Eye-tracking technology,visual preference surveys,and urban design: preliminary evidence of an effective methodology

Urban planners and designers use visual preference surveys to gather public opinion on potential designs for developments. Using eye-tracking technology, we administered a visual preference survey to a convenience sample to evaluate quantitatively the ways in which individuals process and rank images used in public settings for urban planning. We combined both a subjective qualitative analysis with quantitative evaluation of the eye-tracking data. The analysis largely confirms that various new urbanist components of the images, namely people, pedestrian features, and greenery, lead to higher rankings. Images with cars and parking receive negative rankings. Buildings, which are a key component of architectural design, had mixed results. The analysis demonstrates the efficacy of visual preference surveys. We show a way for transportation and urban planners to extract greater value from visual preference surveys, consistent with efforts to increase pedestrian activity while reducing motor vehicle traffic in cities.     

From the Cold War to the warmed globe: planning,design-policy entrepreneurism,and the crises of nuclear weapons and climate change

Faced with two existential threats – nuclear war and climate change – planners have responded by proposing sweeping reforms for city-regions, often deploying the newfound rationales to re-package earlier ideas about ‘the good city’. This paper analyses how mid-twentieth-century planning discourses regarding Cold War urban dispersal in the USA might help us understand contemporary conversations about urban climate change adaptation. We apply Kingdon's Multiple Streams Analysis and his concept of policy entrepreneurs to show how planners frame problems and shape policy agendas. We propose a subtype of ‘design-policy entrepreneurs’ who use the spatial and visual tools of planning and design to advocate for preferred policies. By analysing the rhetoric and visual representations made by planners and designers from 1945 to 1965, we examine how they repurposed long-standing ideas about urban deconcentration into ‘dispersal for defence’ proposals. Such proposals for dispersing urban settlements into separated and ‘self-contained’ units received a dysfunctional partial acceptance: housing and transportation legislation embraced the dispersal part but resisted the complementary elements aimed at limiting damages from nuclear attack by concentrating development into distinct nodes. We conclude by asking how the perils of such partial policy-making success might play out on the terrain of climate change adaptation.     

The Instrumentality of Data Used for Design: Exploring the Sustainable Meanings of Urban Orders in the New Data ENVIRONMENT

City is a complex, self-organized system, in which various sub-systems interact with each other whereby urban orders emerge dynamically. Due to lacking of sufficient knowledge about the urban system, urban planners and designers had to work within a simplified concept framework. This oversimplified methodology has been influencing the debate about the urban sustainability. Although the so-called new data environment now provides possibility to acknowledge this kind of complex interrelationship, future-proofed theories and methodologies of urban planning and design are still deficient in related practices. Base on the quantitative understanding of urban orders, this paper aims to explore the issues on understanding the relationship between the urban orders and the meaning of sustainability in the new data environment, to establish a methodological framework of data augmented sustainable planning, and to reassert how to achieve the value rationality in urban planning and design through the exploration on instrumental rationality.     

城市视觉景观公众偏好特征研究

探究城市视觉景观的公众审美偏好特征是提升城市景观规划设计合理性的基础。以福建省13个县市区为例，通过实地观察、问卷调研的方式获取2686名受访者对34张城市景观照片的审美偏好，量化分析了影响公众审美偏好的城市视觉景观元素及整体特征。研究结果表明：1)对公众审美偏好产生积极影响的城市视觉景观元素有水体、道路和桥梁，而山体和现代建筑则会对公众审美产生消极影响；2)对公众审美偏好具有影响的城市视觉景观整体特征为视野开阔度、景观护理强度，以及建筑高度与山脊线的关系。获取了具有福建特色的城市视觉景观偏好表达信息，以期为相关专家和决策者了解公众需求、优化城市景观提供参考。     

Assessing public preferences for design and environmental attributes of an urban automated transportation system

