Sustainability through Design: Stakeholder-based sustainability concepst for fringe-related open space development.

When it comes to sustainability, many discussions within architecture and urbanism revolve around the subject of built structures and their eco-effectiveness, or deal with organizing a city in an ecological, economical and spatial qualitative manner. However, it is increasingly recognized that open -unsealed- spaces of all sizes and forms are crucial assets in obtaining and generating equitable forms of sustainability. Therefore, this congribution focuses on open space development and desing, and more particularly within the context of a rural-urban fringe. During the design process of such entities, usally a combination of architectural and larger, territorial scales are a prerequisite to fully exploit all potential of a parcel of land. In this way ecological and social connections between spaces can be searched for as well, reinforcing the sustainable capacity. The larger scale of planning and urbanism disciplines can thereby deliver sustainability principles that can be transferred later on to an architectural scale, among others by providing the frame and variables for a more tailor-made and site-based design to work with. Therefore, an urbanism point of view is mobilized here. Firstly, this chapter explores how focusing on open spaces adds to the larger agenda of sustainability. Secondly, it is investigated how spatial design allows to bring about stakeholder-based sustainability concepts in redeveloping open spaces.