Research in Urbanism Series
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Informal Collaborative Housing: The case of Chile and dwellings in 9x18 lots
Full text linkThe neighbourhoods 9X18 emerged from a housing policy promoted in the 60s in Chile. They represent today a particular way of collective habitat in relation to their neighbourhood scale and to the interior of each plot. They are territories constituted and built by familiar and community networks. In Santiago, they are 466 neighbourhoods, and 216.000 lots between 160 and 250 m2, with a 38% of public space surface and an excellent pericentral location. Here, there is a lot to observe, learn and protect; and a tremendous potential that needs to be explored and imagined from the understanding of their physical and immaterial patrimony and their opportunities for human-scale densification
Collective Housing in Chile: A historical reality with a possible future
Full text linkCollective habitat has been part of the housing history in Chile through the poor inhabitant's incursion in the city since more than one century. First, as round rooms, ‘cites’ and ‘conventillos’, and afterwards as ‘colectivos’. Later in informal settlements that evolved into self-organised and self-built neighbourhoods. During the last decades, in social condominiums. This form of co-habitation has adopted different shapes according to their historical moment, the spatial configuration of the places that inhabitants stayed or co-produced, the social and/or political organisation, the political and institutional context in which they were subscribed. Ones better than others were simultaneously embracing and configuring a specific model of habitat in which the base of ‘the collective’ is the historical memory, the tradition of organisation, and the parental and neighbours’ networks. Today, these collective ways of living remain in our cities opening paths for their consideration in programmes and projects of collective inhabit in the country
Beginnings of Geodesign: a personal historical perspective
Full text linkGeodesign is conceived as an iterative design method that uses stakeholder input, geospatial modeling, impact simulations, and real-time feedback to facilitate holistic designs and smart decisions. This paper aims to lay bare the beginnings of geodesign as such from 1965 onwards. It offers a personal historical perspective of Carl Steinitz, one of the protagonists in the field of geodesign. The paper describes some important milestones and influential people in a joint effort to bridge geo-information technology, spatial design and planning. It showcases the ongoing effort to employ the potential power of using GIS to link different model types and ways of designing to make better plans
Integrating Geodesign and game experiments for negotiating urban development
Full text linkIn this article we explore an expansion of geodesign to analyze processes of competition and cooperation by combining it with game-theoretical modelling and experiments. We test the applicability of facilitating these two fields in an integrated workshop by analysing the case study of oversupply of development sites in the Liemers corridor. Two workshops were held, with representatives of the six municipalities involved and with the regional and provincial authority, in which participants negotiated over the distribution of the supply of development sites. The workshops were performed around an interactive MapTable, with spatial information (from GIS) and financial information (from the game-theoretical model) being visualized in real-time. The integrated workshops were assessed to discover differences in terms of process and outcomes, and they examine whether and how learning takes place. We conclude that the combination of game theory and geodesign provides added value for planning support by facilitating a realistic discussion, and negotiation that is strongly connected to real-life locations, and by aiming at designing a common, collaborative solution. Through the integrated workshop learning about the problem of oversupply in financial and geographical terms and also about each other’s motives and behaviour is stimulated
Applications of GIS in landscape design research
Full text linkDespite its widespread availability there is evidence that GIS is underused in the realm of landscape design research. Though recognized as a useful tool for mapping and planning, the potential of GIS is often still underutilized due to a lack of awareness and prejudice. This paper explores some concepts of GIS-based analysis which link to the very heart of landscape architecture in a natural and intuitive way. Hence the possibility to break down barriers of using GIS in landscape architecture this paper aims to put forward some characteristic principles of study and practice that can be made operational via GIS while cultivating spatial intelligence in landscape design through exploiting its powerful integrating, analytical and graphical capacities. In this respect educational and research institutions have an important role to play, they must take the lead in knowledge acquisition on GIS-applications and passing it on, contributing to the academic underpinning and development of a digital culture in landscape architecture
From Metaplanning to PSS 2.0: Exploring the architecture of Geodesign as a process
Full text linkThis paper explores the perspective of geodesign as a process. As such, it is argued methods and tools are needed to manage the process complexity, including the definition of the involved parties, of their roles and responsibilities, as well as all the steps to be undertaken to unfold the process, together with their underlying methods and enabling technologies and tools. A metaplanning operational approach based on Business Process Management is proposed to deal with the process complexity and eventually as a means to support the construction of a second generation of process-oriented Planning Support Systems. The overall discussion is supported by practical examples aiming at demonstrating how the Business Process Modelling and Notation language can be used to represent the planning processes from high level overview models to detailed ones which can express geodesign methods and enabling technologies
Combining GIS and BIM for facility reuse: A profiling approach
