Towards Green Urbanism: Multifunctionality as a contributor

Abstract

The study investigates the potential of multifunctionality (MF) to contribute to attaining green urbanism (GU) in urban environments. By exploring the interfaces between the planning principles of GU and MF, the study aims to determine whether incorporating MF principles into urban planning could facilitate the establishment of nature-based urban environments and potentially support the materialisation of GU. Employing a qualitative research design, the study first extracts the GU and MF planning principles from the current literature for aggregation into emergent theoretical matrices. It secondly identifies potential interfaces between these principles and converts the emergent theoretical matrices into an assessment matrix to finally illustrate the practical application of these interfaces by assessing a single explorative case study, i.e. the newly planned town of Verkykerskop (Free State Province, South Africa). Following the case study analysis, the research explores the potential of incorporating MF into current urban planning approaches to promote more functional GU attainment. The findings suggest that the implementation of MF principles is conducive towards a GU advent in urban environments. The identified interfaces illustrate that both recent literature and the practical achievability of interfaces in the assessed case study demonstrate synergy between GU and MF, leading to the conclusion that MF could contribute to the advancement of GU in urban environments. The study culminates in the development of an emerging assessment matrix deemed capable of guiding urban planning towards the application of MF principles, thereby contributing to the improved attainment of GU in urban environments.