The Urban Decision Room: A multi actor design engineering simulation system

This paper deals with the definition and construction of a decision based multi actor urban design model which enables the integration of the allocation of a variety of urban land uses with the distribution of different urban functions: the Urban Decision Room. Urban design (and planning) is, among others things, about the spatial distribution of human activities and their physical facilities like buildings, roads, green areas etc. in amount, place and time over a well-defined area. In the Urban Decision Room the individual and specific visions and knowledge of the various participating parties with regard to the development area in question, are translated into individual and specific negotiable preferences for particular solutions for that area. By processing these preferences simultaneously and interactively in an Urban Decision Room, as opposed to dealing with them successively as in traditional design teams, the result is not a series of plan variants, but one common solution space.Real Estate and HousingArchitectur

Design of sustainable complex industrial port areas, based on the combination of sub-solutions, illustrated with a case

Design engineers working in design and planning of urban and industrial areas are confronted more and more frequently with complex solution spaces, filled with hundreds of alternative combinations of possible sub-solutions supplied by a host of specialists. As a result of this, their quest for the optimum design tends increasingly to run aground in too many options, too many opinions and too many alternatives. This paper sets out an approach for decision-based design by means of the combination of sub-solutions. Ideas from management theory and operations research, and mathematical models which make these ideas operational, can aid in bringing the design and planning process to a successful conclusion. The focus is on a collaborative approach to design and urban planning, and project management. While the design objects are modeled in computer models, the decisionmaking process is modeled in the interactions of the stakeholders with the tools and each other