José Ripper Kós

Algorithmic approach toward Transit-Oriented Development neighborhoods: (Para)metric tools for evaluating and proposing rapid transit-based districts

This article focuses on the use of computational tools to provide dynamic assessment and optimized arrangements while planning and discussing interventions in urban areas. The objective is to address the use of algorithmic systems for generating and evaluating urban morphologies guided by Transit-Oriented Development principles. Transit-Oriented Development is an urban development model that considers geometric and measurable parameters for designing sustainable cities. It advocates compact mixed-use neighborhoods within walking distance to a variety of transportation options and amenities, seeking to result in optimized infrastructure provision and energy-efficient low-carbon districts. This article presents algorithmic experiments for the optimization of a rapid transit district, through its urban morphology and services’ location, providing an accurate Transit-Oriented Development modeling. The main findings of this study highlight that the combination of Transit-Oriented Development and algorithmic–parametric tools has the potential to significantly contribute to a process of responsible planning and, ultimately, to mitigate global warming.

Editorial: form[in]formation

Current design challenges and efforts have a close relationship to information.They deal with the progressive processes in which data is organized, and how this information can be communicated in various shapes and perceived as knowledge. Contemporary processes of design and production of objects, architecture and cities require digital manipulation of information.This manipulation has allowed the resurgence of design processes based on emerging shapes, using algorithms and grammar. It is this digital progress that allows for the information management of BIM and other protocols of collaborative tasks. It also allows the idea formation in virtual realities, or even incorporated by the matter itself, through CADCAM technologies. It is this process of formation, this continuous flux of reducing entropy that comprises our matter.This IJAC issue acknowledges this flux through the investigation of a great variety of form[in]formation processes.This issue’s contributions have presented a broad range of approaches to the topic.They move from the scale of the city to the object, from a theoretical essay to a pedagogic experience and introduce several noteworthy experiments to the readers.The papers sequentially progress from the scale of the urban public spaces, to the building and its location within the city, go on to the building itself, as a small house or a structure for shelter and to the object, represented by an array of solar panels or Zarzycki’s pedagogic experiments.Although Abondano’s essay focuses on the building scale, we assume that his text intertwines through all papers’ discussions. Form creation has relied on information throughout history. Information is embedded through various aspects, such as tectonics, symbols and ornaments. Recently, computation has significantly transformed architecture relationship between form and information.Abondano, refers to the “modernist denial of nature”, and its reconnection through computation. He also mentions the growing concern towards sustainability. He remarks that “sustainability was vital to the reacceptance of nature in architecture, not only as the supplier of natural resources, but also as a source of information”.Architects have sought for natural processes where living beings adapt to their environment.Adaptation is in fact a critical concept for this issue’s papers. Computation is a means to allow structures of different types and scales to adapt not only to their natural environment, but also to a multiplicity of other aspects, such as uses and users, economic conditions and built environment. This movement has also affected architecture education. Computation processes have been transferred from isolated experiments run by