Sustainability 14 16715

Review
(Re)Defining Restorative and Regenerative Urban Design and

Their Relation to UNSDGs—A Systematic Review
Qingchang He 1 and Andras Reith 2,3,*
1 Marcel Breuer Doctoral School, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Pécs,
7624 Pécs, Hungary
2 Advanced Building and Urban Design, Orlay street 2/b, 1114 Budapest, Hungary
3 BIM Skills Lab Research Group, Department of Engineering Studies, Faculty of Engineering and
Information Technology, University of Pécs, Boszorkány Street 2, 7624 Pécs, Hungary

* Correspondence: reith.andras@abud.hu
Abstract: The 1992, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development highlighted that human
impacts on the environment should be reduced. Against this backdrop, publications on restorative
and regenerative urban design first appeared in the mid-1990s, and both disciplines have developed
rapidly up to the present time. However, there is still some uncertainty regarding the interrelation-
ships and differences between these two terms, and their association with the United Nations Sus-
tainable Development Goals. Based on a search of the Web of Science database, a total of 117 papers
were studied with the help of VOS viewer and R studio. The differences between the two disciplines
and their respective associations with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals were an-
alyzed using key performance indicators. Detailed analysis was used to explore their current devel-
opment status. Scientific publication and citation network analyses were used to examine the his-
torical developments and interrelationships between two disciplines. The review revealed that both
disciplines are closely related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, especially re-
Citation: He, Q.; Reith, A.
generative urban design, but they have developed independently in the field of urban design. Un-
(Re)Defining Restorative and like the descriptions found in many of the identified papers, restorative urban design not only fo-
Regenerative Urban Design and cuses on ecological aspects but also attempts to create a built environment that allows its users to
Their Relation to UNSDGs—A thrive both physically and mentally. Regenerative urban design is more inclined to restore or create
Systematic Review. Sustainability an “ability”. Further, both disciplines are in their infancy but have evolved from internal conceptual
2022, 14, 16715. https://doi.org/10.3390/ development to the stage of exploring external relationships and frameworks as well as mecha-
su142416715 nisms. This review found that although many frameworks and models are used to support and
Academic Editor: Nikos A. evaluate these two disciplines, almost all of them fail to integrate necessary aspects of the ecosystem,
Salingaros e.g., elements, relationships, processes, etc. Moreover, future work should examine the design pat-
terns that are closely related to restorative and regenerative urban design to better guide the con-
Received: 8 September 2022
crete practice.
Accepted: 24 November 2022
Published: 13 December 2022
Keywords: urban regenerative design; urban restorative design; KPI; citation relationship;
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neu- UN Sustainable Development Goals
tral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institu-
tional affiliations.
1. Introduction
Urban areas are vibrant and complex entities, which comprise a heterogeneous mix-
Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Li-
ture of built environments, plants, animals, and modified habitat for human use [1]. How-
censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. ever, increasing urbanization is resulting in residents facing the challenge of urban envi-
This article is an open access article ronmental deterioration. Urbanization has been defined as the shift of population from
distributed under the terms and con- rural areas where agriculture is the predominant economic activity to urban areas domi-
ditions of the Creative Commons At- nated by industry and services [2]. According to the United Nations, 55% of the world’s
tribution (CC BY) license (https://cre- population lived in the cities in 2016, and this is projected to surge to 68% by 2050 [3]. The
ativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). continuous growth of the urban population inevitably drives the disorderly expansion of
Sustainability 2022, 14, 16715. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142416715 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability

Sustainability 2022, 14, 16715 2 of 28
cities, which have long established the habits of resource consumption and waste disposal,
with little regard for the consequences [4]. As a result, a series of complex issues have
emerged, such as environmental degradation, biodiversity degradation, social dysfunc-
tion, scarcity of natural resources as well as increased anthropogenic climate change [5–
8]. As our societies become more complex and the urban environment deteriorates, the
built environment we rely on will become increasingly unsustainable [6].
The 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development emphasized the integral
and interdependent nature of our earth’s ecosystem and defined sustainable development
in 27 principles. These principles highlighted human responsibility for sustainable devel-
opment while providing important guidance for the practice of sustainable development;
for example, principle four states that in order to achieve sustainable development, envi-
ronmental protection cannot be considered in isolation in the process of development [9].
This principle gives environmental protection equal importance as development. As
stated by [10], the Rio Declaration provides an ideal perspective for other approaches that
attempt to clarify sustainable development and, to some extent, contribute to the emer-
gence of relevant guidelines and frameworks. Based on this milestone declaration, the
2000 Millennium Summit identified eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). How-
ever, many MDGs are difficult to achieve as there is a lack of direct participation of social
organizations and weak integration between economic, social, and environmental priori-
ties [9]. As such, the 2012 Rio + 20 conference highlighted seven fields of priority attention,
which guided the emergence of 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
in 2015. The SDGs have many objectives which cover environmental, social, and economic
aspects. One of them is to build viable cities and communities that are resilient, long-last-
ing, inclusive, and safe [11]. However, according to the Sustainable Development Goals
Report 2022 [12], although some progress has been achieved toward this goal, there are
still serious challenges; for example, over 90% of global urban residents still live in areas
where the air quality exceeds the new standards set by the World Health Organizations.
A significant number of studies have noted that sustainability represents an equilib-
rium point, which is insufficient to accomplish long-term development that improves the
urban environment [13,14]. As such, the concept and practice of sustainability is evolving
towards restorative and regenerative design, which, rather than seeking to do no further
harm to the status quo, aims to remediate harms that previous practices have caused [15].
‘The term “regenerative” refers to a process that repairs, recreates, or revitalizes its own
sources of energy, air, water, or any other matter’ [8] (p. 19). In addition, regenerative
urban design is also regarded as the process of replacing the present linear system with a
cyclical system that aims at achieving the rebirth of life itself, and therefore provides hope
for the future [16]. Similarly, restoration involves repairing the damage caused by human
activities and returning the environment to its original state through thoughtful develop-
ment [17].
Research in restorative and regenerative urban design has steadily increased in re-
cent years. Due to the complexity of balancing multiple goals in the built environment,
both research fields are multidisciplinary in nature, which leads to integrative research.
For instance, urban regeneration and public health development regarding the social and
built environment [18]; urban regeneration and energy balance [19]; urban restoration and
ecological network construction [20]; urban regeneration and higher education [21]; urban
regeneration and ecosystem services biomimicry [22]. Although these studies in different
areas provide inspiration and insights into the practice of restorative and regenerative
urban design, it is difficult to find implementations of regenerative design at the urban
scale [23].
Regenerative approaches have also introduced standards for architecture design,
such as the WELL building standard. However, similar parameters do not exist in urban
design [23]. Furthermore, the definitions of restorative and regenerative urban design are
often misunderstood. As stated by [24], there is currently a tendency to confuse regener-
ative design methods with the design scope that emerged in the 1990s in pursuit of
ecosystem sustainability. This confusion may arise because these two definitions only
roughly describe their respective characteristics and do not involve specific design param-
eters or indicators [17].
In an attempt to remove this confusion, the objective of this research is to deliver a
holistic overview of restorative and regenerative urban design. The aims of this research
include: (1) analyzing the historical development of these two terms; (2) using key perfor-
mance indicators (KPI) to explore the differences in these research fields and attempt to
delineate the two concepts; (3) to employ key performance indicators (KPI) to demonstrate
whether these two terms have a significant relationship with the United Nations Sustain-
able Development Goals (SDGs); (4) to explore the emerging principles, methods, assess-
ment tools, and current barriers to the two fields through detailed analysis of recent pub-
lications; (5) to employ citation network analysis to investigate the interrelationship and
mutual influence between these two research fields.
2. Literature Collection and Survey

