Bold, Compassionate & Data Driven: Urban Planning Principles to deliver to the UN SDGs

Event Synopsis

Architect, Urban Planner and Managing Director Space Syntax

Using case studies from international urban planning practice, the lecture will show how digital tools are helping cities address sustainability challenges through the creation of human-centered spatial development strategies. These tools range from GIS-based mapping of mobility patterns, and algorithm-based analysis of spatial connectivity, to AI techniques for ‘growing’ cities automatically.

Tools alone are not good enough. What matters more are the goals towards which the tools are directed and the urban planning principles with which the tools are applied. Taken together, these goals and principles define the “spatial culture” of urban settlements, reflecting and shaping their histories, belief systems, climates places of social encounter, places of commercial transaction, and the ways in which they integrate with natural environments.