A Parametric Optimization Approach to Urban Sustainability

The aim of this paper is to identify a parameterization methodology that considers the existing connections and relationships between traditional indicators of environmental sustainability in order to “measure” the sustainability of the urban environment. We consider the urban organism to be a highly complex system consisting of multiple interconnected levels that cannot be understood through the study of its individual parts, but which requires an overall dynamic analysis with the support of integrated multidisciplinary skills, such as fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, technological sciences and of course architecture and urban planning. Following this innovative path, the indicators are not used individually, but in mutual correlation with each other, by studying a dynamic model that updates and surpasses traditional indicators based on the verticality of the themes under investigation: mobility, building manufacturing, energetic efficiency, environmental quality, thermal comfort of pedestrians, etc. To define the model, we identify an area of study, the “Adriatic City” in Italy, i.e., Ancona. We present the results of simulations using two different integrated tools, namely Wolfram “Mathematica” and “ModeFrontier”. Wolfram Mathematica was used to calculate several parameters (e.g., the thermal comfort index “Predicted Mean Vote”) while ModeFrontier is a multi-objective optimization tool that uses algorithms linked to urban geometry parameters, thermal comfort indices, meteorological variables, environmental quality parameters, etc. The optimization process employs given constraints, custom procedural algorithms, and genetic algorithms to examine a wide urban space and identify interesting relationships among the variables considered. Applying this approach to the City of Ancona, we have verified the possibility of reaching a balance between actions in the local and large-scale plans examined and the sustainability objectives. With this multi-objective optimization, quantitative metrics have been defined and applied in order to examine the potential for new sustainability in urban design.