This study investigates public preferences toward design and environmental aesthetic attributes of an automated transportation system—Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) in an urban setting. The goal of the study was to understand the perceived visual aesthetic quality of the PRT within diverse architectural and natural elements composing the town's main spatial and visual structure and to separate the various components that determine a cumulative visual experience. We utilized human perceptual judgments as indicators of visual aesthetic quality, and referred to a psychophysical method to assess the perceived visual aesthetic quality of the scenes. Perceptions were captured using a rank ordering process of most and least preferred scenes on presented panels and responses were analyzed using correlation and regression statistical techniques. Results indicate that specific design attributes such as pillar shape or size, and type of fascia, did not emerge as significantly influencing public perception, while the relationship between automated structure and vehicular infrastructure, and the position of the observer are particularly important. Overall findings indicate that studies conducted on automated transportation should consider the effect of context on the perception of the system. The findings improve our understanding of visual strengths and weaknesses of automated transportation structures within the urban environment and can be useful in the planning for similar transportation systems.     

Planning for avian wildlife in urbanizing areas in American desert/mountain valley environments

Residents in western American states are expressing a growing interest in wildlife-oriented recreation in the urbanized environment. Unfortunately, present development practices which convert rural land to urban use, often under the guidance of landscape architects and planners, have caused the displacement of many wildlife species. Vegetation management in urban areas has produced equally detrimental effects on urban wildlife. The net result has been a decline in overall urban wildlife species diversity.Landscape architects, planners, urban foresters and others involved in land conversion and vegetation management have a tremendous opportunity to improve the quality of urban wildlife habitat and to benefit the growing number of urban wildlife enthusiasts. However, to do so the planning and design pofessions must appreciate the value of urban wildlife, become aware of wildlife welfare needs and incorporate wildlife as a significant factor in the design process.General wildlife welfare needs are discussed and recommendations regarding ways to integrate wildlife as a factor in traditional planning and management decision making processes are presented. Specific recommendations for wildlife habitat preservation, enhancement and rehabilitation are provided.     

Attributes of successful place-making in knowledge and innovation spaces: evidence from Brisbane’s Diamantina knowledge precinct

Place-making in knowledge and innovation spaces is a challenging task for planners and designers due to the lack of competent conceptual frameworks and design guidelines. To address this issue, this study adopts a qualitative methodological approach to carry out an empirical investigation in a case study from Brisbane, Australia, i.e., Diamantina Knowledge Precinct. This investigation is guided by a conceptual framework derived from the interdisciplinary literature review. Interviews, supported with various data sources, are conducted among a range of key stakeholders. The findings reveal the key design attributes and considerations for successful place-making in knowledge and innovation spaces.     

Intelligence approach to production planning system for bespoke precast concrete products

Bespoke precast concrete products are widely used components of construction projects. These products implement the offsite prefabrication technology that offers a unique opportunity for innovation and cost savings for construction projects. However, the production process from design to manufacturing contains uncertainties due to external factors: multi-disciplinary design, progress on construction site. The typical workload on bespoke precast factories is a complex combination of uniquely and identically designed products, which have various delivery dates and requirement of costly purpose-built moulds. In this context, this research is aimed to improve the efficiency of the process by addressing the production planning because it has a significant impact to the success of the production programme. An innovative planning system and its prototype called ‘Artificial Intelligence Planner’ (AIP) are developed. AIP is capable of two functionalities. The first is a data integration system that encourages the automation in the planning process. The other is a decision support system for planners to improve the efficiency of the production plans. These functionalities reinforce each other to deliver optimum benefits to precast manufacturers. AIP have employed artificial intelligence technologies: neural network and genetic algorithm to enhance data analyses for being a decision support for production planning. The outcomes of the research include shortened customer lead-time, in-house repository of production knowledge, and achievement of the optimum factory's resource utilisation.     

