**1. Introduction**

During the last few years, actions directed towards the sustainability of architecture mainly involved buildings. Nevertheless, several international research groups have ascertained the

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influence of the urban form on local microclimate.1 In fact, the way in which buildings are arranged on a site heavily affects their owners' energy performances and environmental behaviours. The growing awareness of these issues is gradually attracting the attention of both international organizations and international researchers towards the urban dimension (urban block or district), thus broadening the field of architectural interventions. In this light, urban design, which lies in‐between urban planning and architectural design, has become the appropriate tool through which to operate in achieving sustainability's goals. This recommen‐ dation, however, is not novel. In 1976, the European Commission suggested it during the first United NationsConference on HumanSettlements, 'Habitat' (Vancouver), in whichthe 'design of human settlement' was recognized as a strategic matter in contrasting the «social, economi‐ cal, ecological and environmental deterioration» of urban areas [1]. Nevertheless, the latest 'sustainable urban design' seems to increase its own complexity due to the involvement of different interrelated disciplines, such as fluid dynamics, climatology, technical physics and computer engineering. This interdisciplinary perspective demands updates to the design processinordertoincorporateexternalcontributionswhilemaintainingarchitectureattheheart of the process. In particular, both environmental data and analyses need to be reintegrated into the urban project from the design's initial phases. In fact, this has been an ordinary considera‐ tion in the history of architecture, in which several pieces of historical evidence prove in a clear waythein‐depthrelationshipbetweenurbanformandlocalclimaticconditions.Examplesoccur throughouthistory,startingfromvernacularsettlementsuntiltheModernMovement'smasters, and most of the 'environmental' knowledge of past designers is also stated in important recommendations contained in ancient manuscripts (Vitruvius, Aristotle, Varrone, Columel‐ la, Palladio, etc.). Nevertheless, most of the established abilities have been forgotten in favour of building technology systems, with an illusory belief in their supremacy. The energy and environmental crises of the 1970s clearly displayed their failure, encouraging designers to rediscover projects' environmental components as a function of a sustainable future. In this light, the past's lessons on 'sustainable practices' have grown in importance, especially when coupled with scientific and informatic progress. Computer advances, in fact, make it possible to study increasingly broad areas (CitySim, ENVI‐met, Virtual Environment) and contribute to supporting urban design's processes with environmental analysis software. The latter acts as useful'feedback'tools,abletoverify(qualitatively)theenvironmentalbehaviouroftheproject's concept by taking into account different climatic data (airtemperature,relative humidity, wind velocity and main directions, etc.) and form parameters (sky view factor, aspect ratio). In this way, designers experiment with a new methodology in the project's development, one that allows them to evaluate the initial urban proposal and, gradually, to modify it in relation to the main criticalities that emerged from previous environmental analyses' results. Nevertheless, modifications must respect a project's fundamentals and collaborate in the improvement of its overall performance.

<sup>1</sup> Examples are the Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies of Cambridge; the 'Urban Physics' research group (ETH, TU Delft and Cypro University); the Centre for Advance Urbanism and the SENSEable Lab of MIT; the Harvard Centre forGreenBuildingsandCitiesandtheCityFormLab;theEPA'sEPFLSolarEnergyandBuildingPhysicsLaboratory (Luisanne); the Environment People and Design (ePad) Research Group in Nottingham (UK); the Berkeley's Center for Environmental Design Research (U.S.A.) and the UCL-Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering in London (UK).

In this light, this work aims at introducing a methodology that is able to integrate current urban design processes with environmental data and analyses. The method is illustrated through an urban‐design case study in Sardinia (Italy). It concerns the urban expansion of Monserrato in developing a new university district of 1.4 km.<sup>2</sup> All the design phases were supported by Heliodon and ENVI‐met software. The work was preceded by a study on the main directions of current 'sustainable design', highlighting both the necessity (and the advantages) of broadening the field of intervention to include the urban dimension (urban blocks or districts), and its current interdisciplinary character. Previous goals are also supported by several examples in the history of architecture, which show the ancient roots of this environmental approach.
