Sustainable Residential Densification

In-fill developments and residential densification have gained much attention as an effective strategy to reduce the consumption of agricultural land, improve the access to services and reduce distance travelled by car. Still, there is a number of limitations to residential densification. These are mainly related to i) market factors (and more specifically on land tenure and land value), ii) the individual and social livability of residential areas (and more specifically on the perception of densification) and iii) the effects of residential densification on the urban environment (and more specifically on urban heat island effect - UHI). The aims of this project are to: (i) identify significant drivers explaining residential densification over time, in different urban settings; (ii) simulate potential residential densification, at the city scale, through a vector-based Cellular Automaton; (iii) study the manifold positive and negative effects of residential densification on the economy (i.e; land values), the environment (i.e. UHI) and the society (i.e. perception and well-being of citizens).