Sustainable Urban Planning Using Your Web Browser | All Hands on Tech

Jeff Berg, Computation Lead and Lead Developer at Positive Energy Practice presents on leveraging cloud computing and parametric design for better urban planning at our 2015 All Hands on Tech Meet-Up.

Positive Energy Practice is a net zero sustainability initiative  founded by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill, a global design firm credited with major projects such as Dancing Dragons in South Korea, Astana Expo City in Kazakhstan and Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia. Jeff presents on creating cloud-based, collaborative tools to provide urban planners and architects better data to inform their planning efforts, earlier in their process and in a way in which different parties in different locations can see and weigh in on the effort.  He demonstrates the ability, with parametric design, to create an interface that allows planners to see how factors such as energy use, carbon consumption, and traffic congestion change as planners change the mixes of uses, sizes of floor plates, and overall square footages of their plans. The tools allow planners and their clients to see the effects of changes in real time in order to optimize planning for the use of large areas of cities, taking into account factors critical to sustainability. Another opportunity he illustrates is the ability to examine the impact of light and shadows on cities based on the height and density of larger and complex, mixed-use developments.

He further discusses future potential applications for cloud-based systems like this.  In particular, he looks at the possibility of creating interfaces to allow citizens to provide their input into what they would like to see in certain areas and even to provide them with simple planning tools to explore concepts and register their input into plans.

Special thanks to Mechanical Contractors Association of AmericaNewforma, and  BE&K Building Group for helping us produce All Hands on Tech.

Note: Positive Energy Practice is now a part of Global Engineering Firm, ESD.