Architecture Research (MPhil) (PhD)
Saba Golchehr
As an urban designer and researcher, Saba is interested in how novel digital data technologies offer opportunities to increase our knowledge of the built environment and how people inhabit it. She is particularly interested in how these new technologies can inform sustainable urban development. Her studies involve working with large, unstructured, socio-spatial data from a wide range of digital sources to extract knowledge and develop new data analysis methods that can inform spatial design with a focus on citizen engagement and social sustainability. As an independent researcher for various clients from public and private sectors, she has developed data-driven methods and digital tools for spatial analysis using a wide range of data sources.
Sponsors
TRADERS
New digital tools like data mining do not have to be foregrounded within the architectural discipline, but they are useful instruments that enable alternative approaches and interventions aimed at serving the public. It is however crucial that architects remain critical of their role and agency in shaping the built environment –and try to avoid becoming instrumentalised to reinforce exploitative systems- when adopting Big Data, participatory, temporary, or any other ‘state-of-the-art’ approaches.
Word Correlations - Number of Google hits — Data research into the number of Google hits for Big Data and various topics. Part of literature research into the definitions and relationships between Big Data and public space design and citizen participation.
Word Correlations - Google Search — Data research into the word correlations for Big Data topics. Part of literature research into the definitions and relationships between Big Data and public space design and citizen participation.
Twitter networks — Study of Twitter data to discover active local communities in Genk, Belgium
Twitter communities — Study of Twitter data to discover active local communities in Genk, Belgium
The world is flooded with more information than ever before. Ubiquitous digital technologies have enabled direct access to large amounts of empirical data to inform a wide range of topics and investigations. My thesis set out to explore how these novel data technologies offer new opportunities to learn more about the built environment, and how people inhabit it, to inform spatial design.
The research has been developed under the umbrella of TRADERS (‘Training Art and Design Researchers in Participation for Public Space’), an EU-funded interdisciplinary research project, and explores the intersection between digital data analysis (including the topics of Big Data, data mining, smart cities, algorithms, and more) and citizen participation in design for the public realm. Moving beyond the ephemeral approach of many current disruptive participatory design projects that have adopted digital technologies, the thesis concentrates on public realm projects that aim to facilitate an active afterlife beyond the designers’ involvement. The research identifies a recurring issue in current participatory design practices: designers tend to create a community around themselves, and therefore place the wrong actor at the centre of a project’s social network. Rather than building social constructs from scratch, the research demonstrates that analysing socio-spatial digital data could help architects identify existing active communities, design the physical conditions to facilitate long-term citizen engagement, and, therewith, help shape socially sustained, resilient public space projects that are able to adapt to changing demands and a dynamic demographic.
There is a vast amount of digital data on users available today; however, its potential as empirical input for the social dimension within spatial design has so far remained underexplored. While digital tools are not new to the spatial design professions, adopted technologies, such as computer-aided design (CAD) and parametric modelling, all primarily focus on the built object. By introducing a human-centred focus, the thesis moves beyond the current object-oriented fixation of digital technologies for architecture and urban design. Through several practice examples, the research demonstrates how digital data analysis could help design firms conduct more thorough and in-depth explorations of the social layer of a local context. Furthermore, the thesis argues that an extensive and advanced analysis of a local context in an initial phase of the design process can help develop a more substantial initial premise, and therefore help develop a more context-appropriate and socially sustainable design.
Digital data analysis can help achieve much more precision and rigour to design processes that aim to facilitate beneficial and lasting social outcomes. However, while it can be tempting to use technology for technology’s sake, the thesis argues that data-driven approaches could become just another tool in an architect’s arsenal. New digital tools do not have to be foregrounded within the architectural discipline; instead, they can function as an aid to develop and consolidate more empirically-based human-centred designs. The thesis concludes that digital data technologies are useful instruments that enable alternative approaches and interventions aimed at serving the public. Incorporating these technologies into existing design practices, however, requires training and education.
The research has been developed under the umbrella of TRADERS (‘Training Art and Design Researchers in Participation for Public Space’), an EU-funded interdisciplinary research project, and explores the intersection between digital data analysis (including the topics of Big Data, data mining, smart cities, algorithms, and more) and citizen participation in design for the public realm. Moving beyond the ephemeral approach of many current disruptive participatory design projects that have adopted digital technologies, the thesis concentrates on public realm projects that aim to facilitate an active afterlife beyond the designers’ involvement. The research identifies a recurring issue in current participatory design practices: designers tend to create a community around themselves, and therefore place the wrong actor at the centre of a project’s social network. Rather than building social constructs from scratch, the research demonstrates that analysing socio-spatial digital data could help architects identify existing active communities, design the physical conditions to facilitate long-term citizen engagement, and, therewith, help shape socially sustained, resilient public space projects that are able to adapt to changing demands and a dynamic demographic.
There is a vast amount of digital data on users available today; however, its potential as empirical input for the social dimension within spatial design has so far remained underexplored. While digital tools are not new to the spatial design professions, adopted technologies, such as computer-aided design (CAD) and parametric modelling, all primarily focus on the built object. By introducing a human-centred focus, the thesis moves beyond the current object-oriented fixation of digital technologies for architecture and urban design. Through several practice examples, the research demonstrates how digital data analysis could help design firms conduct more thorough and in-depth explorations of the social layer of a local context. Furthermore, the thesis argues that an extensive and advanced analysis of a local context in an initial phase of the design process can help develop a more substantial initial premise, and therefore help develop a more context-appropriate and socially sustainable design.
Digital data analysis can help achieve much more precision and rigour to design processes that aim to facilitate beneficial and lasting social outcomes. However, while it can be tempting to use technology for technology’s sake, the thesis argues that data-driven approaches could become just another tool in an architect’s arsenal. New digital tools do not have to be foregrounded within the architectural discipline; instead, they can function as an aid to develop and consolidate more empirically-based human-centred designs. The thesis concludes that digital data technologies are useful instruments that enable alternative approaches and interventions aimed at serving the public. Incorporating these technologies into existing design practices, however, requires training and education.
Medium:
PhDIn Collaboration with:
Training Art and Design Researchers in Participation for Public Space
TRADERS
Training Art and Design Researchers in Participation for Public Space