Visual communication in urban planning and urban design

This report documents the current status of visual communication in urban design and planning. Visual communication is examined through discussion of standalone and network media, specifically concentrating on visualisation on the World Wide Web(WWW).Firstly, we examine the use of Solid and Geometric Modelling for visualising urban planning and urban design. This report documents and compares examples of the use of Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) and proprietary WWW based Virtual Reality modelling software. Examples include the modelling of Bath and Glasgow using both VRML 1.0 and 2.0. A review is carried out on the use of Virtual Worldsand their role in visualising urban form within multi-user environments. The use of Virtual Worlds is developed into a case study of the possibilities and limitations of Virtual Internet Design Arenas (ViDAs), an initiative undertaken at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London. The use of Virtual Worlds and their development towards ViDAs is seen as one of the most important developments in visual communication for urban planning and urban design since the development plan.Secondly, photorealistic media in the process of communicating plans is examined.The process of creating photorealistic media is documented, examples of the Virtual Streetscape and Wired Whitehall Virtual Urban Interface System are provided. The conclusion is drawn that although the use of photo-realistic media on the WWW provides a way to visually communicate planning information, its use is limited. The merging of photorealistic media and solid geometric modelling is reviewed in the creation of Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality is seen to provide an important step forward in the ability to quickly and easily visualise urban planning and urban design information.Thirdly, the role of visual communication of planning data through GIS is examined interms of desktop, three dimensional and Internet based GIS systems. The evolution to Internet GIS is seen as a critical component in the development of virtual cities which will allow urban planners and urban designers to visualise and model the complexity of the built environment in networked virtual reality.Finally a viewpoint is put forward of the Virtual City, linking Internet GIS with photorealistic multi-user Virtual Worlds. At present there are constraints on how far virtual cities can be developed, but a view is provided on how these networked virtual worlds are developing to aid visual communication in urban planning and urban design

Taking time to understand: articulating relationships between technologies and organizations

Dynamic relationships between technologies and organizations are investigated through research on digital visualization technologies and their use in the construction sector. Theoretical work highlights mutual adaptation between technologies and organizations but does not explain instances of sustained, sudden, or increasing maladaptation. By focusing on the technological field, I draw attention to hierarchical structuring around inter-dependent levels of technology; technological priorities of diverse groups; power asymmetries and disjunctures between contexts of development and use. For complex technologies, such as digital technologies, I argue these field-level features explain why organizations peripheral to the field may experience difficulty using emerging technology

GIS and urban design

Although urban planning has used computer models and information systems sincethe 1950s and architectural practice has recently restructured to the use of computeraideddesign (CAD) and computer drafting software, urban design has hardly beentouched by the digital world. This is about to change as very fine scale spatial datarelevant to such design becomes routinely available, as 2dimensional GIS(geographic information systems) become linked to 3dimensional CAD packages,and as other kinds of photorealistic media are increasingly being fused with thesesoftware. In this chapter, we present the role of GIS in urban design, outlining whatcurrent desktop software is capable of and showing how various new techniques canbe developed which make such software highly suitable as basis for urban design.We first outline the nature of urban design and then present ideas about how varioussoftware might form a tool kit to aid its process. We then look in turn at: utilisingstandard mapping capabilities within GIS relevant to urban design; buildingfunctional extensions to GIS which measure local scale accessibility; providingsketch planning capability in GIS and linking 2-d to 3-d visualisations using low costnet-enabled CAD browsers. We finally conclude with some speculations on thefuture of GIS for urban design across networks whereby a wide range of participantsmight engage in the design process digitally but remotely

New technologies for urban designers: the VENUE project

In this report, we first outline the basic idea of VENUE. This involves developing digital tools froma foundation of geographic information systems (GIS) software which we then apply to urbandesign, a subject area and profession which has little tradition in using such tools. Our project wasto develop two types of tool, namely functional analysis based on embedding models of movementin local environments into GIS based on ideas from the field of space syntax; and secondlyfashioning these ideas in a wider digital context in which the entire range of GIS technologies werebrought to bear at the local scale. By local scale, we mean the representation of urban environmentsfrom about 1: 500 to around 1: 2500

Online participation: the Woodberry Down experiment

The internet and world wide web are generating radical changes in the way we are able tocommunicate. Our ability to engage communities and individuals in designing theirenvironment is also beginning to change as new digital media provide ways in whichindividuals and groups can interact with planners and politicians in exploring their future.This paper tells the story of how the residents of one of the most disadvantagedcommunities in Britain ? the Woodberry Down Estate in the London borough ofHackney ? have begun to use an online system which delivers everything from routineservices about their housing to ideas about options for their future. Woodberry Down isone of the biggest regeneration projects in Western Europe. It will take at least 10 years,probably much longer, to complete, at a cost of over £150 million. Online participation isone of the many ways in which this community is being engaged but as we will show, itis beginning to act as a catalyst. The kinds of networks which are evolving aroundsystems like these will change the nature of participation itself, the ways we need to thinkabout it, and the ways we need to respond. Before the experiment is described, we set thecontext by describing the wide range of digital media for communicating plans andplanning which suggests a new typology for web participation consistent with this fastemerging network culture

Is spatial intelligibility critical to the design of largescale virtual environments?

This paper discusses the concept of 'intelligibility', a concept usually attributed to the design of real-world environments and suggests how it might be applied to the construction of virtual environments. In order to illustrate this concept, a 3d, online, collaborative environment, AlphaWorld, is analyzed in a manner analogous to spatial analysis techniques applied to cities in the real world. The outcome of this form of spatial analysis is that AlphaWorld appears to be highly 'intelligible' at the small-scale, 'local neighborhood' level, and yet is completely 'unintelligible' at a global level. This paper concludes with a discussion of the relevance of this finding to virtual environment design plus future research applications

VRML Virtual Worlds - An Alternative to the Desktop Metaphor for GUI's?

Metaphors are commonly used by software developers in the creation of GUI's. This paper looks at the use of multi-user VRML to create virtual metaphors, developing a conceptual design tool that can be used intuitively with little or no training