Geodesign is a useful term describing a “framework for collaboration in imagining and understanding our future world” (p17). While Geodesign is not about specific technologies or even a focus on the digital, we cannot escape the fact that software design tools are of significant importance in the urban planning realm. Most professionals use digital data layers from GIS systems to inform planned future urban scenarios and those designs and scenarios in turn feed back into the GIS systems from where they came from. I would argue this is exactly the sort of process that is the genesis of a digital twin!
This passing of data from one system to another with the desire to use as much information about the locality/environment of a study area can be challenging. Constraints and opportunities mapping is familiar to many but the information (often GIS layers) are nothing more than something to be aware of when digitising or manually sketching up planned urban environments.
My personal focus on geodesign is a desire to enhance the collaborative nature of the geodesign process by utilising other peoples studies and work (i.e. GIS layers) to inform intelligent and responsive design tools. I still want freedom to design but when I place a plot or footprint maybe I want additional information about, for example, zoning information from another persons work to be informing my choice and influencing my design parameters. This is all about smooth flows of data allowing for less interruption in the design process. The inevitable client changing their mind moment at the end of a project for those in private practice means that having tools that can allow designs to be updated quickly and efficiently is crucially important.
Geodesign with CityEngine – Part 1
The following video is a 10 minute (approximately) CityEngine tutorial walking you through a simple geodesign process, one talked about above. Here GIS data can inform our 3D modelling in a range of different ways. The zoning polygons from GIS are informing the types of building (height and colour here) that can be placed in each zone but crucially not the shape or size of the building. Some of the design choices have been made by another layer (or profession). Yes this is a small and very quick tutorial but I would encourage you to think how this could be scaled up or used in different ways.
Download
To follow the tuorial completely you need to download a CityEngine project (zip file), you can download it from here: 3DPathFinder_Geodesign – Overview