Sustainable Community Planning, Design and Construction

Dr. John M. Nichols, Assistant Professor, Department of Construction Science
Dr. Ming Zhang, Assistant Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning

Chinese cities are rapidly developing and being transformed as continued political and economic reform move the country towards a more market-oriented economy. The pressures inherent in accommodating such rapid urbanization pose substantial challenges in infrastructure and transportation planning, affordable housing, engineering and construction standards and management, appropriate community design and social and economic equity issues. The proposed roundtable incorporates three major areas of expertise and interest from Texas A&M University faculty researchers together with their Chinese counterparts to develop collaborative projects. Several of these are research proposals that have been submitted by individual faculty members and their specific interests are incorporated into this broader interdisciplinary roundtable proposal. The College of Architecture is committed to interdisciplinary collaboration. We believe the conference roundtable is an appropriate opportunity to exercise such an approach. Some adjustments to the idea of a 'single table' will be required but these are described below. The three primary focus areas are all dimensions to the larger concepts of sustainable urbanism and sustainable community design: 1) community design for long-term community health, both social and economic, infrastructure planning and integrated assessment of environmental and other quality of life issues, 2) affordable housing and 3) construction process management including proper engineering standards, monitoring and assessment.