An integrated construction planning system using object-oriented product and process modelling

An interactive planning system approach poses challenges to the efficient integration of the design and construction planning process. Current research is focused on organizational knowledge processing in building design and construction, such as the representation of object-oriented planning models and constraint management incorporating design, engineering and construction planning through several planning stages. Since building construction involves cooperation among designers, engineers and project managers, comprehensive organizational planning and management tools are relevant. The integrated construction planning system (ICPS) aims to cover a wide range of knowledge processing based on formalization and representation of building and construction systems. To realize the integrated construction planning system, appropriate modelling techniques need to be introduced. This paper presents the results of research on several issues such as formalization and representation of interactive design and construction planning processes, methods for incorporating project information, knowledge and constraints and the concept of applying an object-oriented paradigm to interactive building and construction system planning. A prototype system is also presented which integrates building space planning, building system planning, construction system planning, construction activity planning and construction site layout planning.     

The design dimension of China's planning system: urban design for development control

This paper investigates the design dimension of China's legal planning framework. It aims to identify the design principles which have been followed in practice, those design elements which have been considered by designers and planners as part of development control, and the extent to which urban design outcomes have been adopted in specific legal plans. It examines 14 urban design cases from Nanjing which were produced in conjunction with the relevant legal plans between 2009 and 2013. The study suggests that in China, urban design has been facing a number of challenges, including limited coverage of design elements, inconsistencies in the design principles followed, an incompatibility between design outcomes and legal plans, and an underestimation of the role of urban design in the delivery process of development control. Nevertheless, recent years have seen a rise in the standard of urban design practice in the country, and an emerging recognition of the role of urban design in local planning policies.     

城市地下空间规划与设计人才培养的思考

地下空间规划与地面城市设计脱节,研究人员偏于工程技术化,缺乏对城市整体环境的塑造是当前中国地下空间建设面临的主要问题。随着城市地下空间建设需求的增长,对城市地下空间规划与设计人才的需求也日益提升,结合目前高等学校城乡规划、建筑学、城市地下空间工程专业的人才培养现状,有必要根据新时期城市地下空间建设所提出的规划与设计专业技术人才的要求,在地下空间规划与设计人才的培养方案、教材体系等方面进行改革,以满足大中城市地下空间开发建设的大量专业人才需求。     

Planning linear construction projects: automated method for the generation of earthwork activities

Earthworks planning for road construction projects is a complex operation and the planning rules used are usually intuitive and not well defined. An approach to automate the earthworks planning process is described and the basic techniques that are used are outlined. A computer-based system has been developed, initially to help planners use existing techniques more efficiently. With their input, the system has been extended to incorporate a knowledge base and a simulation of the earthworks processes. As well as creating activity sets in a much shorter time, the system has shown that for a real project, the model is able to generate activity sets that are comparable to those generated by a project planner.     

居住区规划中的声环境优化方法研究

就居住区规划阶段的声环境设计目标来说,我国与发达国家差距较大,甚至没有完善的规范体系;就设计方法来说,我国很少有设计师在规划阶段主动考虑声环境设计。设计师应将声环境设计融入居住区规划设计中,运用设置声屏障、进行声学调研、通过计算机模拟等3种方法优化声环境。     

Editorial: Research communications

Despite some notable exceptions, relatively little of the large body of knowledge concerning urban climate has permeated through to working planners. This lack of application has been bemoaned by climatologists for many years. The reasons for this state of affairs are many, but amongst those most cited are the inherent complexity of the subject, its interdisciplinary nature and lack of meaningful dialogue between planners and the climatological research community. Whilst this is true, these potential barriers have not prevented application of knowledge from parallel disciplines by planners, nor the adoption of climatological principles by architects and engineers at the building scale. The paper reviews the possibility that part of the problem is attributable to the nature of research in urban climatology and the difficulty of translating its results into robust tools for application. A critical assessment of the preparedness of urban climatology to be an applied science reveals progress and promise but also weaknesses. The latter include a lack of quantitative techniques and relationships, lack of standardization, generality and transferability, and the absence of clear guidelines for those wishing to learn and use climatological principles in settlement planning. There is also a dearth of first-hand information from the low latitudes which must be filled if climate is to play a significant role in planning the massive urbanization which is under way there.     

