As populations boom there’s more pressure than ever to make the most of the spaces we occupy. See how analytics is optimising architecture and urban planning.
The award-winning architect Philip Johnson, famous for the 1980s art deco skyscraper at 550 Madison Avenue, thought of his craft in simple terms: “The job of an architect today is to create beautiful things,” he said. “That is all.”
It’s definitely one way of looking at things, and as Johnson’s works are often cited among the architectural masterpieces of the 20th century, it’s certainly a viewpoint that worked for him. But when it comes to designing the environments we live, work and play in, there is surely more to consider – especially as populations boom and spaces become more crowded.
To design any environment optimally, you have to consider what makes people happy, comfortable and productive, and beauty is certainly a part of that. But you also have to consider the details that make a place tick; the flow of movement, harmony with surroundings, personal safety, and the like. In today’s age especially, factors like sustainability and climate concerns must also be considered.
Perhaps closer to the truth were the words of fellow architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, who thought of his work in these terms: “When I’m working on a problem, I never think about its beauty. I just think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”
This mix of form and function is really the essence of all well-executed design, and it takes a lot of consideration. Increasingly, data and analytics are helping dictate the designs of the spaces we occupy – from buildings to entire cities – and ensure they fulfil their functions optimally. In this instalment of Datawatch, we explore how.
Data that informs design
The world’s population is growing at an astounding pace, and that poses some significant challenges when it comes to creating spaces that can accommodate more people, more efficiently.
The UN estimates that by 2050, almost 70% of the world population will live in urban areas, and that $350 trillion must be spent on urban infrastructure to address urgent needs. Increasingly, analytics and data are dictating how that money is being spent.
At The Alan Turing Institute, for instance, urban analytics projects are drawing from data captured by governments, businesses, and other intermediaries to determine the way the environments of tomorrow are designed.
The Royal Institute of British Architects sums up the value data can add in this context nicely:
“Better data and the volume and speed with which it is now becoming available, affords new possibilities to understand people and places more deeply to inform design and how it is delivered. By bringing big data together with planning and design we have the power to transform cities into places that are more responsive to the public’s needs and aspirations, while also strengthening social capital and engendering digital inclusion.”
Tomorrow’s cities therefore will be designed from a data-driven perspective, but also run from one. Vast networks of sensors will monitor everything from traffic flows and air quality to foot traffic, feeding live information into systems that automatically adjust and adapt various things based on that data.
In fact, although it may sound like a flight of sci-fi fancy, these cities already exist. Take Singapore, dubbed “the world’s smartest city” due to the way it uses data and technology to respond to citizens’ ever-changing needs. The city boasts autonomous transport, digitised healthcare, and its very own digital twin to aid future planning and decision making.
Building for a better tomorrow
On a smaller scale, the same principles found in the data-driven design of cities are being used to create more efficient and effective buildings.
Companies like Arup use data and analytics to “close the gap between design goals and how assets perform in the real world.” Recently, Arup used a data-driven energy model to optimise the design of MIT’s new student residences. It calculated the optimum angle of the building’s unique exterior to minimise solar radiation and allow the building to connect to the campus’s heating and water systems.
The same company also used live global flight data to optimise terminal usage at Heathrow and improve the passenger experience. And a further project saw Arup help the EU Centre for Transport Projects create a data model reflecting the needs of Poland’s 38 million citizens – all in a bid to create more efficient and effective transportation networks.
In a world where we increasingly demand more from our buildings, this data-driven approach can have a measurable impact on society. Take healthcare, for instance. As we’ve recently seen first-hand, pandemics can place a huge strain on global healthcare systems, and the smart money is on COVID-19 not being the last of its kind. So how can we build spaces better equipped to deal with such emergencies?
One company, HMC Architects, is using data to tackle this challenge. HMC analysed data from the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak to help design a Chinese hospital perfectly equipped to handle large-scale emergencies that involve a large and sudden influx of patients.
Similarly, another project saw the company use simulation software to gather and visualise complex data sets regarding the movement of hospital staff. Using this data, HMC developed complex algorithms to help improve the efficiency of movement, and implemented that information directly into its design of California’s Kaiser Permanente Medical Center.
What does the future of design look like?
It is inevitable that data-driven design will play a huge role in our future, and in many ways – and in many places – that future has already begun.
Whereas in the days of Johnson and Fuller drafting floor plans required a ruler and a sharp pencil, today’s architects are ever more reliant on building information modelling (BIM), and are increasingly asked to produce datasets as part of their regular deliverables. More often than not, they’re also asked to include features within buildings that will continue to feed data back to owners for management,maintenance and investment purposes.
For the efficiency and effectiveness of the spaces we operate, this can only be a good thing. Although if there’s one thing data can’t yet dictate for us, it’s the beauty of a design.
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