Urban Information Modeling
Reflections on the Urban Systems Collaborative Chicago Workshop April 19, 2012
One way of looking at cities:
Cities are the spatial and infrastructural context in which people come
together to engage in transactions with one another for a wide variety of
reasons (i.e. social, civic, cultural, commercial, institutional, etc)…
The underlying currency that gives rise to these transactions is information.
Can a better understanding of the flows of
urban information lead to better cities?
The Chicago experiment:
A map of information flows.
• The developer (Magellan)
• The urban designer (SOM)
Lakeshore East Development, Chicago, IL
• A key City agency (DHED)
• A local community group
(the Grant Park Conservancy)
Questions for Participants to Consider
1.
What is the role of your group in this type of development project?
2.
What information/ data do you need to fulfill your role at various points in the
process?
3.
What information/ data does your group generate and how?
4.
How much of that information is shared with others?
5.
What information are you not able to share?
6.
Do you think any of the unshared data would be of value to anyone else?
7.
What type of information (that is currently difficult to access) would be of great
value to your group?
8.
How does your group attempt to validate the quality of the information/ data
that was generated and shared by your group?
The Flow Diagrams
Urban Designer (SOM)
The Players
CIVIL ENGINEERS
TRANSPORTATION
DECISION MAKERS
CLIENT
CITY AGENCY OR DEVELOPER
SUSTAINABILITY
SMART TECHNOLOGY
CITY AGENCIES
ECONOMISTS
LANDSCAPE ARCH.
DEVELOPERS
MASTER PLANNER
ECOLOGISTS
ARCHITECTS
COMMUNITY
Urban Designer (SOM)
Urban Development Process
CONCEPTION
MASTER PLAN
APPROVALS
INFRASTRUCTURE
DEVELOPMENT
LAND SALES /
DEVELOPMENT
OCCUPANCY
Master Plan Process
SITE ANALYSIS
PLANNING GOALS
& PRINCIPLES
CONCEPTUAL
MASTER PLAN
MASTER
PLAN
DESIGN
GUIDELINES
Urban Designer (SOM)
Master Plan Process
ANALYSIS
PLANNING GOALS
& PRINCIPLES
CONCEPTUAL
MASTER PLAN
MASTER
PLAN
DESIGN
GUIDELINES
Urban Designer (SOM)
Master Plan Process
ANALYSIS
PLANNING GOALS
& PRINCIPLES
Existing site conditions
Infrastructure
Environmental
Program / land use
Past planning initiatives
Neighborhood / community initiatives
Regional coordination
CONCEPTUAL
MASTER PLAN
MASTER
PLAN
DESIGN
GUIDELINES
Urban Designer (SOM)
Master Plan Process
ANALYSIS
PLANNING GOALS
& PRINCIPLES
Accessibility
Sustainability
Diversity
Open Space
Compatibility
Density
Identity
Phasing
CONCEPTUAL
MASTER PLAN
MASTER
PLAN
DESIGN
GUIDELINES
Urban Designer (SOM)
Master Plan Process
ANALYSIS
PLANNING GOALS
& PRINCIPLES
CONCEPTUAL
MASTER PLAN
MASTER
PLAN
Physical development framework
Land use strategy
Streets and circulation
Transit
Open Space / Natural Systems
Recreation / Amenity
Infrastructure / Utilities
Hieght, Density and Urban Form
Phasing / Implementation
DESIGN
GUIDELINES
Urban Designer (SOM)
Master Plan Process
ANALYSIS
PLANNING GOALS
& PRINCIPLES
CONCEPTUAL
MASTER PLAN
MASTER
PLAN
DESIGN
GUIDELINES
Parcelization
Public rights-of-way
Utilities and easements
Parks and open space
Vehicular and pedestrian circulation
Land Use and Density
Building Height and Massing
Phasing / Implementation
Urban Designer (SOM)
Master Plan Process
ANALYSIS
PLANNING GOALS
& PRINCIPLES
CONCEPTUAL
MASTER PLAN
MASTER
PLAN
DESIGN
GUIDELINES
Parcels
Buildings
- Height
- Materials
- Elements
Public Spaces
Landscape
Streets
Infrastructure
City Agency (DHED)
Community Group (Grant Park
Conservancy)
Where community process starts is project specific
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Site
Plan
2. Design
Lakeshore East
North Grant Park
Central Station
The Legacy
Chicago Spire
3. Loan
4. Permits
5. Public meeting
6. Revised
Spertus Institute
340 On the Park
Developer
Some Take-Aways
• In general, people are not accustomed to describing what they do in terms of
the steps of a process.
• People are even less accustomed to thinking about information in a tangible
way, especially as inputs and outputs of those processes.
• In general, everybody wants as much information as possible, as early in the
process as possible (but there are valid reasons why this doesn’t always happen).
• There are few yardsticks of “success”.
• The discussion about the participation of the community (citizen engagement)
led to some of the more interesting questions.
• What are the limits of the community’s right to information about a
private development?
• How does the community group leadership gain credibility amongst the
community it represents?
• How can a community engage effectively in a design process?
• Bob Schloss from IBM shared some insights into the urban semantic modeling
work that his team is developing.
• There is still work to be done to find an effective convention for capturing this
idea of a map of information flows…