Urban Information ModelingReflections on the Urban Systems Collaborative Chicago Workshop April 19, 2012

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.

One way of looking at cities:

Can a better understanding of the flows of urban information lead to better cities?

A map of information flows.

The Chicago experiment:

• The developer (Magellan)

• The urban designer (SOM)

• A key City agency (DHED)

• A local community group (the Grant Park Conservancy)

Lakeshore East Development, Chicago, IL

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

MASTER PLANNER

CITY AGENCY OR DEVELOPER

LANDSCAPE ARCH.

CIVIL ENGINEERS

CITY AGENCIES

ARCHITECTS

TRANSPORTATION

DECISION MAKERS

DEVELOPERS

ECONOMISTS

ECOLOGISTS

SUSTAINABILITY

SMART TECHNOLOGY

CLIENT

COMMUNITY

The Players

Urban Designer (SOM)

INFRASTRUCTURE

DEVELOPMENT

MASTER PLAN OCCUPANCYAPPROVALSCONCEPTION LAND SALES /

DEVELOPMENT

PLANNING GOALS

& PRINCIPLESSITE ANALYSIS CONCEPTUAL

MASTER PLAN

MASTER

PLAN

DESIGN

GUIDELINES

Urban Development Process

Master Plan Process

Urban Designer (SOM)

Master Plan Process

PLANNING GOALS

& PRINCIPLESANALYSIS CONCEPTUAL

MASTER PLAN

MASTER

PLAN

DESIGN

GUIDELINES

Urban Designer (SOM)

PLANNING GOALS

& PRINCIPLESANALYSIS CONCEPTUAL

MASTER PLAN

MASTER

PLAN

DESIGN

GUIDELINES

Existing site conditions

Infrastructure

Environmental

Program / land use

Past planning initiatives

Neighborhood / community initiatives

Regional coordination

Master Plan Process

Urban Designer (SOM)

PLANNING GOALS

& PRINCIPLESANALYSIS CONCEPTUAL

MASTER PLAN

MASTER

PLAN

DESIGN

GUIDELINES

Accessibility

Sustainability

Diversity

Open Space

Compatibility

Density

Identity

Phasing

Master Plan Process

Urban Designer (SOM)

PLANNING GOALS

& PRINCIPLESANALYSIS CONCEPTUAL

MASTER PLAN

MASTER

PLAN

DESIGN

GUIDELINES

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

Master Plan Process

Urban Designer (SOM)

PLANNING GOALS

& PRINCIPLESANALYSIS 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

Master Plan Process

Urban Designer (SOM)

PLANNING GOALS

& PRINCIPLESANALYSIS CONCEPTUAL

MASTER PLAN

MASTER

PLAN

DESIGN

GUIDELINES

Parcels

Buildings- Height- Materials- Elements

Public Spaces

Landscape

Streets

Infrastructure

Master Plan Process

Urban Designer (SOM)

City Agency (DHED)

Community Group (Grant Park Conservancy)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Site 2. Design 3. Loan 4. Permits 5. Public meeting 6. Revised Plan Lakeshore East The Legacy Spertus Institute 340 On the Park North Grant Park Chicago Spire Central Station

Where community process starts is project specific

Developer

• 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…

Some Take-Aways