2.1. Publication Collection
Restorative and regenerative urban design have attracted widespread attention from
government sectors and urban designers for many years [25]. In order to identify relevant
publications, the study conducted a search via the Web of Science database using the time
span of 1960 to 2021. There were no restrictions on document type, data category, docu-
ment year and country, but inclusions were limited to English language. The following
search terms were used to collect publications:
• ‘Restorative urban’ AND ‘design’
• ‘Regenerative urban’ AND ‘design’
• ‘Restorative urban’ AND ‘planning’
• ‘Regenerative urban’ AND ‘planning’
• ‘Restorative urban’ AND ‘study’
• ‘Regenerative urban’ AND ‘study’
The publications obtained using the above search terms in the Web of Science data-
base were not all entirely within the scope of this study. As such, the obtained publications
were first screened by interpreting the titles and abstracts. Then, the remaining publica-
tions were further refined by reviewing their content. Finally, the results of the search
were downloaded in the form of a citation report, which contained key information about
the publications, such as title, citations, abstract and authors, publication year, etc. To sys-
tematically and holistically analyze the relationship between the publications, the down-
loaded data was analyzed with the help of VOSviewer and Rstudio, which have been
widely utilized in similar works, such as [26,27]. Two functions from the software were
used to generate bibliographical maps of the scientific realm: (1) extracted the number of
annual scientific productions, document types and relevant sources; (2) extracted citation
relationships between the publications.
2.2. Data Analysis

The following four methods were employed to generate the required results: scien-
tific publication analysis, key performance indicators, detailed analysis, and citation net-
work analysis.
2.2.1. Scientific Publication Analysis

Scientific publication analysis was used to explore the historical development of
these two disciplines. Based on the downloaded details of selected publications, such as
publication year, source abbreviation and document type, a line chart was generated by
Rstudio to visualize the annual scientific publications and to count the main document
types and most relevant sources.
2.2.2. Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

The key performance indicators (KPI) analysis was used as an initial qualitative as-
sessment to confirm the relationship between restorative and regenerative urban design
and the SDGs, and to identify differences between the two disciplines. The KPI analysis
serves as a tool for assessing the actions corresponding to the goals previously established
for the city [28]. To collect the relevant KPIs, this study reviewed many publications that
focused on assessing sustainability, urban restorative design, and urban regenerative de-
sign [7,29–36]. The overlapping indicators from these publications were identified and
employed in this analysis. In this study, the structure of KPIs have three dimensions,
namely, dimensions, sub-dimensions, and indicators (Appendix A). In the dimension
level, there are five indexes, including economy, environment, society, scale, and the
SDGs. Each index has related sub-dimensions, except for SDGs.
During the process of analysis, the sub-dimensions of KPIs involved in each paper
were marked and counted (see Appendix B). Then, the cumulative marks of each sub-
dimension of KPIs were calculated and visualized in a diagram; for example, if the KPI
marks in the productivity sub-category affiliated to the economic dimension were 10, this
means that 10 articles mentioned the indicators in the sub-dimension of productivity.
However, one publication may involve multiple sub-categories. Hence, these marks can-
not match the total number of publications. This analysis helped to categorize and reor-
ganize the collected publications. Therefore, the fields mentioned in the papers of restor-
ative or regenerative urban design could be identified and the differences between them
could be noted. Moreover, it also facilitated counting the number and types of SDGs men-
tioned in the downloaded data, which in turn allowed verification of the relationship be-
tween these two terms and SDGs.
2.2.3. Detailed Analysis

Detailed analysis aims to explore the emerging principles, methods, assessment tools,
and current barriers to these two fields. Strictly speaking, the text mining and KPI analysis
were insufficient for deeply exploring the current internal development status of restora-
tive and regenerative urban design. As such, conducting detailed review was necessary.
The data collection identified papers spanning from 1960 to 2021. While earlier studies
undoubtedly stimulated the development of later urban restorative and regenerative
studies, they could not shed light on the current hot topics, obstacles and new tools, or
make predictions for future research trends. As such, the detailed analysis concentrated
on the literature published within the last 6 years (after 2015). To systematically review
these publications, this study divides the collected data on restorative and regenerative
urban design into five themes: (1) documenting and describing the theoretical develop-
ment of these two disciplines, as well as the emerging principles and methods; (2) deter-
mining how to support, monitor and evaluate them (mainly referring to assessment tools
and approaches); (3) identifying cases of current practice; (4) identifying barriers and en-
ablers that need to be understood and addressed to make faster progress in implementing
restoration and regeneration in the urban built environment; and (5) other themes. A table
is generated to show each category of the themes and the papers involved. In addition,
some research may use case studies to test their proposed theories or methods; therefore,
one article may involve two themes.
2.2.4. Citation Network Analysis

The citation network analysis was used to identify the interaction between urban re-
storative and urban regenerative design. The study investigated the citations of all publi-
cations with the help of VOSviewer. Specifically, the cited information of each collected
publication was run in the VOSviewer to visualize the citation network in a diagram. Of
special attention are papers that appeared in both restorative urban design and regenera-
tive urban design, as they were the best candidates to understand the interaction between
the fields. In addition, the study explored the reasons why these publications appeared in
both disciplines.
3. Results
3.1. Publication Collection Overview
A total of 1637 publications were initially identified by using the search terms de-
scribed in Section 2.1. However, only 86 publications remained after eliminating a signif-
icant number of overlapping and irrelevant documents (e.g., landscape or medicine res-
toration, wetland and riverfront regeneration as well as mental health restoration, etc.).
Meanwhile, 31 additional papers were found by searching the references of these 86 pa-
pers. However, since they are not included in the database of Web of Science, their details
could not be downloaded. To generate the required diagrams, the detailed information of
these 31 papers was manually inputted in the software. However, the software of
VOSviewer was unable to recognize and read the manually added references cited by
these 31 papers. As a result, these 31 articles feature in all the analyses except for the cita-
tion network analysis.
In short, a total of 117 documents were studied in this research, of which 37 publica-
tions related to urban restorative design and 80 related to urban regenerative design.
3.2. The Results of Data Analysis

The results of data analysis are illustrated in Figures 1–5.
Figure 1. The annual scientific publications from 1960 to 2021.

