Designing the "Energy City"

The  “energy  city”  concept  underlines  the  necessity  of  a  more  open  understanding  of  the  urban  space,  where  shapes  and numbers  aren’t enough to explain the complex nature and interaction of processes and phenomena. The image of energy fields, waves and flows of different intensities, multiple temporalities, linear and non-linear dynamics, describes our understanding of urban territories. Such a vision implies that urban planning and design needs to include an intuitive way of thinking, being able to cut across scales, themes, mentalities, fields of knowledge and temporalities. It is through this holistic way of thinking about urban territories that the main specificities and differences of the conceptual figure of “energy city” are explored in metropolitan Europe and Asia.