Justyna Karakiewicz

Public Open Space and Walking: The Role of Proximity, Perceptual Qualities of the Surrounding Built Environment, and Street Configuration

This study examined how proximity and attractiveness of public open spaces (POSs), perceptions of the surrounding built environment, and street configuration were associated with walking to and within POSs. Residents from three neighborhoods in Melbourne (N = 335) completed a questionnaire about walking and perceptions of their neighborhood, and geographic information systems and space syntax measures were used to assess proximity of POSs and street configuration. Proximity and attractiveness of POSs were not associated with POS-related walking. However, several perceptual qualities of the built environment, including safety from crime and traffic and aesthetics, were associated with greater walking. As well, persons living in areas with the most integrated street configurations reported less POS-related walking. Neighborhood perceptions and street configuration are key urban design issues to consider in promoting residents’ use of POS for walking.

Rethinking Parameters in Urban Design

This paper describes the unique coupling of an architectural urban design studio with an in-depth digital media course for the purpose of exploring new avenues of architectural expression, urban form-finding, and communication through the exploration of urban parameters. By merging descriptive parameters of urban situations with digital parametric tools, the understanding of urban design processes was enhanced by the possibility to perceive and comprehend larger problems of spatial urban experiences. The paper discusses how variables, goals, and outcomes of this urban design studio, as well as its integration with digital parametric design, allowed the participants to create an innovative urban design language. It reviews the implications for design education, as well as for the understanding and communication of complex urban designs that are responsive to a variety of parameters. This work lies in the tradition of artists who push media to explore new interpretations of both the media themselves and of their artwork as much as it does of the use of parametric systems as technological tools.

Algogram: Automated Diagrams for an Architectural Design Studio

Building on a previously presented theoretical model for the integration of cellular automata into the design process, this paper introduces cellular automata as architectural design process support in the form of automated conceptual diagrams. This approach is the outcome of a series of successive software implementations, which are briefly outlined in terms of key features and observations made during their applications. The main part of the paper focuses on Algogram, the latest implementation, and its application in a second year design studio. The integrated concept of abstract representations, automated design exploration and individual interpretation is introduced as automated diagram.

The Next City and Complex Adaptive Systems

Urban futures are typically conceptualized as starting anew; an urban future is usually represented as a quest for an ideal state, replacing the status quo with visionary statement about ‘better’ futures. Repeatedly, propositions reinvent the way we live, work and play. The major urban innovations for the changing cityscape from the last 100 years, however, have opportunistically taken advantage of unprecedented technical developments in infrastructure rather than be drawn from architectural inventions in their right, such as telecommunications, services, utilities, point-to-point rapid transit including the elevator. Howard’s Garden City therefore presaged the suburb, just as Le Corbusier et al. proposed the erasure of significant sections of inner city Barcelona and Paris to replace them with the newly contrived towers; the city reformed as the significantly more mobile and dense ‘Ville Radieuse’. More recently Masdar emerged from virgin sand and Milton Keynes from pristine pasture, serving as counterpoints to the paradigm of erasure and rebuild. Despite all these advances in technology and science, little has changed in the paradigm of urban form; the choices we have today are largely restricted to the suburban house or the apartment in the tower. Should the “next city” offer an alternative vision for the future, and what new design processes are required to realize the next city?

Distributed and Heterogeneous Data Analysis for Smart Urban Planning

Over the past decade, ‘smart’ cities have capitalized on new technologies and insights to transform their systems, operations and services. The rationale behind the use of these technologies is that an evidence-based, analytical approach to decision-making will lead to more robust and sustainable outcomes. However, harvesting high-quality data from the dense network of sensors embedded in the urban infrastructure, and combining this data with social network data, poses many challenges. In this paper, we investigate the use of an intelligent middleware – Device Nimbus – to support data capture and analysis techniques to inform urban planning and design. We report results from a ‘Living Campus’ experiment at the University of Melbourne, Australia focused on a public learning space case study. Local perspectives, collected via crowd sourcing, are combined with distributed and heterogeneous environmental sensor data. Our analysis shows that Device Nimbus’ data integration and intelligent modules provide high-quality support for decision-making and planning.

Generation and Exploration of Architectural Form Using a Composite Cellular Automata

In this paper, we introduce a composite Cellular Automata (CA) to explore digital morphogenesis in architecture. Consisting of multiple interleaved one dimensional CA, our model evolves the boundaries of spatial units in cross sectional diagrams. We investigate the efficacy of this approach by systematically varying initial conditions and transition rules. Simulation experiments show that the composite CA can generate aggregate spatial units to match the characteristics of specific spatial configurations, using a well-known architectural landmark as a benchmark. Significantly, spatial patterns emerge as a consequence of the evolution of the system, rather than from prescriptive design decisions.

A Morphogenetic Design Strategy Using a Composite CA Model

In this paper, we present an exploration of digital morphogenesis in architecture, using a composite Cellular Automata (CA). This model allows us to produce a vast array of different spatial topologies by evolving the boundaries of spatial units. This approach focuses on the formation of spatial patterns, where their characteristics emerge as consequence of the evolution of the system, rather than being prescribed by design. The experiment presented her investigates whether the composite CA is capable of generating aggregate spatial units to match the characteristics of specific spatial configurations.

Interventions in Complex Urban Systems: How to Enable Modeling to Account for Disruptive Innovation

This chapter will illustrate how Adaptive Cycles and Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) can be applied to allow us to gain better understanding of our cities and how our ability to innovate can allows us to introduce disturbance into specific urban systems that could promote more resilient and more sustainable futures.

Pedestrian as Generator: Implementing a Stand-Alone Piezo Power Generating Device in the Urban Context

During the past decade the implementation of energy harvesting sensor technology, at micro scale, has occurred due to the rapid growth of low-powered device usage, such as mobile phones, laptops, and the development of LED lights significantly increasing in efficiency. Studies have demonstrated that the ability of this technology to harvest energy from the human body, such as footfalls, can be used in the generation of electricity. Piezoelectric sensor technology has been investigated for this purpose, due to its significant advancement in the efficiency and its application in a variety of designs. This research investigates how pedestrians can become generators of their own service, through the use of piezoelectric sensor technology, in the form of safety lighting. Proposed urban design scenarios explore the opportunity implementing a piezo power-generating device along high traffic pedestrians pathways in the City of Melbourne (Australia), evaluating real time and storage options, considering harvesting the energy during the day and using it at night time when needed.

BIM-PIM-CIM: The Challenges of Modelling Urban Design Behaviours Between Building and City Scales

This paper discusses the challenges that designers face when modelling the anticipated behaviours of people: their movement and transactions around and within precinct scale development. Building Information Modelling (BIM) software philosophy contrasts with that of City Information Modelling (CIM)—the route by which we consider how precinct scale development, being somewhere between the two (BIM and CIM), requires a wholly different approach to information and behaviour modelling. The authors offer evidence of the value of augmenting the planners’ analytical approach with the architects’ synthesis from data leading to meaningful speculations on otherwise unanticipated future scenarios for the precinct far beyond expectation. Novel approaches to modelling behaviour at precinct scale suggest alternative readings of precincts, which require a wider set of approaches to Precinct Information Modelling (PIM) software development than simply an expansion of BIM.