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Currently, almost all tools for urban design and architecture in general are conceived as single user tools and interaction works mostly with mouse or keyboard.

These tools work on a high level of complexity and exclude many interested people. This gap gets even bigger when it comes to simulation tools in these fields.

This thesis aims to change this by introducing a tangible user interface (TUI) for collaborative design and decision support. This tool enables users to get in touch with an agent-based model (ABM) without any knowledge in coding or even interacting with computers. It connects physical objects to digital information.

The model simulates the activity-based travel demand of people in the newly developed district Deutzer Hafen in Cologne and its surroundings.

It is built in collaboration with Amanda Barbosa Jardim, who develops a synthetic population based on social media data, which populates the model.

Through the interface, urban designers and project developers can modify the scenario in the district concerning population and building use. They can answer questions of how certain layouts would influence the traffic, the mobility choices made in the district, and the urban vitality of the public spaces.

For measuring the success of this, a benchmark based on Jane Jacob’s ideas of urban vitality is introduced.

The tool aims to show new ways of collaborative, evidence-based decision making that can include all stakeholders.

It aims to break down the complexity of computation behind such simulations and give the users the freedom of exploring it in a game-like experience.

Based on the thesis, a paper was published at the CORP Conference 2021 in Vienna.

Thesis

Paper