Weekly Roundup 054 – 5th to 11th March

FEATURE REPORT/ ARTICLE OF THE WEEK

‘Math Tool Could Help Avoid Planning Pitfalls’
Authored by Jen Kinney

Implementation of policies and planning solutions help develop a city, but they also often result in unanticipated negative outcomes. Outcomes and repercussions in the long run that are difficult gauge.

Simi Hoque, an assistant professor in the building and technology program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is working on a planning tool that can measure and predict the outcome of changes in an urban system. Through this tool she hopes to find a common denominator that transcends all systems and planning scales to predict the outcome. For this she has also received the National Science Foundation Career Award of $508,714 as a five year grant.

Read the whole piece here 

Published by Next City.



ONLINE PUBLICATION OF THE WEEK

‘Open Data for Resilience Initiative: Planning an Open Cities Mapping Project’
Published by The World Bank

Open Cities Mapping Project is an online platform that crowd sources data for urban planning and disaster resilience. Anyone and everyone can be a part of the project. The idea behind it is that a deep understanding of the built environment is critical to the planning process. The mapping project is open to everyone allowing practitioners and locals to participate and provide accurate data.

Here is a guide to understand how the mapping project works. The guide illustrates this process using the case studies from Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, where the project was initially implemented.

Read or download the publication here.

VIDEO/ PODCAST OF THE WEEK

‘Urban Planning Tools: Explore the Economic and Environmental Impact of Policies and Alternative Futures’
Created by Studio216

Along similar lines as Simi Haroque’s urban planning tool, a couple of years back the Runstad Centre for Real Estate Studies developed Decision Commons, a 3D visualisation tool that helps envision the different futures we may have. Here, different ideas and alternatives can be laid out and analysed to understand the pros and cons of each of them. The tool is interactive showing results to on-the-spot changes and modifications.

http://ia801504.us.archive.org/11/items/USP060DonKostelec/USP060_DonKostelec.mp3

Decision Commons