Urban Ecologies 2015 will examine the strategies that will be necessary for our cities to move beyond sustainability.
Urban Ecologies 2015 will examine the strategies that will be necessary for our cities to move beyond sustainability to becoming net producers of energy and resources. More than ever before, major urban centres will be at the forefront of transformation and change in order to accelerate a sustainable human presence. The framing of the conference deals with the largest possible context of all debat
es – the limits of our planetary ecosystem. It is within this “Big Picture” context that the conference will challenge the current economic, political, and social frameworks that generate our urban infrastructure and built environment. The goal is to relinquish out-dated “Bottom Line” models in favour of new, innovative, and synergistic business structures and designs that achieve prosperity without sacrificing social responsibility or ignoring the health of the planetary ecosystems that ultimately sustain us. OCADU PRESENTS
URBAN ECOLOGIES 2015
In partnership with TD
—
June 17-19, 2015
Toronto, ON, Canada
—
Presented by OCAD University, in partnership with TD.
—
CONFERENCE THEMES
The following three proposed conference themes have been developed to organize the scholarly research and presentations. However, any relevant abstract will be considered for acceptance in an open category. ADAPTIVE CAPACITY
Whereas urban centres are well suited to creating employment and financial resources, they also consume a great deal of energy and non-renewable earth resources and produce a significant amount of harmful waste by-products in accomplishing this benefit. It is time for urban centres to find ways to generate more usable energy and resources than they consume and to only produce waste that can easily be absorbed and contribute to the overall health and sustainability of the larger ecosystem to which they belong. It is hoped that new insights, creativity, and inspiration drawn from the complex dynamics that support balanced, healthy ecosystems will stimulate unconventional, holistic and innovative approaches towards achieving a truly viable future. RESILIENCE
Cities will need long-term visions in order to develop socio-economic, spatial and technical solutions–governance, policy and planning, developing and managing infrastructure, business tactics and incentive, research and development incentives, information and education that will enable them to remain resilient and ready for our current and future challenges. LIVABILITY
The desirability of urban living depends upon cities to deliver the highest possible quality of life through community, security, meaningful employment, mobility, recreation, health, and well-being. This can only be achieved when social and environmental standards are understood not as a hierarchy of importance that privileges planetary needs over the needs of humans. They need to be understood as inextricably interconnected and interdependent, in order to provide meaningful and mutually supportive relationships within the larger ecosystem.