Figure 2. The document types and most relevant sources of publication on restorative and regener-
ative urban design.
Figure 3. The marks of different sub-dimension of KPIs in restorative and regenerative urban de-
sign.
Figure 4. The KPIs of regenerative and restorative urban design involving SDGs.
Figure 5. The citation network between restorative and regenerative urban design [5,16,37–54].
3.2.1. The Result of Scientific Publication Analysis

The annual publications from 1960 to 2021 are shown in Figure 1. Generally speaking,
the number of publications on restorative and regenerative urban design has been increas-
ing but fluctuating. The publications of urban regenerative design have increased much
faster than those of urban restorative design, particularly in the last decade. During this
time, publications in these two research fields accounted for 68% of total publications. The
number of articles on urban regenerative design reached its highest level in 2012. This
might relate to the 2012 Rio + 20 conference, which stimulated the establishment of the
United Nations Environment Assembly and emphasized the need for a set of sustainable
development goals [9]. However, papers on restorative urban design started to decline
after peaking in 2015. The first publications on regenerative and restorative urban design
appeared in 1996 and 1998, respectively.
Figure 2 shows the document types and the top five most relevant sources of publi-
cation. More than half of the publication types are articles. Proceedings papers rank sec-
ond with 16 papers. The number of publications in the remaining document types is under
10. Articles in book chapters are the lowest number. In terms of the most relevant sources
of publication, the dominant publication source is Sustainability with nine papers, fol-
lowed by Building Research and Information with eight papers. Landscape and Urban
Planning and Urban Studies have four and five publications, respectively. European Plan-
ning Studies rank last.
3.2.2. The KPI Fields Involved in Restorative and Regenerative Urban Design
In Figure 3, there is an exceptionally clear difference in research fields between re-
storative and regenerative urban design. Regenerative urban design involves all the sub-
dimensions of KPIs. In contrast, restorative urban design is mainly concentrated on envi-
ronmental restoration and community benefit. In addition, the sub-category of environ-
mental restoration was dominant in both research fields, and the indicator of enriching
biodiversity was significantly emphasized. Apparently, addressing the existing environ-
mental problems is the mutual objective of restorative and regenerative urban design. In
the community benefit sub-category, restorative and regenerative urban design have 22
and 8 papers, respectively. In this sub-category, the indicator of mental and physical
health attracted significant attention in both disciplines. Additionally, the indicators of
housing and citizen participation were frequently mentioned in regenerative urban de-
sign studies. This indicates that the process of regenerative design requires active partici-
pation from the public and the community (this part is further discussed in 4.4). Building
or space restoration, and productivity were the prevalent research topics in regenerative
urban design studies, especially relating to resource efficient building and employment
improvement. On the contrary, only three publications on restorative urban design con-
centrated on these two sub-categories. Further, resource-efficient or consumption and ur-
ban governance correspond to 12 and 11 publications, respectively. Among them, the in-
dicators of renewable energy supply and consumption, and policy guidance and support
were frequently mentioned. Only seven publications involved both cultural regeneration
and scale.
3.2.3. The SDGs Involved in the KPIs of Restorative and Regenerative Urban Design
Figure 4 and Table 1 show the SDGs involved in restorative and regenerative urban
design as well as detailed description of SDGs, respectively. Eighty papers directly refer-
enced or were related to the SDGs, representing 68% of the total number of publications,
while restorative and regenerative urban design relate to 8 and 15 sustainable develop-
ment goals, respectively. In terms of urban regenerative design, SDG3 was associated with
the largest number of publications, compared with other SDGs. This might relate to the
indicator of mental and physical health as it was frequently mentioned in the publications.
SDG7 and SDG11 were both referenced by 13 articles. According to the explanations of
the United Nations [13], SDG 11 contains several specific targets, such as providing af-
fordable housing, protecting cultural and natural heritage, expanding public transport,
improving air quality and waste management, etc. Therefore, it corresponds to more in-
dicators of KPIs than the other SDGs. Providing decent work and economic growth (SDG
8) ranks third with ten papers. To some extent, the indicators in the productivity sub-
category of KPIs made a significant contribution to SDG 8, such as the indictors of increas-
ing the percentage of the GDP of the knowledge economy, and new capital investment.
Notably, SDGs 2, 4, 5, 9, and 10 were only mentioned in one related paper. As for urban
restorative design, only SDG 15 was referenced in more than 10 articles, while 7 papers
mentioned SDG 14. The indicator of enriching biodiversity has a significant association
with both SDGs 14 and 15. Moreover, SDG 3 and SDG 13 were mentioned by 8 and 6
articles, respectively. The high involvement of SDG 13 in the publications is related to its
association with multiple indicators. The number of papers related to SDGs 6, 7, 8, 11 was
less than two. In addition, for SDGs 3, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, and 15, there is overlap between
restorative and regenerative design.
Table 1. The corresponding information of 17 SDGs (United Nations, 2022).
SDG 1 No Poverty SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities

SDG 2 Zero hunger SDG 11 Sustainable cities and communities
SDG 12 Responsible consumption and
SDG 3 Good health and well-being
production
SDG 4 Quality education SDG 13 Climate action
SDG 5 Gender equality SDG 14 Life below water
SDG 6 Clean water and sanitation SDG 15 Life on land
SDG 7 Affordable and clean energy SDG 16 Peace, justice and strong institutions
SDG 8 Decent work and economic growth SDG 17 Partnerships for the goals
SDG 9 Industry, innovation and
infrastructure
Overall, this analysis confirmed that restorative and regenerative urban design have
a significant relationship with the SDGs, especially regenerative urban design. Restorative
urban design is very limited in terms of addressing SDGs as it mainly focuses on four
SDGs. Therefore, it is necessary for this discipline to take more comprehensive approaches
and integrate sustainable thinking in order to add significant value to the field. In addi-
tion, both terms are closely associated with SDG 3 and SDG 15.
3.2.4. The Result of Detailed Analysis

Fifty-two papers were published after 2015, of which only nine papers related to ur-
ban restorative design. Table 2 shows the themes included in each article.
Table 2. The type of themes and articles involved.
The Type of Themes Related Papers

1. Describing the theoretical devel-
opment or proposing principles[4,13,15,19,22,31,37,38,55–62]
and methods
2. Evaluating these two terms or
providing new assessment tools[7,25,63–70]
and approaches
3. Cases of current practice [20,25,39,57,60,62,65,69,71–81]
4. Current barriers and enablers [71,82–84]
5. Others [27,72,79–81,85–92]
As shown in Table 2, many articles describe the theoretical development of these two
terms or propose some new research methods or conceptual theories. One study stated
that urban regenerative design requires transforming traditional urban planning and de-
sign into sustainable practices and then into more regenerative ones, and additionally re-
quires changes to the urban fabric at three scales including urban, neighborhood, and in-
dividual plots [55]. Similarly, several researchers suggest incorporating ecosystem ser-
vices analysis (ESA) into the process of urban regenerative design, avoiding the human-
centric goals and useless design metaphors that are hard to quantify [15,22,56]. Other
studies proposed a new decision support tool to aid urban regeneration [64–66]. Several
articles discussed urban regeneration in terms of social sustainability and institutions
[57,58]. Only three articles depicted the general characteristics of restorative and regener-
ative design, of which two were related to regenerative design [13,31,37]. Although these
papers belong to the same theme, they are involved different research topics.
In terms of Theme 2, it can be divided into two categories based on the type of data:
first, evaluating the output of restorative and regenerative design (e.g., health
assessment); second, proposing new models or indicators to guide the process of restora-
tive and regenerative urban design. As a result, five papers belong to the second type, of
which four are related to urban regenerative design [7,63,64,67,68]. This part will be fur-
ther described in the discussion. The remaining articles are devoted to evaluating the re-
sults of restorative and regenerative design, such as resident satisfaction, health and cul-
tural identity.
As for Theme 3, strictly speaking, it cannot be treated in isolation because most of the
articles, to some extent, are related to the other themes. In other words, many scholars
have used former urban design cases to reflect on the results in order to identify current
barriers or propose new strategies, and sometimes to directly verify their theories or mod-
els through case studies at an appropriate scale. Furthermore, four papers discussed the
current barriers and enablers. One of these articles proposed three strategies based on the
current barriers to urban regeneration including public action, certification standards, and
corporate responsibility [82]. The rest of the papers mentioned the topics of gentrification,
private and public collaboration, public attitudes and ecosystem health. In addition, many
articles do not belong to the above four research themes. Their research themes are di-
verse, including rain gardens, industrial landscape restoration, urban greenery, etc.
3.2.5. The Result of Citation Network Analysis

