The role of Data-supported design in Architecture and Urbanism A critical review

This research proposes explorations through a research-by-design method in two ways. At first, this research highlights the crucial moments in the Architecture and Urbanism development in which research-by-design was crucial to discover break-through skills and collaborations in the use of digital technologies for design. That is the basis for understanding when did data become a creative resource for the design process. On another note, this research seeks to perform a demonstration case through a research-by-design method to apply the theoretical framework proposed. A real case application, that deals with real problems and real communities allow to evaluate the different ways of analysing the context to extract principles and guidelines to inform future project decisions. Different design output deriving from such principles reveal a myriad of ways achieve a certain design agenda. Changing emphasis on the design response to different principles result in singular design variations that may present potentials or pitfalls. In this case, research-by design is relevant to assess the specific potentials and challenges in applying data in a determined design process, and especially important to critically assess the proposed methods itself. This way, the research-by-design approach adopted by this research consists in “testing” the hypothesis raised by this investigation: urban data plays a strategic role in the project analysis phase for strategic transport node development when dealing with an urban regeneration tasks.