Tadeja Zupancic

Virtual Worlds as Support Tools for Public Engagement in Urban Design

The purpose of this chapter is to show how important it is to use visualization techniques for enhancing public participation in creating smart cities. The chapter focuses on exploring people’s opinions with regard to urban design, and on exploring new media and digital tools for public engagement. More specifically, it focuses on exploring the potential of using virtual worlds in the process of urban design from the first stages of the design process to the construction and maintenance phases. Quantitative and qualitative research methods have been used for the purposes of this chapter. The Terf virtual world is explored as a laboratory for interdisciplinary collaboration in urban design as well as an interface allowing involvement of different actors within a public participatory process. The final part of this chapter offers guidelines for future development of support tools for public engagement, especially concerning the Terf virtual world, and their potential use by municipalities.

E-Learning in Architecture: Professional and Lifelong Learning Prospects

E-learning in architectural and spatially related fields can be examined from two different perspectives, each having quite specific and complex implications. By discussing e-learning in architecture we inspect the scope of e-learning tools and practices within the architectural domain, the visual nature of education and professional training of architects, and the state of the art of e-learning implementations, together with their practicality and limitations. While these are the first areas that come to mind when considering e-learning in relation to architecture, there is another also very relevant and sometimes overlooked aspect: that of e-learning about architecture. In the latter, we introduce not only the professional but also the broader, non-expert public into the process of acting within, and shaping of, their spatial environments. This aspect raises burning questions regarding the communication abilities of the actors involved, holding their attention, ingraining sustainable principles and getting the messages across the invisible, but perennial expert / non-expert divide. E-learning in and about architecture not only offers opportunities for both sides to learn but also to get to know each other better. The chapter first introduces and highlights the common aspects of e-learning within the architectural domain, followed by e-learning for experts, through what we have named e-learning in architecture, describing specifics and presenting an example of one of the e-learning initiatives. It is followed by a subchapter describing aspects of e-learning about architecture and sustainable principles of space interventions for broader audience of nonexperts involved in the lifelong learning processes (LLP). Similarly, the subchapter concludes with an example of an e-learning tool in action and the reflections on the research presented. The chapter concludes with discussions of ‘lessons learned’ and ranking of new opportunities in professional and lifelong e-learning prospects in architecture and its related fields.

Beliefs about the environment: moving from the egocentric towards the ecocentric perspective

Our behaviour towards the environment depends on our beliefs about the environment. Beliefs, however, are a subject of change, particularly during important life transitions such as the transition to adolescence, because this is a period when an individual develops the ability of complex and abstract reasoning. Understanding this transition is therefore crucial for understanding and predicting the attitudes and courses of action in terms of sustainable development later in life. Due to many methodological constraints, the number of empirical studies examining these issues is very limited; the current study aimed to collect empirical data to explore the origins of our beliefs about the environment-related issues. We devised a picture association test and used it to compare children’s and adolescents’ beliefs about our environment in the context of the means of transportation. A large sample of 2264 participants aged 6–18 years took part in the study. The data supported the claim that children’s beliefs about environment share egocentric properties. The findings represent an important puzzle into the whole picture of children’s thinking and offer us great insight into the origins of beliefs about environment-related questions in adults. Educational implications are addressed.

Widening the Scope and Scale of Sustainability Assessments in Built Environments: From Passive House to Active Neighbourhood

Abstract The paper provide an insight into the research conducted by the University of Ljubljana, and the Urban institute of Slovenia committed to the assessment of the efficiency related to the management of local resources at the level of neighbourhoods. The reduction of energy consumption and energy efficient built environments are key objectives of many sustainability agendas which is followed by suitable assessment methods in urban analytics. However, there are two important hesitations occurring: first, traditional assessment methods that focus solely on the energy reduction and efficiency are often too narrow in their analysis and limited in their scope of impact. According to the recent advances in research worldwide, efforts solely related to reduction of energy consumption will unlikely lead to more responsive environments or rise the living quality. Thus, more comprehensive methodologies for assessing and monitoring the change and transformation in built environments shall be sought for to reach long-term sustainability. Second, to date, the majority of the evaluation methods - whether focusing to energy consumption or broader sustainability issues - are building- or household- oriented, thus systematically examining separate spatial and social entities, but neglecting the spaces between, the holistic aspect and the community aspect. The research develops structured evaluation model, where two main research pillars are addressed: 1) the development of the structured and modular system of indicators; and 2) the development of the methodology to interpret the resulting values. The paper presents first two stages of the research process and subjects the outcomes to the debate.

Criteria for Cooperative Urban Design through Digital System of Design Tools

Urban design is a public collaborative activity, which deals with our building environment. We all want to make urban areas pleasant and functional. Both lay public and professionals have to be included in the design process. They have different knowledge backgrounds and expertise, but they need to communicate and collaborate with each other, using a wide variety of digital tools available. However, it can be argued, that existing interfaces cannot meet the needs of this communication process: one of the main problems is that they are not integrated into a recognizable system of tools for public participation in urban design. At different stages of public participation in urban design special needs for specific digital tools can be identified (e.g. digital tools for decision making process, digital tool for informing lay public etc.). These stages and their related suitable digital tools will be defined in the following article as starting points for the development of the digital system of tools mentioned above. 3D city models represent a special digital tool for communication and collaboration between lay public and professionals through the whole process of participation. They are really important for visualization and simulation in cooperative design. The criteria for cooperative design using the 3D city models will be defined in this article: as essential elements of the digital system of urban design collaboration and communication tools.