be processed. What
urban designers will do with a new found
awareness of composting toilets is maybe less
clear.
The case studies are interesting. They always
are to an interested reader. The problem emer-
ges immediately with the Coopers Road case.
Although the sustainability agenda has been set
out in previous chapters, this case alone widens
the discussion to embrace community cohesion,
public involvement and identity. The new peri-
phery blocks also have their own urban design
rationale that goes a little unnoticed. The first
mention of home zones is also made.
The cases include some good UK projects
(Bedzed and Coin Street are often referred to
elsewhere), but most are located in London. It
would have been particularly nice to see reference
to projects in smaller towns. The excellent project
in Malmo is discussed. The fascinating qualities of
its masterplan are skipped over, while the rela-
tionship between the project site and the rest of
Malmo are not explained. The green credentials
around energy production, water and waste
management and transport are impressive, and
do link well to the books themes. The chapter also
tells us to visit Flagghusen next to see what the
next generation of urban design in Malmo will
look like.
On reflection this is a useful but very summara-
tive book with authors working to a tight brief. The
book chooses to ignore the wider urban design
discipline and its concerns. This is not unreason-
able given the focus of the book, although the case
studies do discuss a wider range of interesting
and important themes. At times this reviewer
did genuinely wonder where the urban design had
gone, and it appeared that the editors were
possibly more familiar with debates around
sustainable construction, given the focus to this
work. Alan Short titles his case study chapter
‘Sustainable design in an urban context’. Maybe
that should be the title of the book.
The summarative nature of some chapters
was at times a little alarming, and although there
are a good range of topics introduced here, there
was probably a need for a better balance of
material between and within chapters. In addition
URBAN DESIGN International Vol. 15, 1, 68–70 69
 Book Review
the writing style was sometimes a little too
informal and polemical. Together these points
mean that not all topics received the attention
they possibly deserved, and readers might find
more substance elsewhere.
A critical assumption also remains hidden in
the work. This is that you can ‘design’ a sus-
tainable lifestyle, or that sustainable urban (or
project) design will lead to a commensurate
change in the way society lives in and thinks
about the environment. Focusing on projects
this book is on safer ground as clearly people
who live in such projects may be self-selecting or
70 r 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1357-5317
informed enough to make wise choices. The
problem is taking this agenda to the wider urban
society and the buildings in which they live. This
book certainly contributes to our awareness, but
more needs to be done. We need to move beyond
projects to embrace wider scales and issues. We
also need to look at whether and how society is
ready to embrace what appears to be a radical
agenda for where and how we live.
Mike Biddulph
Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
URBAN DESIGN International Vol. 15, 1, 68–70