Dr.habil. Luis Inostroza

In this recently published article we explore the impact of the increasing technomass (TM) on cooling demand in buildings in South America, analising the entangled double nature of the building–environment interrelation in an urban context. Using advanced spatially explicit quantitative methods to select representative samples of the urban environment we quantifed the volumes of TM in four South American cities. Principal component analysis was used to extract representative urban tissue categories and the Urban Weather Generator tool was used to produce the urban weather data used in building performance simulations. Our results confirm a superlinear dependence of the total cooling consumption …

The first week of October 2016 I was kindly invited to attend an exciting workshop at the Arizona State University. The aim was to discuss land use land cover change, from a spatially explicit point of view, looking towards urban form. There were no presentations, only four intensive working days, excellent food and enlightening discussions. As a result of that meeting, we produce a conceptual paper, to propose a systematisation of six relevant aspects defining urban form. It was a hard one year work until getting the final text ready for submission. The article was recently published in Landscape and Urban …

Our research group at the Insitute of Geography, Ruhr-University Bochum is open to receive new PhD applications starting in 2019. The research topics are (1) food security and urban green and (2) urban form and heath. If you are interested in obtaining further information please do not hesitate to contact me any time. There is also the chance to discuss other research topics if they fit within these research lines.

The Institute of Geography at the Ruhr-University Bochum is receiving applications for the Double Degree Master Programme `Transformation of urban Landscapes (TuL)´. TuL focuses on the present and future challenges in developing sustainable metropolitan regions and facilitates the necessary professional competence to cope with those challenges in both growing and shrinking regions. The Master Programme consists of four semesters and will partly be taught in Shanghai at the Tongji University, College of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP) (semesters three and four). The course language is English. Deadline for applications is 15 July. If you have further queries, please feel free …

I am a great fan of Thomas S. Khun. I genuinely believe that to advancing science, paradigmatic changes are fundamental. We certainly need to revolutionise our conceptual foundations to deepen our understanding of a complex reality in a challenging world. This is a key to face the current ecological crisis. I am a great fan of Leopold as well. I profess that living organisms have the right to live regardless their capacity or potential to benefit humans. They have the ethical right to exist. To my understanding, we humans do not have any tuition/safekeeping on living things or nature, to …

We have been developing research in central European cross-border landscapes, particularly in Upper Silesia between Poland and Chequia, for a couple of years. We believe that this region is an interesting case for applied comparative studies focusing on spatial and landscape development. In this recently published article entitled “Ecosystem services deficits in cross-boundary landscapes: spatial mismatches between green and grey systems” we applied the technomass indicator and the NDVI to assess deficit in ecosystem services demand and supply.

I am really happy to share this brand new piece dealing with one of my favourite topics. The material productivity of ecosystems, as an entangled metabolism across space and time, which was published as open access in Sustainable Cities and Society (Elsevier). “The circularity of the urban ecosystem material productivity: the transformation of biomass into technomass in Southern Patagonia”

Between 12-18 June 2017 we held a session on Urban Heat Island at the WMCAUS2017 conference. The conference proceedings are now available online here. Here is the title and the link to our proceedings: Urban Heat Island Effect on the Energy Consumption of Institutional Buildings in Rome Key Parameters for Urban Heat Island Assessment in A Mediterranean Context: A Sensitivity Analysis Using the Urban Weather Generator Model Natural Ventilation: A Mitigation Strategy to Reduce Overheating In Buildings under Urban Heat Island Effect in South American Cities Enjoy!