The citation network analysis was conducted on the 86 collected papers by using the
VOSviewer software.
Figure 5 illustrates the citation network between restorative and regenerative urban
design. Twenty citation relationships could be found, which means 66 papers were not
cited by any other publications. Furthermore, these citation relationships were divided
into two groups, with one group having 15 papers and the remaining 5 papers belonging
to the other group. These groups of 15 papers and 5 papers will be referred to as Groups
1 and 2 in the following description.
Concerning the cited urban regenerative design publications, 14 citation relation-
ships were identified, all of which were in Group 1. The citation relationships of urban
restorative design were identified in six papers, mainly belonging to Group 2, except for
one article. More importantly, there is no direct citation link between these two groups.
This implies that the citation interrelationship between restorative and regenerative urban
design was not present in Group 2. In terms of Group 1, with the exception of one paper,
the rest of the citation interrelationships occurred after 2010, revealing that studies in ur-
ban regenerative design have developed significantly over the last decade. This finding is
the same as the result found in Section 3.2.1. In contrast, all citation interrelationships of
restorative urban design in Group 2 occurred before 2011, implying that the rapid devel-
opment stage of restorative urban design theory began earlier than that of regenerative
urban design.
4. Discussion
4.1. Publications on Restorative and Regenerative Urban Design
The results revealed that the publications in these two fields have emerged in the last
25 years and that there were no publications related to restorative and regenerative urban
design before 1996. This result could be explained by the process of urban regeneration
development. Early research on urban regeneration began in the 1970s [93]. However, this
early research in the subsequent decade focused on adjusting urban intervention strate-
gies to enhance the maintenance of existing urban fabric and address non-dominant urban
issues [15,94]. This may not raise public awareness of the environmental limitations of
modern society. The real turning point was the appearance of the concept of sustainable
urban development in the late 1980s, and the signing of the Rio Environment and Devel-
opment Declaration in the early 1990s, which highlights the integrated and interdepend-
ent nature of humans and the environment, as well as prescribes the need for urban
policies to integrate environmental problems and contribute to sustainable urban devel-

