Sergio Porta
Sergio Porta was born in Reggio Emilia, Italy, in February 1964.
Dr. Porta, architect, Ph.D, is assistant professor at the Politechnic of Milan, Italy, and adjunct professor at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. In Milan he holds the courses of Urban Design and Ecological Urban Design; he is director of the Human Space Lab (www.humanspacelab.com; http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/Milan-Italy/Human-Space-Lab/39705122504), a space analysis and urban design research and consultancy unit established at the Polytechnic: the Lab is currently involved in street design schemes and applied researches in Italy and abroad. Dr. Porta is also the coordinator of an international network of space analysis and design scientists named UStED – Urban Sustainability through Environmental Design (http://www.usted-urbandesign.org); since January 2009, he is member of the editorial board of Environment and Planning B, Planning and Design.
Since graduation in 1988 dr. Porta works on architectural design and urban planning consultancy in Milan and Reggio Emilia until 1996. It is in this period that dr. Porta focuses his interests mostly on topics related to the social dimension of architecture and public space design. Since 1996, while entering the Ph.D programme in regional and urban planning at the Polytechnic of Milan, dr. Porta begins his post-graduate research and education back into the academic system. He then attends another two years post-doctoral research which ends up in 2002. Since the end of 2002 he is assistant professor at the Polytechnic of Milan.
As a Ph.D. and then a post doctoral student, dr. Porta holds a six-months visiting scholar position at the Institute of Governmental Studies of the UC Berkeley (1998) and a four-months associate researcher position at the Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy of the Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia (2001), where he teaches a short course on sustainable urban design.
Dr. Porta’s latest research is mainly oriented to the definition of procedures, attitudes and tools for sustainable/human/adaptive urban analysis and design, ranging from GIS-based space analysis to sustainable community design, transportation planning and traffic calming techniques to strategies for safety and liveability in the public scene. His latest research has been presented and discussed at the international level in Vancouver (EDRA 36 Conference, May 2005), London (CUPUM 05 Conference, July 1005), Glasgow (EPUK 04 Conference, September 2005), Kuwait City (First Gulf Conference on Urban Design, February 2006), Oxford (City Form Seminar, May 2006); Venice (Biennale, October 2006), Dublin-Maynooth (Geocomputation Conference, September 2007), Paris-Nanterre (Observatoire International de la Démocratie Partecipative, November 2007), London (City Form Conference, November 2007), London (Annual Quality Streetscapes Conference, June 2008), New Dehli (City Form India Conference, August 2008); publications include papers on Environment and Planning B, Urban Design International, Chaos, Physica A, Physical Review E, The European Physical Journal B, a contribution to Haas T, ed. (2006), New Urbanism and Beyond: the future of urban design, Rizzoli, New York, USA, and the edited volume Urban Sustainability through Environmental Design, Routledge, 2007.