Data-supported Design in Architecture and Urbanism: The Use of Geospatial Data for Transport Node Design

The use of digital technologies and the application of data to inform design decisions has been in practice for many decades in the field of engineering. In Architecture and Urbanism, its use has only been incorporated into workflows over the past three decades.123 The growing availability of data and broader accessibility to software and skills are introduced to designers and city makers as enablers of sustainable design solutions, aiming to address the global challenges of rapid urban growth and climate change. Data-supported design methods propose to enrich intuitive ways of design and city-making with more strategic and tactical methods. In the new millennium, Architects and Urbanists broadened their design skills and created new specializations and understandings of what is “data.” The term “data” can refer to, among others, big-data data collected by sensors, GPS, mobile phones or social media posts;4 digital 3D models and municipal building regulation data5 or even architectural data-sets such as building plans;6 transparency information about development processes,4 geospatial data, which is data with spatial components located on Earth, visualized and communicated through maps.3 Even though there lacks a single definition of what is “data” in Architecture and Urbanism, this paper focuses on “data” that has spatial components, is “readable” by design software,4 and help designers evaluate a project’s success in achieving a certain ambition or disciplinary agenda. This brings an opportunity to explore the use of a specific type of data – geospatial data – in design methods.

This paper seeks to understand how data can be part of an integrated design approach, focusing on the use of geospatial data at the project scale between building (architecture) and district (urbanism). The first step of this investigation is a contextualization that frames the relationship between the process of digitization and the implementation of data-supported design in Architecture and Urbanism. This section aims to trace a retrospective of the development of digital technologies and the use of data in design research and practice. It builds upon the report “The Digital in Architecture: Then, Now and in the Future,” by the scholar M. Claypool, 2019.7 Based on this investigation, it is possible to derive the key periods of development of data-supported design in Architecture and Urbanism. This paper proposes to name them the Age of Utopia, The Age of Experimentation and the Age of Awareness, as indicated in [ D1iagram 1 ]. From this overview, it is interesting to observe how relevant geospatial data becomes to design explorations, as spatiality is an intrinsic quality to design. To better understand the use of data in the design process, a complementary literature review is conducted about the design phases and steps. This is done from the point of view of architecture design methods,9 integral design approaches10 and geodesign.3 It reveals what types of design frameworks have been documented to explain the design process, but not necessarily clarify how data is used by Architects and Urbanists, especially in what refers to the creation of formal design outputs. Therefore, this investigation reveals a gap in the scientific literature on integral design approaches, on how geospatial data can be incorporated in the design process.

The second part of this paper traces a parallel with the emergence of sustainability as a strong disciplinary agenda for the design practice7 in the latest stages of development in data-supported design (20102050,

The Age of Awareness). The social, environmental and economic dimensions of a project addressing global urbanization challenges7891011 aim to respond to sustainable development goals. In this context, densely populated urban centres are presumed to be beneficial for the approximation between people, services and opportunities. They provide a chance to reduce demand for movement and CO2 emissions, leverage existing infrastructure, and ease the monitoring and control of the urban performance in regards to environmental quality.10 This section of the paper points to a specific type of project that combines urbanization and mobility strategies, such as Transit Oriented Development (TOD). TOD is seen as a key to achieve sustainable urban development.121314 Such projects concern multiple scales: the regional transit network, the area of influence of a station, and the building scale of the station itself. Dealing with mobility adds large amounts of data to be considered in the design process of transport nodes – commuting patterns, passenger flows, walkability assessments, to name a few.3 This paper brings in a brief literature review about this type of project, here referred to as “transport nodes.” It aims to frame its relevance related both to the global issues in the spotlight in the first half of the 21^st Century, and to the use of data-supported methods in integral design approaches.

The third part of this paper adopts transport nodes as an object for investigation about the research gap regarding the incorporation of geospatial data in the design process. Geospatial data can be valuable in the design process of transport nodes, for example: data on pedestrian flows may be used as a spatial determinant for design gestures enhancing walkability around the station, such as direct connections through blocks or streetscape redesign. Another example is data on noise nuisance, passenger flows and commuting patterns. These may influence the determination of fills and voids of space in the station area. This section adopts a case study, the research project Sustainable Los Angeles 2050. The case study is conducted through literature review of the publications about this project, combined with archival research and interviews with some of the designers that worked on the project. The aim was to understand the design process of this project and which geospatial data was taken into consideration, as indicated in [ Diagram 2 ] and [ Diagram 3 ]. Finally, based on interviews, the paper identifies certain challenges and risks in the use of geospatial data for the design of transport nodes.

In summary, this paper contextualizes the use of data-supported design in Architecture and Urbanism; identifies the research gap in the use of geospatial data in integral design approaches; and determines the type and scale of project – transport node design - for selecting and conducting a case study. As an outcome, this paper offers learnings about the challenges and limitations of the use of geospatial data in transport node design. As rebuilding design processes of existing projects may leave behind unregistered but important details, a follow-up to this paper is necessary. This is especially relevant for urban contexts focused on the densification around public transport stations. This is the case, for example, of the city of Rotterdam, which has published a Vision Plan15 proposing strategically located transport nodes to bear the projected urban growth of 50,000 new homes by 2040, while complying with local

environmental, social and economic tasks. As such, a demonstration study of the transport nodes in Rotterdam would be an interesting next-step to this paper.