opment [15]. First proposed by John T. Lyle in 1994, the term regenerative design can be
understood as an evolution of sustainable development pioneered by researchers in the
fields of built environment and architecture [95]. Shortly after the term was coined, further
studies laid the theoretical and technical foundation for restorative and regenerative de-
sign [96]. Accordingly, the first publications on restorative and regenerative urban design
appeared in 1996 and 1998, respectively.
Furthermore, in the following decade, many experts and researchers proposed a se-
ries of core principles and strategies for building a sustainable urban environment. These
emerging insights and terms have contributed to the further development of urban regen-
eration theory, which may be the reason for the rapid increase in the number of publica-
tions between 2011 and 2021; for example, the concept of urban regeneration design was
defined in 2000 [97], the term Resilient Cities was proposed in 2002 [98], and the principles
of Green Urbanism were introduced in 2010 [99].
4.2. The Differences in Research Fields between Restorative and Regenerative Urban Design
Identified through KPI Analysis
As shown in Section 3.2.2, there is a clear difference in research fields between restor-
ative and regenerative urban design. Urban regenerative design involved all the sub-di-
mensions of KPIs. In contrast, the marks of ecological restoration in the subcategory of
urban restorative design account for 70% of all KPI marks. Furthermore, the rest of the
KPI marks of urban restorative design mainly concentrate on the subcategory of commu-
nity benefits, the majority of which are associated with the indicator of mental and phys-
ical health. This means that urban restorative design is closely linked to community ben-
efits rather than the previously described definition of merely focusing on environmental
restoration. In other words, in practice, urban restorative design is not focused on maxim-
izing certain ecological goals. This significant association may be related to biophilic de-
sign. Urban restorative design has a strong association with biophilic design [24], which
seeks to systematically integrate nature into the urban fabric in a way that improves the
connection between man and nature [100]. The health benefits of contact with nature, such
as stress reduction and decreasing cardiovascular disease [101], are increasingly accepted
by the public. This deliberate behavior of bringing natural elements into urban landscapes
and building interiors while mimicking natural geometry or forms could enhance the
healing effect of the built environment. From this perspective, urban restorative design is
committed to building a close relationship between man and nature, thereby placing
physical and mental health alongside ecological restoration at the core of urban design.
In terms of urban regenerative design, many papers define it as an integrated ap-
proach that seeks to have a long-term impact on living systems. However, this is a rela-
tively abstract concept. In this study, urban regenerative design included 33 out of 51 in-
dicators, which covered the economic, environmental, and social fields. In the economic
dimension, the most frequently mentioned indicators were employment growth and new
capital investment. Many papers also mentioned increasing the proportion of the
knowledge-based economy in the local economic structure. In the environmental dimen-
sion, enriching biodiversity had the highest score. However, the indicator of decreasing
greenhouse gas emissions was not present in the majority of articles. Greenhouse gas
emission is closely associated with the rising global temperature, and it has become a sig-
nificant part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [13]. How-
ever, as the research on integrating climate policy into urban regeneration is still in its
infancy, the current progress is limited to conveying the mitigating measures through ex-
amples of regeneration projects [102]. Nevertheless, the process of regenerative design
involves different forms of spatial intervention, which can transform existing urban forms
and land use patterns to achieve a more sustainable future. Moreover, the related
measures have the potential to improve the efficiency of energy and resource utilization
as well as reduce greenhouse gas and waste emissions. Therefore, it is necessary to
consider this indicator in urban regenerative design. In addition, renewable energy sup-
ply and waste recycling indicators have also attracted widespread attention. This may be
related to the fact that regenerative design is considered as a transition from the current
linear system to a cyclic system in which the life cycles of all materials are carefully con-
sidered [17].
Regarding the social dimension, the indicators of resource efficiency of buildings,
policy guidance and support, and housing were all frequently mentioned in the literature.
In addition, the indicators of recreational facilities, physical health, and mental health also
attracted attention. However, only two papers mentioned the accessibility of green space.
This is surprising as improving livability by integrating healthy outdoor spaces has be-
come a significant topic in urban regenerative design [71]. The multiple benefits of green
space within the community have already been demonstrated, for instance, providing a
social space, enhancing the property value of the real estate and improving community
cohesion, etc. [103]. In fact, urban regenerative design should not only provide physical
environments to be shared, but also consider the durability and convenience of the daily
services delivered by these facilities. In other words, ‘The urban design principle of diver-
sity is about what people can do in the locality’ [72] (p. 8). The accessibility of public space
is an important principle in measuring a good urban design and is also used to assess
environmental justice [104,105]. Without accessibility in design practice, regenerative de-
sign cannot optimally realize the potential benefits contained in green spaces, such as in-
dividual emotional perceptions and functional requirements, even if they are comfortable
and inviting spaces. To a large extent, this also reflects the necessity of building neighbor-
hood parks as part of urban regenerative design at the community scale. These spaces
often encourage people to come out of their houses and provide opportunities for contact
with nature. They also allow family gatherings and informal sporting events to take place
and thus become focal points for surrounding communities. However, the occurrence of
these activities depends on accessibility. That is, these spaces should be located within
close proximity of the community, and they should also be physically accessible for resi-
dents, regardless of their physical and mental ability. Furthermore, neighborhood parks
require adequate natural features and supplementary facilities. For example, playing
structures for children and pavilions or other shelters. Another key requirement for neigh-
borhood parks is that their edges are also actively used, which avoids the emergence of
dead zones, thereby preventing the separation of the park and community spaces.
The additional indicators of making sense of space and improving bicycle and pe-
destrian infrastructure were frequently mentioned. The high scores for the parameter of
bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure reflect the return of human-scale urban design. This
requires the spatial connectivity of different activity spaces and the accessibility of differ-
ent services, which is a fundamental principle in sustainable urban design [105]. However,
the close linkage in physical distance, to some extent, does not mean that there is a closer
internal relationship between different spaces and their elements. The further design re-
quirement is the establishment of a “place network”. At the micro-level, urban space is
not a completely homogeneous space, but rather a spatial system comprising various spa-
tial elements [106]. This physical connectivity does not erode the boundaries of these
spaces, as people are inclined to mentally separate these elements from each other. For
example, they mentally define the border of squares, streets, and even public and private
spaces [107]. This is related to the capacity of people to control their contact with others
[108]. Nevertheless, the geometric relationship between places determines what kind of
feeling a place brings to people. It is also an important factor in judging the success of a
place. Accordingly, buildings and streets or other components should be regarded as a
part of a system of space. As such, when planning an environmental structure (e.g., square
or plaza), it should first be considered as part of a place network. Subsequently, these
places and many points of modulation, such as hedges, windows, and fences, are ex-
pressed as part of a continuous network with some connections. Therefore, the
enhancement of the space network not only requires accessibility at a physical distance
but also the ability of different spaces to self-organize into regional structures [109].
In short, urban regenerative design has not only frequently mentioned many conven-
tional indicators, but also has included some indicators that emphasize the long-term na-
ture of self-regeneration, such as increasing the percentage of knowledge economy of the
GDP, solid waste reuse and recycling, renewable energy supply and consumption, devel-
oping a sense of place, etc. It could be inferred that urban regenerative design supports
and facilitates the formation of an ability to fulfill the long-term needs of urban develop-
ment.
Based on this analysis, the most appropriate definitions of restorative and regenera-
tive urban design could be:
Urban restorative design not only restores the polluted and damaged ecosystems to a
healthy state, but also integrates nature into life through appropriate design patterns while ensur-
ing consistent interaction and contact with nature to create a built environment that allows its
users to thrive both physically and mentally.
Urban regenerative design resolves urban problems from an integrated perspective of econ-
omy, society and environment, while not only seeking the growth of conventional indicators (e. g.
increased employment, enriching biodiversity), but also attempting to restore and establish an
“ability” to adapt and meet long-term or future development requirements.
With respect to the overlapping indicators, the following five were identified: phys-
ical and mental health, freshwater supply, renewable energy supply and consumption,
recreational facilities, and enriching biodiversity. Notably, physical and mental health as
well as enriching biodiversity were strongly emphasized. Since biophilic design aims to
integrate nature into urban or architectural fabric, it can meet the innate requirement of
human connection with nature while contributing to our health and well-being. Thus,
there is a need to integrate the design pattern of biophilic urbanism into the practice of
restorative and regenerative urban design. This is not a stylistic suggestion or personal
preference but is completely related to the improvement of the relationship between man
and nature as well as human health. The work of biophilic urbanism combines two mech-
anisms: intimate contact with living organisms and human response to the geometries
created by following biological rules. It also includes many elements that contribute to the
enhancement of human experience, such as curves, color, fractals, water, and organized
complexity. As such, in practice, restorative and regenerative urban design should ensure
repeated and constant contact between man and nature by integrating nature and biophi-
lic elements (e.g., fractal patterns, curves), internally and externally, into buildings, built
infrastructure and across urban spaces across various scales of urban structure.
4.3. The Association between Restorative and Regenerative Urban Design and SDGs
The results from the KPI analysis reveal a close relationship between restorative and
regenerative urban design as well as the UN SDGs. Restorative and regenerative urban
design all tend to deliver good health and well-being to the public (SDG 3) as well as build
sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11). However, one of the unintended outcomes
in some areas of urban regenerative practices was gentrification, which stimulates eco-
nomic development and increases household income in a given area, but also results in
many low-and middle-income residents being replaced by wealthier newcomers. In this
sense, this is not consistent with SDG 10 (reduce inequalities). In other words, urban re-
generation must reconsider the current one-sided design pattern because this phenome-
non results in the destruction of diversity. As stated by [108], a decrease in diversity due
to increased wealth is perhaps as bad as reducing wealth (when a declining area becomes
a slum). The optimal result is to achieve economic growth in poor areas while considering
social diversity. This suggests that urban regeneration should not be a catalyst for the ho-
mogenization of communities. Instead, it should facilitate heterogeneity, that is, neighbor-
ing different groups to live next to each other. Urban regeneration should integrate the
social mixing of different groups and classes with economic development to ensure both
integration and diversification [110]. According to [111], in the design of urban regenera-
tion projects, the social aspects of the initiative should be equally important as environ-
mental and economic considerations. This means that when gentrification is observed
during regeneration, it is necessary to introduce measures or social policies to maintain
the low-income housing stock and minimize social inequality [112]. This could be
achieved by providing a range of new housing at different prices while introducing or
increasing commercial investment opportunities in multiple locations to avoid overheat-
ing investment in individual regions [113,114]. Moreover, the significant differences in
building quality and image between social and private housing within a short distance
should be avoided [71]. Therefore, urban regeneration should retrofit the current one-
sided design pattern to create optimum wealth and maximum diversity through active
and reasonable policies.
In addition, SDG 14 and 15 are mentioned by more literature in restorative urban
design than regenerative urban design. One possible interpretation is that a secondary
relationship exists. On the one hand, there are many articles on restorative design that
mentioned ecosystem services, which significantly relate to enhancing the environment
and ecology. On the other hand, life below water (SDG 14) and life on land (SDG15) are
partly associated with addressing existing environmental and ecological problems. Fur-
thermore, restorative and regenerative urban design all have an association with SDG 8
of decent work and economic growth, especially regenerative urban design. Promoting
the economic development of declining areas has always been one of the priorities of ur-
ban regeneration [24]. However, it is necessary to integrate the economic pattern of the
regeneration area into the local context. In other words, the standardized economic pat-
tern does not necessarily apply in any place. Although the standardization of the current
economy undoubtedly reduces the cost of production and obtains economies of scale
[115], it also leads to the runaway production of unadapted and undifferentiated struc-
tures. This goes against the principles of sustainability. However, this pattern of stand-
ardization and scale has also infiltrated into the urban design domain resulting in low
adaptability, non-resilience, and unsustainability of the urban environment. In fact, urban
design and development systems as well as underlying economic systems need to take
into account and coordinate the relationship between standardization, scale, differentia-
tion, and localization to prevent a nearly unified, non-resilient environment from emerg-
ing. Many current standards, norms, models, and other subsystems make it difficult to
change elements in specific practice. Therefore, to prevent the emergence of an unsustain-
able urban environment, it is necessary to gradually change the excessive reliance on
standardization and scale. Attempts at differentiated and localized design patterns at all
scales must be made in future practice.
In sum, restorative and regenerative urban design all have a significant relationship
with SDGs, but some new design patterns need to be integrated in the practice of regen-
erative design, such as coordinating the relationship between standardization, scale, dif-
ferentiation, and localization, as well as optimum wealth and maximum social diversity.
4.4. The Current Development Status of Restorative and Regenerative Urban Design
As discussed in Section 3.2.4, only three papers reviewed the theoretical development
of these two terms. One article aimed to identify differences between regenerative design
and regenerative development [95]. It interpreted regenerative design as a method of
forming and shaping systems designed to reverse environmental degradation and deliver
positive effects, while regenerative development was defined as an approach that enables
the co-evolution of human communities and natural living systems. Apparently, regener-
ative development is regarded by some researchers as an upgraded form of regenerative
design. However, in another study, regenerative design and development were not de-
fined differently [37]. At the same time, the pattern of co-evolution also was termed as
regenerative sustainability in that paper rather than regenerative development [37]. Nev-
ertheless, they all collectively emphasize the role of the human in regenerative
development. It is clear that there is no consensus on the definition of regeneration, re-

