A tangible interface for collaborative urban design for energy efficiency, daylighting, and walkability

Abstract

An increasingly urbanizing human population presents new challenges for urban planners and designers. While the applicability of urban design tools for simulation experts is constantly improving, urban development scenarios require the input of multiple stakeholders, each with different outlooks, expertise, requirements, and preconceptions, and good urban design requires communication and compromise as much as it requires effective use of tools. The best tools will facilitate this communication while remaining evidence-based, allowing diverse planning teams to develop high quality, healthy, sustainable urban proposals. Presented in this paper is a new such tool, implemented as a tangible user interface, that allows varied stakeholders to quickly collaborate on creation and exploration of new urban design solutions. The tool provides performance feedback for a neighborhood’s operational energy costs, daylight availability, and walkability. Fast interaction is attained through a novel precalculation method that is also presented and validated. Details of the tool’s deployment as part of a case study that was conducted with members of the planning commission of Riyadh, SA, in March 2015 are given.