Study on outside configurations of building for sustainable urban area

Urban area is the most important space to human society at all times. Population, economy, energy, technology, politic and so on are concentration in urban area all over the world. Thanks to the past successive developments, our lifestyle was definitely improved in all aspects. However, we have been beginning to notice that urban environment has gotten worse for the several past decades. Why? One of the biggest reasons is that almost all of urban areas are covered by impermeable surfaces such as concrete or asphalt by means of reducing green spaces. Because of this, Urban Heat Island, stormwater disaster and reduction in biodiversity have threatened urban dwellers year on year. Thus, it is quite important to restore urban green spaces with ecosystem service. However, there are rarely enough open spaces due to urban densification. This present book aimed to (a) explore methods for restoring urban biodiversity and developing low-energy buildings by means of altering the outside configuration of buildings without any dramatic changes of urban formations and (b) make a proposal to the near future urban planning toward sustainable society with an abundance of ecosystem service.