Designing territorial metabolism : Barcelona, Brussels, and Venice

The concepts of metabolism, ecosystem, and
circular economy are currently challenging the
discipline of urbanism. As the shift from linear
to circular production-consumption patterns
seems to be ultimate for reducing the externalities
of our urban environments and to meet
stricter environmental targets, the search for
sustainable territorial metabolism has become
imperative for our metropolitan areas.
This publication questions the discipline of urbanism
in relation to the challenge of territorial
metabolism and combines theoretical contributions
with cutting edge design proposals for
European metropolitan regions. It synthetizes
two years of intensive research by design on
Barcelona, Brussels, and Venice Metropolitan
areas conducted jointly by the Laboratory on
Urbanism, Infrastructure and Ecologies of the
Faculty of Architecture of Université libre de
Bruxelles (ULB), the Università IUAV di Venezia
and the Laboratori d’Urbanisme de Barcelona
(ETSAB–UPC) in the framework of an Erasmus+
Strategic Partnership.