Determining causes of variance in ground-level aircraft noise: Combining in-situ noise and weather measurements with spatial aircraft data

Aircraft are a source of noise pollution in areas surrounding airports. Buildings shield or amplify local sound levels, albeit that the level of shielding varies considerably. The sound pressure levels reaching ground receivers in the built environment depend on flight position relative to the receiver, atmospheric and weather effects, and the...

Open Source Urbanism: Requirements for an Open Design Platform to Support an Emerging Concept

Citizens interested in the democratization of urban development processes experiment with the co-creation of public spaces. Some of them collect, improve, and share design blueprints and manuals of their projects on the internet with help of free and open source tools. As a result, they produce open source design manuals that can be used freely,...

Modality Environments: A Concept For Sustainability And Vitality In The Multi-Modal City

This paper reviews an idea of vital local high-street places with their walking spaces and economies founded in interfaces between neighbourhood and city (between walking and public transport/bicycle movement infrastructures). It then extends this idea to higher scales, considering interfaces between city and region, which have already been...

Drawing the subsurface: an integrative design approach

The sub-surface, with its man-made and natural components, plays an important, if not crucial, role in the urban climate and global energy transition. On the one hand, the sub-surface is associated with a variety of challenges such as subsidence, pollution, damage to infrastructure and shortages of space for new urban systems. On the other hand,...

Building Scenarios in Urban Energy Transition: A trans-disciplinary method for integrated spatial energy design

Within an energy transition process in the urban environment, a successful implementation of strategies requires the capacity of communities to develop and explore various visions and make decisions within an uncertain and complex context. To achieve a reduction of energy demand and to introduce technologies for production, storage and re-use of...

Cognitive aspects of movement in urban design

European high speed railway, understanding design contradictions for long-term urban architecture strategy

The theory of the natural urban transformation process: The relationship between street network configuration, density and degree of function mixture of built environments (poster)

The theory of the natural urban transformation process: The relationship between street network configuration, density and degree of function mixture of built environments (paper)

During the last decade, advances in software, spatial analyses methods, and improved capacity of computers have made it possible to quantitatively analyse morphological features of whole cities. This emerging trend of combining geographic information system (GIS) with traditional urban morphology brings some new insights into the evolving logic...

Generative Improvement of Street Networks Based on Space Syntax: Applied in a case study on an informal settlement in Jeddah

Space syntax is supposed to be an objective method for evaluating spatial configurations. Its contribution to a design process is dependent on the designer’s estimation. The paper describes a generative approach to finding particularly good interventions based on space syntax analyses of axial maps. More precisely, a case study was undertaken...

Parametric Maps for Performance-Based Urban Design: A lateral method for 3D urban design

Urban design is a complex process which deals with multitude of aspects to shape quality urban space. On one hand, we have quantitative aspects such as land use, building heights or floor space index which are tackled on top-down approach. On the other hand, we need to take into consideration more subjective, qualitative aspects such as building...

Modelling of Public Spaces: In the quest for methodology for material culture research

The relationship between the material settings and situational belonging to a more general notion of the culture of a given community remains the subject of inquiry of at least two scientific disciplines: anthropology and urban morphology studies. In this study an assessment of the various modelling platforms is performed with the objective of...

Parametric Design Strategies for Collaborative and Participatory Urban Design

Due to the complex nature of urban space and the multitude of interests vested in it, urban design can be described as a complex system. Various disciplines are involved in the analysis and development of urban space. In this respect, collaboration is key in creating socially and physically sustainable urban design. This paper, using a student...

Best Practices for Urban Densification: A decision-making support process using microclimate analysis methods and parametric models for optimizing urban climate comfort

This paper presents an approach for microclimate aware densification of urban areas by creating best practices for an in situ application for block-size urban developments. The discussed procedure generates and evaluates urban block types according to microclimate criteria by integrating climate and comfort parameters in the design process of...

A heat robust city: Case study designs for two neighbourhoods in the Netherlands

Urban Heat Islands in cities in the Netherlands are likely to increase due to a predicted climate change and the continuously increasing expansion and densification of cities, In contrast to rural areas cities are warmer because their paved surfaces retain heat, buildings block cooling winds and the lack of vegetation and water reduces...

The backbone of a City Information Model (CIM): Implementing a spatial data model for urban design

We have been witnessing an increased interest in a more holistic approach to urban design practice and education. In this paper we present a spatial data model for urban design that proposes the combination of urban environment feature classes with design process feature classes. This data model is implemented in a spatial database that becomes...

Heat mitigation in Dutch cities by the design of two case studies

Shaping decisions and processes for more sustainable urban environments

To know whether eco-cities or, indeed, any so-called sustainable urban environment, will be successful, an understanding is needed about how such places 'come into being'. Understanding how decisions have been made, who makes them and when and how they are made is crucial to ensuring that the 'right' people have been involved at 'right' time. In...