sulting in each paper interpreting the subject using its own preferred definition.
In addition to differences in existing definitions, some scholars have suggested incor-
porating ecosystem services analysis (ESA) into the process of regenerative design: ‘The
purpose of ESA is to measure past, current and potential future environmental perfor-
mance of the built environment in terms of ecosystem services provision so that future
spatial and temporal ecology derived performance goals can be devised’ [68] (p. 6). How-
ever, this approach focuses solely on the provision of ecosystem services and thus leads
to a lack of deep understanding of the ecological processes behind ecosystem services. As
stated by [22], the theoretical formulation and practice of ecosystem-level biomimicry fo-
cusing only on regenerative urban design at the end of the ecosystem service cascade will
lead us to oversimplify our understanding of ecosystems. In recent years, a more complex
approach has been proposed by some scholars in the form of the “Ecosystem Services
Cascade Framework” (ESCF), which emphasizes the connection between ecosystem bio-
physical structures, its health and integrity, as well as the ecosystem service provision
[22]. However, a recent study has further pointed out the shortcomings of the above two
models. It explained that the lack of translation work between ecological concepts and
practical examples of ecosystem service design in the built environment results in the dif-
ficulty of wide application of these two frameworks [68]. In simple terms, these two frame-
works could not bridge the gap between the results of design practice and the proposed
ecological concept. In addition to this criticism, the study also introduced an online inter-
active tool based on an ecosystem services diagram and urban ecosystem service catego-
ries depicted by Pedersen Zari [116]. This is also the theoretical foundation of the above
two frameworks. More importantly, this tool can connect ecosystem services concepts
with design strategies and case studies [68]. It is indicated that the approaches and tools
which support incorporating ecosystem services into urban regenerative design have been
developing and evolving.
Furthermore, many articles emphasized that regenerative design requires the active
participation of communities and stakeholders, with several articles obtaining this finding
from the perspective of preserving local identity. This is because community residents are
best aware of what aspects of their cultural heritage need to be protected and preserved
[58,75]. The general opinion of the remaining articles is that the participation of commu-
nities and different stakeholders in the regenerative process could, in addition to meeting
people’s requirement-orientated design goals, establish a consciousness of engagement in
continuous healthy relationships [38,57,73,74]. However, the collaboration of different
stakeholders also brings obstacles to the process of urban regenerative design, especially
in the collaboration of private and public sectors. The cooperation of public and private
sectors undoubtedly brings substantial resources to the site, but this involves a wide range
of multi-level governance relationships and resources, even for small regenerative pro-
jects. As a result, in this complicated network of relationships, it is sometimes difficult to
determine decision-making processes [83]. When this occurs, public accountability is hin-
dered by lack of transparency in decision-making [83]. Moreover, due to seeking profit
maximization, the higher decision-making power of the private sector in such cooperation
perhaps leads to gentrification, resulting in the displacement of original residents in the
regeneration area [71]. Furthermore, urban regenerative design emphasizes a holistic par-
adigm. Therefore, a single-category assessment tool is not able to meet the requirements.
Many scholars in the articles used or introduced assessment tools such as ‘Sustainably
Performed Urban Regeneration’ (SuPerUrban), ecosystem services analysis (ESA), and re-
storative urban design (RUD). However, almost all the evaluation tools are based on a
series of key performance indicators. As explained by [63], the ecological and sustainable
indicators in the majority of current assessment tools have failed to integrate the necessary
aspects of the ecosystem, such as relationships, flows, and processes. As a result, research
by [63] proposed a new evaluation tool that goes beyond the original checklist pattern and
attempts to describe the elements and relationships required to regenerate living systems
rather than the final state. However, our study found that this model completely aban-
doned the general urban regenerative design indicators and strategies, making the model
somewhat difficult to understand for those people without relevant background
knowledge.
The time span of data in this analysis is the last six years, but only a few studies have
explored and described the concepts of these two terms in detail. Most studies aim to pre-
sent new insights into urban regenerative design or explore the models and frameworks
that support and evaluate these two approaches. Thus, it could be inferred that restorative
and regenerative urban design have evolved from internal conceptual development to the
stage of exploring external relationships and frameworks as well as mechanisms.
4.5. Citation Relationship between Restorative and Regenerative Urban Design

