Emergent, Adaptive and Responsive Urban Landscape Design Strategies

Abstract

The practice of design is experiencing new and revolutionary approaches created by the information technology and digital tools that have entered into a truly effective and operational phase. Three hundred and sixty degrees of the world of design is affected – from architecture to urban design, from product design to landscape design. Parametric, associative and generative design tools deeply influence the practice of design; on the one hand allowing professionals and researchers to develop integrated and dynamic environments with multi-functional and sustainable buildings; and on the other, constituting the operational and concrete base for the deployment of a new aesthetic consciousness based on the digital technologies available in the practice of design.

This work discusses the latest work methods provided by the new digital tools and technologies and investigates the outcomes in order to exploit their potentialities in terms of integration, performance and innovation; or to underline the critical points and propose ways to improve their use in order to mind the gap between potentialities and applications. Three case studies, all produced by the author, will be presented. The employed research method is the critic chart, an objective/subjective evaluation method that includes a comparison of the given design attributes that are defined as valuable and listed in charts, and the final result of the projects. The results will be presented in the form of an illustration with a discussion of the projects’ characteristics and features. The works to be analysed fit the various aspects, requirements and ideas, objectively and subjectively, even if with various gradients. The new methodologies and potentialities created by digital tools permit the development of designs that properly fit the environment, and are sustainable, performative and an expression of the cultural complexities and multiplicities of the contemporary world.