Wayfinding Search Strategies and Matching Familiarity in the Built Environment through Virtual Navigation

AbstractThere is an underestimation of the conscious and unconscious wayfinding search strategies in a virtual built environment without signage information. Wayfinding is the process of determining and following a path or route between an origin and destination. This is the base of the experiment discussed in this paper. Herein, the assignment was to find the destination and then return to origin in a virtual maze-like building. Subjects perform three different assignments given different locations for the destination and the start; each assignment was repeated two times subsequently. Each of the routes was recorded. Analysis of the recorded data shows a significant increasing familiarity of wayfinding. Furthermore, the increase of the number of subjects, who had chooses a route with minimal links for performing subsequent routes, is striking. That indicates whether or not consciously applying a search strategy. This paper reports about the results of analysis of familiarity and search strategies

Combining GIS and BIM for facility reuse: A profiling approach

Lingering vacant facilities deteriorate the condition of an urban environment, and, as a consequence, actuate neighboring companies to leave the area as well. In addition, new development efforts keep depleting scarce land resources. In this paper, a framework is presented to match existing vacant facilities to the requirements of potential customers or owners to promote sustainable redevelopment and reuse. Important attributes for facility reuse are identified from literature. To automatically extract these attributes from models and their surroundings, Geospatial information and Building Information Models (BIM) are combined. In the proposed framework, a profile is created for each existing vacant facility by combining BIM and GIS attributes. As a result, these profiles can be matched to the desired BIM model, which the aspiring users have provided, based on a weighted distance calculation. The framework presents the most suitable vacant facilities to the users in order to promote facility reuse. These facility reuse alternatives are evaluated based on a single monetary metric that represents the effort required to partially or fully accommodate the requirements of the aspiring users, which is reflected in the weighted distance between profiles from existing vacant facilities and the facility desired by the end-user. This framework identifies suitable areas for redevelopment after which a process is started that forms an iterative and comprehensive evaluation dialog between demand and supply parties, on multiple scale levels, including various design alternatives to adapt the existing facility to the desires of the consumer and revitalize the surroundings according to Geodesign principles. A proof-of-concept of the framework is presented together with the conceptual system structure. Evaluation of the attributes and the technical implementation of their extraction from BIM and GIS data show the technical feasibility of the approach

Land Use Spatial Optimization Using Accessibility Maps to Integrate Land Use and Transport in Urban Areas

The scarcity of urban land resources requires a well-organized spatial layout of land use to better accommodate human activities, however, as a widely accepted concept, the integration of land use and transport is not given due consideration in land use spatial optimization (LUSO). This paper aims to integrate land use and transport in LUSO to support urban land use planning. Maximizing accessibility fitness, which follows the underlying logic between land use types and transport characteristics, is introduced into multi-objective land use spatial optimization (MOLUSO) modelling to address transport considerations, together with widely-used objectives such as maximizing compactness, compatibility, and suitability. The transport characteristics, in this study, are identified by driving accessibility, cycling accessibility, and walking accessibility. Accessibility maps, which quantify and visualize the spatial variances in accessibility fitness for different land use types, are developed based on the empirical results of the relationship between land use types and transport characteristics for LUSO and addressing policy issues. The 4-objective LUSO model and a corresponding non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) based optimization method constitute a prototype decision support system (DSS) for urban land use planning. Decision-makers (e.g., planning departments) can choose an ideal solution to accommodate urban development needs from a set of Pareto-optimal alternatives generated by the DSS. The approaches to creating accessibility maps and MOLUSO modelling are demonstrated by the case study of Eindhoven, the Netherlands. This study advocates limited changes to the current land use pattern in urban planning, and the LUSO emphasizes urban renewal and upgrading rather than new town planning.</p

Measuring Regional Sustainability by a Coordinated Development Model of Economy, Society, and Environment: A Case Study of Hubei Province

AbstractRegional sustainability concerns a complex system that mainly consists of three subsystems, being the economy, society, and the environment. A complex system involves intensive interactions and correlations among its components. Therefore, the way how these components are organized to work together efficiently is of great significance to the development of a complex system. For that reason, measuring regional sustainability should not only focus on changes in each subsystem individually, but also consider the interactions and relationships among the subsystems. In this paper, we apply a modified method to assess coordinated development, which highlights the simultaneous promotions of economic grow, social well-being, and environment al conservation. By introducing the model of coordinated development, we evaluate the sustainable development of Hubei province which is a typical region in Central China. The result shows that Hubei performed poorly in coordinated development. Although the coordinated development index was consistently increasing, the speed was very slow. In a detailed analysis of the economic, societal, and environmental subsystems in Hubei, the shortage of an economic driving force was found the main cause of the poor development of Hubei Province