The results show that only one urban restoration publication had a citation interrela-
tionship with urban regenerative design. Two papers on urban regenerative design were
cited by this publication, which concentrates on studying how to apply the analysis of
ecosystem services to the urban built environment and analyzes the starting point of re-
generative design. However, one of the articles it cited was published in 2015 and deals
with urban stormwater management. This cited relationship seems unusual. However,
this cited paper proposed a new conceptual framework and recommends approaching the
regenerate urban built environment paradigm with a holistic view by integrating urban
sustainable drainage systems with resource management and climate mitigation and
adaption. Regarding another cited publication, this cited paper calls for whole system
thinking and living systems thinking, which is a holistic way of linking the natural envi-
ronment with the built environment [24]. It recommends using this approach in sustaina-
ble practices to promote urban regeneration. As such, the description and analysis of the
“natural environment” and “built environment” sections may bring an interconnection
between these three articles. Moreover, although the paper of urban restorative design
focuses only on the feasibility of urban regeneration from an ecological perspective, the
cited article provides it with an entirely theoretical framework for urban regenerative de-
sign. This seems an important reason for the citation relationship between them.
Besides, as mentioned in Section 3.1, since 31 articles are not included in the database
of the Web of Science, it is impossible to directly generate such a schematic diagram of the
citation relationship by software. As such, the study manually checked the remaining 31
articles, of which 11 papers belong to urban restorative design. Among them, only two
dissertations mentioning “regenerative” focus on regenerating natural systems. The rest
concentrated on discussing health and ecosystem restoration. In addition, most of the re-
maining 20 urban regenerative design papers are conceptual articles. Five articles directly
mentioned the definitions and purposes of restorative and regenerative design. To some
extent, this cannot be used as evidence of an internal relationship between them. Further-
more, two articles may have associations with urban restorative design. One paper men-
tioned the use of biomimicry theory to drive a paradigm shift in urban regenerative de-
sign, however, it relied on an understanding of ecological theory and analysis of ecosys-
tem services. Thus, the health and integrity of ecosystems are highly valued. Similarly,
another article suggested incorporating the analysis of ecosystem services into built envi-
ronment design and using a practical case to demonstrate the benefits. Therefore, “eco-
system services ” are the reason for their correlation to urban restorative design.
In general, there are three possible relationships between restorative and regenera-
tive urban design: namely, development independent of each other, a partial overlap be-
tween these two disciplines, and one discipline completely including the other (Figure 6).
Strictly speaking, the citation analysis demonstrated that there is no significant internal
relationship between urban regenerative and urban restorative design. Instead, they have
developed almost independently of each other, as shown in Figure 6a. However, in the
KPI analysis, urban regenerative design involves more indicators and dimensions than
does urban restorative design, but the former does not fully include the indicators of
urban restorative design (Figure 6c). The indicators involved in restorative and regenera-
tive urban design overlap with each other (Figure 6b). To some extent, this indicates that
restorative and regenerative design should be interrelated with each other.
Figure 6. The interrelationship between restorative and regenerative urban design: (a) restorative
and regenerative urban design develop independently of each other; (b) a partial overlap between
restorative and regenerative urban design; (c) one discipline completely includes the other.
In the pioneering work of regenerative design research, Lyle pointed out that to
achieve sustainable development, the supply system of raw materials and energy must
discard the original ideas and strategies that destroy the environment, replacing the orig-
inal linear systems with regenerative design and circular flow [117]. Based on this, advo-
cates of restorative environment design called for the restoration of the damaged ecolog-
ical environment to its original health, while other scholars advocating for regenerative
buildings tend to use a holistic approach to building human settings [16]. It is clear that
the focus of the former is to return to an unspecified original state. Moreover, urban re-
generative design is considered as a representative of implementing the “cradle-to-cradle”
pattern. During this process, the material flow is based on closed-loop cycles [16]. It em-
phasizes an “ability” rather than a “state”. In simple terms, if restorative design signifies
returning something to its original state, regenerative design represents making it better
than the original state.
There are two possible reasons to explain why the findings of restorative and regen-
erative urban design in the citation analysis differ from the KPI analysis. First, for different
research fields, the citation relationship will occur only when a common research topic or
theme emerges. The results show that urban regenerative design is a broad research field,
while in contrast, urban restorative design mainly concerns physical and mental health as
well as ecological restoration. In other words, the citation relationship will only emerge
when the research on urban regenerative design is focused on or has some connections
with the above two aspects. The second reason is lack of data volume. Mining association
and correlation between different items is best served by large amounts of data [118].
However, only 117 documents were studied in this research, of which only 37 publications
related to urban restorative design. The insufficient data volume and the large differences
in the number of publications between these two fields, to some extent, could further re-
duce the probability of finding citation relationships. As a result, the superimposed influ-
ence of the above two reasons may have led to the weak citation relationship between
restorative and regenerative urban design in this study.
Overall, the citation relationship suggests that restorative and regenerative urban de-
sign developed independently of each other. This contradicts the findings of former KPI
analysis in this research as well as the opinions of many researchers. It is necessary to
reassess this association based on a large quantity of data in the future.
5. Limitations
A few limitations of this study should be noted. First of all, this study highly relies
on the quality and quantity of the data. Even though this study employed the logical com-
bined search terms to collect the publication, it is impossible to ensure that all the related
publications have been collected. Some researchers may use other search terms; for in-
stance, using urban environmental restoration rather than restorative urban design. Be-
sides, the Web of Science database indexes contain SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A & HCI,
CPCI-S, and SPCI-SSH. This means some important papers are excluded from publication
collection, such as doctoral dissertations. Moreover, utilizing only English papers has fur-
ther reduced the amount of data. Thus, only 117 publications involved in the research may
render the results less persuasive.
Another limitation is that 31 publications, which accounted for nearly 26% of the total
number of publications, could not be included in the citation relationship analysis through
the software. Although the study manually checked these papers, their omission from the
software analysis creates the possibility of errors. Thus, the final output might be unrelia-
ble.
6. Conclusions
The disciplines of restorative and regenerative urban design are in their infancy but
are growing rapidly. There are still ambiguities in terms of the tangible differences and
internal relationships. Although this study is framed as a systematic review of these two
disciplines, the higher goal is to clearly define and differentiate them so that they can bet-
ter support and guide the practice of future urban design.
This study illustrates that restorative and regenerative urban design are closely re-
lated to the SDGs, especially urban regenerative design. Restorative urban design is very
limited in terms of addressing SDGs as it mainly focuses on four SDGs. Therefore, in order
for this discipline to improve its relevance and increase the value it offers, it is necessary
for it to take more comprehensive approaches and better integrate sustainable thinking.
Although there are obvious differences between restorative and regenerative urban de-
sign, both disciplines tend to mitigate or minimize the negative impacts of design and
development on natural systems, and also use the built environment to promote a closer
relationship between man and nature.
Rapid urbanization has tested our ability to develop cities in a sustainable way. Un-
doubtedly, the majority of interventions compromise, to some extent, the natural environ-
ment. As such, urban development must go beyond simply maintaining sustainability.
This requires the thinking of urban design to go beyond the logic of co-existence between
man and nature. Rather, the logic of co-evolution between man and nature needs to be
pursued. This is a vital and necessary transformation, as attitudes are more important
than gains in driving change in urban development. As such, urban design practice re-
quires an integrated planning and design perspective that considers the built environment
as a system in which humans and nature support and co-evolve with each other, thereby
obtaining net positive benefits for social and natural dimensions. In addition, in the pro-
cess of practice, there is a need to coordinate and integrate the priorities of economic, so-
cial, and environmental aspects, such as promoting the development of renewable energy
and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Urban development beyond sustainability re-
quires a long process, and it is also dependent on meaningful engagement in that process.
This means that a participatory approach should not be ignored. The active participation
of citizens helps design teams or academies to identify the needs of the users as well as
the potential gaps that must be filled to enable cities to move beyond sustainable design
to restorative or regenerative design. There is an urgent need for design teams to bridge
the gaps by raising awareness of and improving understanding of restorative and regen-
erative urban design. They must also leverage these advances by generating more active
and holistic approaches to address the most urgent and important issues in order to meet
requirement-orientated design goals to improve the overall livability.
The Sustainable Development Goals Report is categorical in that the desired progress
in achieving the SDGs has not been realized. Therefore, consideration must be given to
how progress can be accelerated and what can be done to better guide specific practice.
There is no doubt that clear and robust urban design frameworks are required, and that
such frameworks need to be flexible enough to respond to changing conditions. However,

