Abstract 
“Cities Are Part of the Climate Change Problem, But They Are Also a Key Part of the Solution" 
(Robert, 2009) Cities nowadays responsible for the larger part of global energy consumption, 
therefore major contributors of greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, cities have key 
capabilities to act on global climate change through their responsibilities over urban sectors like 
buildings. With the growing importance of the environment as a global issue, sustainability has 
been adopted as a common political goal, the United Nations world commission of environment 
and development defined sustainability as the ability of meeting the present needs without 
affecting the future generations capabilities to meet their own needs. The Responsive building 
envelopes are expected to play a significant role in new sustainable cities urban planning 
principles as a part of problem solving by preventing energy consumption in buildings, thus the 
urban environment as well, also they're valuable to boost the balance between several energy 
flows at single- and multi building scale, in addition to optimize user experience and indoor 
comfort by providing an interactive interface with the outdoors. Using responsive buildings 
envelopes could be utilized as a mean of decreasing carbon emissions in urban environment and 
can be integrated into sustainable new cities planning strategies. The aim of this research is 
investigating the role of responsive building facades in new sustainable urban planning and 
setting out planning strategies for new cities to design a network of responsive buildings in order 
to reduce urban energy consumption.