Full text linkLingering vacant facilities deteriorate the condition of an urban environment, and, as a consequence, actuate neighboring companies to leave the area as well. In addition, new development efforts keep depleting scarce land resources. In this paper, a framework is presented to match existing vacant facilities to the requirements of potential customers or owners to promote sustainable redevelopment and reuse. Important attributes for facility reuse are identified from literature. To automatically extract these attributes from models and their surroundings, Geospatial information and Building Information Models (BIM) are combined. In the proposed framework, a profile is created for each existing vacant facility by combining BIM and GIS attributes. As a result, these profiles can be matched to the desired BIM model, which the aspiring users have provided, based on a weighted distance calculation. The framework presents the most suitable vacant facilities to the users in order to promote facility reuse. These facility reuse alternatives are evaluated based on a single monetary metric that represents the effort required to partially or fully accommodate the requirements of the aspiring users, which is reflected in the weighted distance between profiles from existing vacant facilities and the facility desired by the end-user. This framework identifies suitable areas for redevelopment after which a process is started that forms an iterative and comprehensive evaluation dialog between demand and supply parties, on multiple scale levels, including various design alternatives to adapt the existing facility to the desires of the consumer and revitalize the surroundings according to Geodesign principles. A proof-of-concept of the framework is presented together with the conceptual system structure. Evaluation of the attributes and the technical implementation of their extraction from BIM and GIS data show the technical feasibility of the approach
Geo-Design: Advances in bridging geo-information technology, urban planning and landscape architecture
Full text linkGeodesign is a GIS-based planning and design method, which tightly couples the creation of design proposals with impact simulations informed by geographic contexts. Geodesign as such comprises a set of geo-information technology driven methods and techniques for planning built and natural environments in an integrated process, and includes project conceptualization, analysis, design specification, stakeholder participation and collaboration. Though the origins of this concept can be traced back to the early1960’s – and without computers to the end of the nineteenth century – from 2005 onwards the term geodesign was introduced in order to (re-)present GIS (geographic information systems) as an instrument for planning and design. In fact it is an attempt to bridge the possibilities of geo-information technology and the needs of urban landscape research, planning and design. This is needed because often GIS is recognized as a useful tool but the potential of GIS is still underutilized in these fields, often due to a lack of awareness and prejudice.
Geodesign. Advances in bridging geo-information technology, urban planning and landscape architecture brings together a wide variety of contributions from authors with backgrounds in urban planning, landscape architecture, education and geo-information technology presenting the latest insights and applications of geodesign. Geo-Design is here understood as a hybridisation of the concepts “Geo” – representing the modelling, analytical and visualization capacities of GIS, and “Design” – representing spatial planning and design, turning existing situations into preferred ones. Through focusing on interdisciplinary design-related concepts and applications of GIS international experts share their recent findings and provide clues for the further development of geodesign. This is important since there is still much to do. Not only in the development of geo-information technology, but especially in bridging the gap with the design-disciplines. The uptake on using GIS is still remarkably slow among landscape architects, urban designers and planners, and when utilised it is often restricted to the basic tasks of mapmaking and data access. Knowledge development and dissemination of applications of geodesign through research, publications and education therefore remain key factors. This publication draws upon the insights shared at the Geodesign Summit Europe held at Delft University of Technology in 2014. All contributions in the book are double blind reviewed by experts in the field.
The publication starts with a personal historical perspective by Carl Steinitz, one of the founding fathers of geodesign. Further contributions are organized thematically in three parts. The papers in part 1 focus on advances, applications and challenges of geodesign in spatial planning and design. Part 2 treats more specific issues and applications of geodesign related to land use, urban and facility management. Part 3 presents some interesting cases of geodesign education. While all the papers address the wider scope of geodesign they also treat synthetic positions that overarch the whole variety of aspects touched upon, either thematically or in a specific place
Geodesign the multi-layered water safety
Full text linkThis paper aims to frame the multi-layered water safety concept in the context of a systematic, thorough, multidisciplinary and collaborative methodology for complex problems solving, i.e. geodesign. Multi-layered safety is an integrated flood risk management (FRM) concept based not only on flood probability reduction through prevention (layer 1), but also on consequences’ minimization in the case of a flood through spatial solutions (layer 2) and crisis management (layer 3). It has been introduced in the Netherlands in 2009 following the European Flood Risk Directive adopted in 2007. In this study, the multi-layered safety is qualitatively assessed, demonstrating that it rather resembles a parallel system, and that collaboration is required to decide about the most desirable safety measures, which should not only be based on their economic efficiency but also on their social acceptability. In the light of these factors, we attempt to methodologically systematize the multi-layered safety concept by following the geodesign framework. The latter means that, through its implementation, understanding of the current situation of a particular area of interest, which in turn it may support, the allocation of weights regarding the three layers of the multi-tier safety concept is facilitated. Furthermore, the geodesign of the multi-layered safety shows that participation and interaction of the safety policy makers, as well as iterations for achieving maximum consensus between them concerning the more balanced safety measures, taking into account their economic efficiency, their impact on the environment, the local circumstances and the values of the people at place, are methodologically enabled
Integrating Virtual Reality, Motion Simulation and a 4D GIS
Full text linkGeodesign requires the visualization of concepts and ideas within a context of geo-information of the respective place in a way that is understandable to people with different backgrounds – planners, geographers, architects, but also the users or inhabitants of the place. All of the roles involved have different requirements and need different information to fulfil their tasks within the geodesign process. In this contribution, we present the structure of a software system combining a GIS, a simulation system and a VR component, as well as interfaces to different interaction devices (like a GPS receiver, a spacemouse, multi-screen projection systems or devices for haptic feedback). This enables simulations of the place in its geographical context, as well as immersive presentations that are understandable regardless of the knowledge of a plan’s symbolic language. All this happens without the need to convert frequently between the software tools that are commonly used by the different roles