谈历史文化名城的城市色彩规划

通过阐述城市色彩的概念及现状,提出色彩设计对城市特色塑造的重要性,并对城市色彩设计的原则与技法步骤进行了分析,以提高历史文化名城的城市色彩规划水平,可供城市规划设计者参考。     

A Case Study in Urban Design

Planners must develop greater skills in three-dimensional design in order to fulfill responsibilities placed on them by urban renewal. Design should be a major instrument for carrying out comprehensive plan objectives. Community understanding of planning issues in terms of design is necessary. The planners must develop refined techniques for working with consultant architects, and with developers and the architects they employ.     

实践研究:创新知识和方法的范式

In this article, the author concluded the patterns and challenges of practice research by Peking University-Turenscape into the answers to three questions: 1) By conducting practice research, people can gain the knowledge and methodologies to address authentic practice issues with constant attempts; 2) College faculties and students, researchers, and planners / designers are the agencies of practice research, but they are in dilemma because of the over pursuit for paper publication and citation in academic performance assessment, and the insufficient time and budget for research leading a fact that generic planning schemes and stereotypes are popularly employed; And 3) the healthy development and long-term promotion of practice research relies on the growth of the market-oriented industry. As one type of the practice research, “prototype study” offers a paradigm for the innovation of knowledge and methodology. Oriented to future challenges and uncertainties, it would help extend the horizon of Landscape Architecture, providing designers and scholars with prospective design insights and flexible working methods.     

Safe Streets,Livable Streets

Transportation safety is a highly contentious issue in the design of cities and communities. While urban designers, architects, and planners often encourage the use of aesthetic streetscape treatments to enhance the liability of urban streets, conventional transportation safety practice regards roadside features such as street trees as fixed-object hazards and strongly discourages their use. In this study, I examine the subject of livable streetscape treatments and find compelling evidence that suggests they may actually enhance the safety of urban roadways. Concerns about their safety effects do not appear to be founded on empirical observations of crash performance, but instead on a design philosophy that discounts the important relationship between driver behavior and safety. This study traces the origin and evolution of this philosophy, and proposes an alternative that may better account for the dynamic relationships between road design, driver behavior, and transportation safety.

It has taken many decades for roadway designers to begin to recognize that how road and road environments are designed affects safety, and to identify what particular features enhance or detract from safety in a given environment. This process is still evolving. Historically, there has been a tendency for those funding research to focus on rural or high-speed environments, and on pavements and structures. One outcome of the resulting underemphasis on safety and urban design concerns, as author Eric Dumbaugh identified in this article, is the problem with the published research about urban roadside design in the U.S.: it is limited in both scope and quantity. With these limitations, it is understandable that city street designers extrapolate from principles learned in a rural highway environment. They may not be standing on the firmest ground when they do this, but they judge that it is the best ground they have.     

基于案例的推理和GIS相集成的技术在规划申请审批中的应用

基于案例的推理 (Case -BasedReasoning ,CBR)是基于知识的专家系统 (Knowledge -BasedSystems ,KBS)领域中的一个分支。它的基本思想是参照过去的案例 (case)来处理当前面临的新问题。这种系统能在自己的案例库中搜索以前解决过的类似案例 ,根据当时做过的决策及其后果对眼前的新问题提出合理的建议。与基于规则的推理和基于模型的推理等传统的专家系统技术相比 ,CBR直接利用具体、特殊、非抽象、众人认同的知识 ,因而适合于那些主观性强 ,不确定性强 ,牵扯因素多 ,特例多的领域。地理信息系统 (GIS)是处理空间信息的常用工具 ,它在城市规划中的作用已被普遍认同。本文介绍了作者集成CBR和GIS的尝试。这个集成系统旨在帮助规划师和决策者更好地处理和审批规划申请。该系统可为规划师迅速提供与当前申请性质相似或者在空间上相近的规划申请案例 ,以及在处理旧案例上的经验教训 ,帮助规划师提高工作效率 ,更全面地考虑问题 ,为最后的决策提供更可靠的建议