While climate change, sustainable architecture, and green technologies have become increasingly topical, a coherent understanding of the sustainability of the city is much less developed. An ecological approach is urgently needed as an imaginative and practical method for addressing existing as well as new cities. Ecological urbanism considers the city with multiple instruments and with a worldview that is fluid in scale and disciplinary focus. Design provides the synthetic key to connect ecology with an urbanism that is not in contradiction with its environment.
Mohsen Mostafavi is the Dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design. Dean Mostafavi serves on the steering committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and the board of the Van Alen Institute, has served on the design committee of the London Development Agency (LDA) and the RIBA Golden Medal, and is currently involved as a consultant on a number of international architectural and urban projects.