scholarly journals Virtual Environments as Medium for Laypeople’s Communication and Collaboration in Urban Design

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Shuva Chowdhury
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Relative Effectiveness ◽  
Complex Activity ◽  
Exploration Process ◽  
Design Collaboration ◽  
Design Ideas

<p>The distance between urban design processes and outcomes and their communication to stakeholders and citizens are often significant. Urban designers use a variety of tools to bridge this gap. Each tool often places high demands on the audience, and each through inherent characteristics and affordances, introduces possible failures to understand the design ideas, thus imposing a divergence between the ideas, their communication and the understandings.   Urban design is a hugely complex activity influenced by numerous factors. The design exploration process may follow established design traditions. In all instances, the medium in which the exploration takes place affects the understanding by laypeople. Design tools are chosen, in part, to facilitate the design process.  Most urban design community engagement does not use Virtual Environments (VE) as a means of communication and participation in the early stage of the design generation. There has been little research on how the use of VE for urban design can engage laypeople as contributors to the design process. It has been suggested that VE instruments can allow laypeople to express, explore and convey their imagination more easily. The very different nature of perceptual understanding of VE and its capability to produce instant 3D artefacts with design actions may allow laypeople to generate meaningful design ideas. An experiment setup has developed to leverage laypeople in authentic design collaboration.   This thesis examines in the context of New Zealand’s National Science Challenge ‘Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities’ the drivers of change that contribute to the shaping of places, development and design of future neighbourhoods. A series of experiments have been conducted in the site of a neighbourhood to investigate the relative effectiveness of immersive VE to facilitate people in collaborative urban design. The findings support the hypothesis that VE with the generation of 3D artefacts enhances design communication for laypeople to design an urban form for their neighbourhood. The thesis concludes by discussing how New Zealand’s future neighbourhoods can be shaped and developed with VE assisted participatory urban design.</p>

scholarly journals Virtual Environments as Medium for Laypeople’s Communication and Collaboration in Urban Design

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Shuva Chowdhury
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Relative Effectiveness ◽  
Complex Activity ◽  
Exploration Process ◽  
Design Collaboration ◽  
Design Ideas

<p>The distance between urban design processes and outcomes and their communication to stakeholders and citizens are often significant. Urban designers use a variety of tools to bridge this gap. Each tool often places high demands on the audience, and each through inherent characteristics and affordances, introduces possible failures to understand the design ideas, thus imposing a divergence between the ideas, their communication and the understandings.   Urban design is a hugely complex activity influenced by numerous factors. The design exploration process may follow established design traditions. In all instances, the medium in which the exploration takes place affects the understanding by laypeople. Design tools are chosen, in part, to facilitate the design process.  Most urban design community engagement does not use Virtual Environments (VE) as a means of communication and participation in the early stage of the design generation. There has been little research on how the use of VE for urban design can engage laypeople as contributors to the design process. It has been suggested that VE instruments can allow laypeople to express, explore and convey their imagination more easily. The very different nature of perceptual understanding of VE and its capability to produce instant 3D artefacts with design actions may allow laypeople to generate meaningful design ideas. An experiment setup has developed to leverage laypeople in authentic design collaboration.   This thesis examines in the context of New Zealand’s National Science Challenge ‘Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities’ the drivers of change that contribute to the shaping of places, development and design of future neighbourhoods. A series of experiments have been conducted in the site of a neighbourhood to investigate the relative effectiveness of immersive VE to facilitate people in collaborative urban design. The findings support the hypothesis that VE with the generation of 3D artefacts enhances design communication for laypeople to design an urban form for their neighbourhood. The thesis concludes by discussing how New Zealand’s future neighbourhoods can be shaped and developed with VE assisted participatory urban design.</p>

scholarly journals Virtual medium for design Participation: A shared perceptual understanding in an urban design approach

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Chowdhury ◽  
Marc Aurel Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Protocol Analysis ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environment ◽  
Design Collaboration ◽  
Spatial Design ◽  
Successful Design ◽  
Design Generation ◽  
Design Ideas

Due to lack of communication tools, the non-experts in a participatory urban design process face difficulty to take part actively in the stage of design ideation and generation. Mostly, the design ideas stay in conceptual form and do not provide enough perceptual understanding to conceive the design actions fully. The research hypothesises that an Immersive Virtual Environment (IVE) instrument enhances layperson's urban design participation and collaboration during the early stage of the design generation. The research involves non-expert stakeholders as co-designers for a neighbourhood design in New Zealand. The paper discusses as a parallel reporting with other coming articles on how the IVE instrument facilitates successful design collaboration among fellow laypersons to design their own neighbourhood. A protocol analysis validates the success of design communication happened during non-experts design engagements. An expert evaluation is done to rank the generated design in responding to understand the ideas. In conclusion, the article speculates that an IVE assisted participatory urban design process empowers laypersons to take part actively in urban spatial design.

scholarly journals Virtual medium for design Participation: A shared perceptual understanding in an urban design approach

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Chowdhury ◽  
Marc Aurel Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Protocol Analysis ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environment ◽  
Design Collaboration ◽  
Spatial Design ◽  
Successful Design ◽  
Design Generation ◽  
Design Ideas

Due to lack of communication tools, the non-experts in a participatory urban design process face difficulty to take part actively in the stage of design ideation and generation. Mostly, the design ideas stay in conceptual form and do not provide enough perceptual understanding to conceive the design actions fully. The research hypothesises that an Immersive Virtual Environment (IVE) instrument enhances layperson's urban design participation and collaboration during the early stage of the design generation. The research involves non-expert stakeholders as co-designers for a neighbourhood design in New Zealand. The paper discusses as a parallel reporting with other coming articles on how the IVE instrument facilitates successful design collaboration among fellow laypersons to design their own neighbourhood. A protocol analysis validates the success of design communication happened during non-experts design engagements. An expert evaluation is done to rank the generated design in responding to understand the ideas. In conclusion, the article speculates that an IVE assisted participatory urban design process empowers laypersons to take part actively in urban spatial design.

