Worldwide, cities will account for 90% of the global population growth, 80% of wealth creation, and 60% of total energy consumption. Therefore, it is not surprising that the ideal of the Smart City is at the forefront of the political discourse and was identified as one of the main challenges that scientific researchers need to tackle. In particular, little knowledge exists of how to transform the existing urban systems to the visionary Smart Cities pictured by many.
In this talk, I will introduce a research agenda for how to support design processes for this required smart city transformation using visualization and simulation (V&S) tools. With their potential to integrate representations of existing and future conditions of both physical and social nature, V&S tools can allow for the joint knowledge work that forms the core of the engineering design process. To meaningfully develop and understand the working of V&S, however, the existing possibilities of computational methods for simulating and visualizing need to be understood in relation to how computers can carry meaning so that V&S can help to engage and align the different stakeholders that need to participate in an engineering design process. To support such understanding, the research agenda draws upon computer semiotics – the study of computer based signs and sign processes – which provides a theoretical lens into this complex relation between the technical and the social. Next to introducing the theoretical research agenda, I will also connect it to results from our ongoing living-lab research in three important areas of city infrastructure design and construction: health care facility design, inner city sub-surface construction, and asphalt paving.
Lunch included