frameworks alone are not enough. Although they give direction for urban design practices
to achieve the SDGs from a macro perspective, frameworks are not project oriented and
cannot provide solutions to certain issues. As such, other means are required to drive and
direct projects. Design patterns are an effective tool to guide and support designers and
stakeholders within specific projects. As explained by Alexander [119], design patterns
consist of three parts which indicate the relation between the context, the common design
problem, and the fundamental nature of a solution to resolve the problem. Compared with
the approaches of guidelines and heuristics, design patterns are focused on providing
concrete solutions to specific problems rather than abstract advice. Thus, it is necessary to
combine frameworks with design patterns to better guide urban design practices from the
perspectives of macro and micro. Future work should examine the design patterns that
are closely related to restorative and regenerative urban design so as to make rapid pro-
gress in achieving SDGs.
Author Contributions: Conceptualization, A.R.; methodology, A.R., and Q.H.; formal analysis,
A.R., and Q.H.; software, Q.H.; writing—original draft preparation, Q.H.; writing—review and ed-
iting, Q.H.; supervision, A.R.; funding acquisition, A.R., and Q.H. All authors have read and agreed
to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research was funded by the Department of Engineering Studies, Faculty of Engineer-
ing and Information Technology, University of Pécs, Hungary.
Acknowledgments: We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments,
and the suggestions from the research team at ABUD (Advanced Building and Urban Design) studio
as well as the Department of Engineering Studies, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technol-
ogy, University of Pécs, Hungary. The publication fee was granted by the Faculty of Engineering at
University of Pécs, Hungary, within the framework of the ‘Call for Grant for Publication 3.0)
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Appendix A
Table A1. The structure of KPI.
Dimension Sub-Dimension Indicators

improvement of employment
traditional industry improvement
new capital investment
Productivity (social
Economy increase the percentage of knowledge
economy)
economy in GDP
patents
small and medium sized enterprises
renewable energy supply and
consumption
electricity supply and consumption
low-carbon emission vehicle
residential thermal energy supply and
Resource efficiency and
consumption
Environment consumption
energy use in transport
CO2 emissions from household energy
waste recycled
building materials
solid waste reuse and recycle
air quality improvement
decrease greenhouse gas emission

(GHG)
wastewater collection and reuse
fresh water supply
Environmental restora- water quality
tion urban heat island effect mitigation
soil treatment
enrich biodiversity
stormwater management
cleaning-up of the polluted deposits
gender income equality
secure household income
decrease the poverty rate
crime rate
adult literacy
housing
education quality
Community benefit
education enrollment
local food production
stability of food supply
Physical health and mental health
life expectancy
human right
citizen participation
Society
public building sustainability
resource efficiency building (gas, water,
electricity)
green area accessibility
Building/space restora-
quality of green space
tion
recreational facilities
land use
bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure
improvement
heritage protection
Culture regenerative cultural infrastructure
making sense of space
policy guidance and support
Urban governance
public and social service
Urban scale
Regional scale
Scale No category
District scale
Neighborhood scale
UN sustainable
No category
Development goals
Appendix B
The involved sub-dimension in restorative and regenerative urban design (the pa-
pers of restorative and regenerative urban design are indicated by à and P, respectively.
The presence of these two symbols in the same article represents that this article mentions
both disciplines simultaneously).
Economy Environment Society Scale

Resource District/
Environme
Reference Efficiency Building/Sp Culture Urban Urban/
Producti ntal Community UN SDGs
No. and ace Regenerati Governa Regional/
vity Restoratio Benefit
Consumptio Restoration ve nce Neighborh
n
n ood
Goal 3, 4,6,
[120] P P P P P P
5
[116] P Goal 13
[96] P Goal 3, 17
[21] P P Goal 11
[121] à Goal 15
[122] à Goal 13
[4] P Goal 8,13
P
Goal 7,8,
[40] P P P Urban
12,
scale
[39] P Goal 11
[109] à à
P
[16] P P P P Urban Goal 8,11
scale
[56] P Goal 14, 15
[41] P Goal 14, 15
[42] P
P
[123] à Urban Goal 6
scale
[7] à Goal 11
[85] P Goal 12
[124] P Goal 3, 10
[113] P Goal 11
[125] P Goal 3
[43] P
[126] P
[117] P P
[24] P
[44] P Goal 11
[127] à à
[45] à Goal 14, 15
[128] à Goal 14, 15
[46] P
[5] P
Goal 3,
[94] P P P P P P
6,7,8,11
[86] à à
[129] à à Goal 3
Goal 6, 7,
[82] P P P P P P
12
Goal 6, 7, 8,
[36] P P P P P
12
[33] P P P P Goal 8, 12
[130] P Goal 7, 13
[131] P Goal 7
Goal 3,
[97] P P P P P
8,13,17
[75] P
[132] P P P P P
[133] à Goal 14, 15
[134] à
[135] à Goal 15
[136] à à Goal 3, 15
Goal 3, 11,
[12] à P P P
13
[93] à Goal 3, 13
[137] à Goal 15
[138] à Goal 13
Goal 3, 7, 8,
[139] à à à à à
14,15
[47] P
Goal 6, 7,
[15] P
12
[59] P P P
[140] P P P P Goal 11
[38] P P P
[141] P P Goal 3, 7
[48] P P P Goal 3
P
[142] P Regional
scale
P
Goal 3, 7,
[13] P P P P Urban
13
scale
[57] P
P
[143] P Neighborh Goal 11
ood scale
[144] P P P Goal 11
[145] P
[25] P Goal 15
[95] P Goal 3
[73] P Goal 7
[76] P P
[71] P Goal 3, 11
[60] P Goal 13
[88] P
[64] P Goal 7
[58] P P P Goal 3, 8
[65] P
[67] P Goal 9
[146] P
[18] P
[74] P P P P Goal 3
[147] P Goal 11
[77] P Goal 17
[49] P P Goal 14, 15
[69] P Goal 3
P
Regional
[148] P P
scale/urban
scale
[102] P P
[149]
[17] P Goal 7
Goal 3, 8,
[32] P
12
[61] P Goal 8
[78] P Goal 15
[150] P P
[83] P
[151] P Goal 14, 15
[66] P
[152] P
[89] P Goal 12
[37] P
[50] à Goal 14, 15
[153] à
[51] à Goal 13
[154] à Goal 14, 15
[52] à à Goal 14, 15
[155] à Goal 3
[156] à Goal 3
[53] à Goal 13
[62] à
[70] à à Goal 3, 15
[90] à Goal 15
[55] P
[20] P Goal 15
[91] P
[63] P
[68] P Goal 15
[84] P Goal 3
[79] P Goal 11
[80] P Goal 7
[92] P Goal 2
[157] à Goal 6
[81] P Goal 11
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(Re)Defining Restorative and Regenerative Urban Design and

Information Technology, University of Pécs, Boszorkány Street 2, 7624 Pécs, Hungary

Sustainability 2022, 14, 16715. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142416715 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability

2. Literature Collection and Survey

2.2. Data Analysis

2.2.1. Scientific Publication Analysis

2.2.2. Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

2.2.3. Detailed Analysis

2.2.4. Citation Network Analysis

3.2. The Results of Data Analysis

Figure 1. The annual scientific publications from 1960 to 2021.

3.2.1. The Result of Scientific Publication Analysis

Table 1. The corresponding information of 17 SDGs (United Nations, 2022).

SDG 1 No Poverty SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities

3.2.4. The Result of Detailed Analysis

Table 2. The type of themes and articles involved.

The Type of Themes Related Papers

3.2.5. The Result of Citation Network Analysis

policies to integrate environmental problems and contribute to sustainable urban devel-

development. It is clear that there is no consensus on the definition of regeneration, re-

4.5. Citation Relationship between Restorative and Regenerative Urban Design

such frameworks need to be flexible enough to respond to changing conditions. However,

Table A1. The structure of KPI.

Dimension Sub-Dimension Indicators

decrease greenhouse gas emission

Economy Environment Society Scale

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