Simulating the Generative Process of Urban Form: An Application Using OpenSim

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-404
Author(s):  
Ngoc Hong Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Simulation Methods ◽  
Generative Process ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environments ◽  
Immersive Environment

This article aims to investigate the generative process of urban development using simulation methods. The open-source platform OpenSim was used to allow participants to build immersive virtual environments representing the ancient town of Hoian, Vietnam. Patterns and urban properties are implemented as rules of generative process in urban design. This research not only corroborates Alexander’s methods but significantly improves his and colleagues’ method in providing a clear approach in generative process in urban design. Through the immersive environment of OpenSim, communities are able to establish effective public participation in planning their neighborhood as well as build and test urban codes.

scholarly journals Laypeople's Collaborative Immersive Virtual Reality Design Discourse in Neighborhood Design

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuva Chowdhury ◽  
Marc Aurel Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Protocol Analysis ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Neighborhood Design ◽  
Design Communication ◽  
Communication Framework ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environment ◽  
And Control

The article discusses design communication and participation of laypeople in a virtual participatory urban design process. We speculate that an immersive virtual environment facilitated instrument can allow laypeople to take part actively as designers in the early stage of urban design ideation and generation. We have developed a design communication framework where laypeople can participate in design discourse on a neighborhood's future urban form. The strategy describes an urban design intent, which is informed by the development procedure of an instrument and workflow to engage participants. The integration of the instrument and the engagement procedure enable continuous designing of urban form by laypeople. A protocol analysis has been undertaken to investigate design communication. A coding scheme is applied to investigate, analyse, and understand how laypeople communicate with the design instrument and control design in the virtual environment. Through engaging non-experts, the research impacts on the perceptual affordance created by immersive 3D buildings artifacts and verbal conversation. The protocol analysis validated the setup so that subsequent studies can address the meaningfulness of such design conversations.

scholarly journals Laypeople's Collaborative Immersive Virtual Reality Design Discourse in Neighborhood Design

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuva Chowdhury ◽  
Marc Aurel Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Protocol Analysis ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Neighborhood Design ◽  
Design Communication ◽  
Communication Framework ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environment ◽  
And Control

The article discusses design communication and participation of laypeople in a virtual participatory urban design process. We speculate that an immersive virtual environment facilitated instrument can allow laypeople to take part actively as designers in the early stage of urban design ideation and generation. We have developed a design communication framework where laypeople can participate in design discourse on a neighborhood's future urban form. The strategy describes an urban design intent, which is informed by the development procedure of an instrument and workflow to engage participants. The integration of the instrument and the engagement procedure enable continuous designing of urban form by laypeople. A protocol analysis has been undertaken to investigate design communication. A coding scheme is applied to investigate, analyse, and understand how laypeople communicate with the design instrument and control design in the virtual environment. Through engaging non-experts, the research impacts on the perceptual affordance created by immersive 3D buildings artifacts and verbal conversation. The protocol analysis validated the setup so that subsequent studies can address the meaningfulness of such design conversations.

scholarly journals Urban Design and Walkability: Lessons Learnt from Iranian Traditional Cities

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5731
Author(s):  
Elmira Jamei ◽  
Khatereh Ahmadi ◽  
Hing Wah Chau ◽  
Mehdi Seyedmahmoudian ◽  
Ben Horan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Design Elements ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Planning And Design ◽  
Planning Models ◽  
Mixed Use ◽  
Residential Quarters ◽  
Objectively Measured

Physical activity is connected to public health in many ways, and walking is its most popular form. Modern planning models have been applied to cities to manage rapid urban expansions. However, this practice has led to low level of walkability and strong car-dependency in today’s cities. Hence, this study aims to provide a review of the most promising urban design parameters affecting walkability, using Frank Lawrence’s theory of “Objectively Measured Urban Form” (density, connectivity and accessibility, and mixed-use development) as the basis of discussion. The second part of this paper takes a case study approach, through discussing the main design elements of traditional Iranian cities (mosques, bazaars, residential quarters, and alleyways) and analyses their impacts on promoting walkability. This study concludes that incorporating inherent values of traditional urban design elements will complement modern planning and design practices.

scholarly journals PEER DESIGNERS AS STRONG INFLUENCERS ON THE DESIGN PROCESS OF FOOD STARTUPS

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 2409-2418
Author(s):  
Summer D. Jung ◽  
Erika Perttunen ◽  
Senni Kirjavainen ◽  
Tua Björklund ◽  
Sohyeong Kim
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Peer Influences ◽  
Design Team ◽  
Food And Beverage ◽  
Design Ideas ◽  
Different Sources ◽  
Positive Effect

AbstractAs design research expands its horizon, there has been a recent rise in studies on nontraditional designers. Previous studies have noted the positive effect of diversity in generating ideas. Among different sources of influence, peers outside the design team have been noted for their positive impact on the design process, yet the research on this topic is still in its early stages. Using qualitative data from 40 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the American and Finnish food and beverage industries, the current study examines their interactions with other SMEs, shedding light on the influence of peers on creating new design solutions. The findings suggest that peer companies can act as a frequent and impactful source of inspiration for product design ideas. The most prevalent forms of interaction were co-creating products, sharing information, and sharing ingredients. Furthermore, the interactions were voluntary, organic, and improvisational in nature, and physical proximity or previous connections often initiated the interactions. Taken together, a great number of peer influences contributed towards creative new solutions.

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