Industrial symbiosis software: software and method to facilitate industrial symbiosis

Bedrijven gaan tegenwoordig vooral lineair om met hun materialen. Grondstoffen komen binnen, worden verwerkt tot producten en hun afval wordt afgevoerd. Binnen één bedrijf ziet dit er logisch uit, maar in een systeem van meerdere bedrijven is te zien dat dit efficiënter kan. Als het afval van een bedrijf gebruikt zou worden als grondstof door een ander bedrijf, ontstaat er industriële symbiose. Daardoor worden er minder grondstoffen verbruikt en worden bruikbare restmaterialen niet verspild. Om bedrijven te helpen bij het zoeken naar partners voor zulke uitwisselingen, is de software InduSym ontwikkeld. Met de software kunnen bedrijven hun grondstoffen en restmateriaal invoeren in een database. Een algoritme doorzoekt deze database en presenteert in een rapport de kansen om te komen tot een symbiotische uitwisseling van reststromen

Leveraging Newly Available Big Data for Urban Architectural Heritage: Designing a Recommendation System for Heritage Sites through the Lens of Social Media

Urban heritage sites are essential part of the cities, because they reflect the historical background of societies and create attraction for tourism industry. However, as tourism industry focuses exclusively on economic growth, usually historical urban cores are under the pressure of mass tourism and urbanization, causing negative experiences for residents and visitors such as overcrowd, nuisance and waste. Therefore, there is a need to understand what attributes attract visitors to certain heritage sites and which heritage sites are overrepresented in space and time, so that recommendations can be given to the visitors and local government in order to reduce the negative impacts of mass tourism. On the other hand, the rise of Internet usage has fundamentally changed the perception for built environment. People are able to reflect own ideas or opinions leaving behind their digital footprints within urban areas. Such digital footprints can be collected as datasets that reflect people’s behaviors and opinion in time and space. In this respect, the aim of this paper is to define a common framework for extracting information on the attractiveness and representation ofheritage sites by using spatial big data. This paper reports a conceptual framework in order to investigate the motivations of visitors to visit the heritage sites and the influences of their visitations to the heritage sites by exploiting spatial big data and analytics. Moreover, a bibliometric network among the keywords related to existing state-of-the-art is revealed in the literature review section by using VOSviewer. The paper will conclude with discussions on how the results of the proposed framework can contribute to designing positive tourist experiences in overly touristic historical cities. Furthermore, Destination Management Organizations (DMO’s) can benefit from the results of this proposed framework since they can develop urban facilities in more peripheral areas instead of heavily touristified zones

Chapter 2 The urban living lab as an adaptive governance mechanism for the transdisciplinary Food-Water-Energy nexus

Chapter 2: Engaging end-users in the Food-Water-Energy (FWE) nexus process has recently become a core concept, though the practice is often diverse across social contexts. Improving the governance mechanism of nexus complexity and facilitating more inclusive resource management requires adaptive user-centred approaches. An approach that currently shows promise is the urban living lab (ULL), in which urban communities, as the end-users of urban products and services, engage in a problem-solving process together with other stakeholders towards urban development. ULLs are a sort of joint urban governance that provide opportunities created by the integration of multiple disciplines to address FWE nexus challenges. However, there is a great need for the FWE nexus approach to clarify how a ULL can best be organised and integrated into the local governance structure. This research aims to help cities broaden their knowledge of engaging end-users in the FWE nexus processes through an examination of how the ULL approach has been operationalised in the governance structure of a number of nexus-emphasised cities. This is undertaken through the analysis of empirical evidence acquired from six local case studies. The chapter concludes that integrating the fields of participatory modelling methods, the ULL approach, and the FWE nexus will considerably advance cities’ capabilities in accomplishing the concept of transdisciplinarity for more sustainable environmental and natural resources management

Analysis of Built Environment Influence on Pedestrian route choice behavior in Dutch Design Week using GPS Data

Visitors not only have specific destinations targeting the Dutch Design Week (DDW) exhibitions distributed all over the city, but also visit the city in between exhibition activities. The mixed environment makes modeling behavior of DDW visitors more complex than shoppers and tourisms only. This research pays special attention to the influence of built environment on pedestrian route choice. The built environment includes building and transportation infrastructure. GPS tracking data and social demographic information were collected during the event. Multinomial logit model and path size logit model are used to analysis route choice behavior. The results show that some built environment factors have significant influence on route choice. Shops are more attractive for aged visitors. Females prefer shorter routes more. In big event, the alternative routes with more sharing links could increase the possibility to choose