During this one-day-workshop you will be introduced to methods for the analysis, synthesis and optimization of urban layouts. We will cover computational generation of the street network, parcellation and the building form, based on the existing urban context and various design goals. You learn how to analyze street networks effectively, and we show you how to compare and optimize the generated designs systematically. For this purpose we use Grasshopper for Rhino3D with the plugin DecodingSpaces-Toolbox, and a new Design-Space-Exploration tool. The methods are demonstrated by realistic case studies in an existing urban environments.

This workshop is intended for both practitioners and researchers interested in rapid context aware generation of urban layouts. The presented workflow let you computationally explore the design options of new urban development area with the possibility to assess the site potential and inform the early planning stages. The presented DeCodingSpaces-Toolbox for Grasshopper is a collection of analytical and generative components for algorithmic architectural and urban planning. The toolbox is free software released by the Computational Planning Group (CPlan).

The workshop on Adaptive Urban Layout Optimization in Grasshopper is hosted by:

SimAUD 2019, Atlanta – USA, School of Architecture, Georgia Tech,  7. April 2019

Requirements

Install instructions

Unblocking plugins

After downloading the RequiredGHPlugins_SimAUD19.zip file, check if its unblocked before extracting the zip archive. Right click on the file > Properties > select unblock > select ok

Install components

After unlocking and extracting the RequiredGHPlugins_SimAUD19.zip archive, copy the “SimAUD19 components” folder into the grasshopper component folder. The grasshopper component folder can be found at:

 C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Grasshopper\Libraries

or via grasshopper file menu:

Install user objects

After unlocking and extracting the RequiredGHPlugins_SimAUD19.zip archive, copy the “SimAUD19 user objects” folder into the grasshopper UserObjects folder. The grasshopper component folder can be found at:

 C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Grasshopper\UserObjects

or via grasshopper file menu:

Enable GPU acceleration

The requirement to run the GPU accelerated street network analysis is the CUDA platform enabled NVIDIA GPU.
If this requirement is fulfilled, you have to copy the folders “Alea.CUDA.CT.LibDevice” and “Alea.CUDA.CT.Native.X86.B64.Windows” from the GPU acceleration folder to your Rhino install folder (i.e. “Program Files\Rhinoceros 6 (64-bit)\System\”).

Part 1 – Street Network Analysis

Presentation

Documentation

Interactive documentation of the Street Network Analysis toolbox.

Hands on example files:

Street Network Editing Utilities

01| CITY GRAPH STARTING EXAMPLE

Basic setup for different options how to use the street network analysis tools to calculate shortest paths and centrality measures.


Download Grasshopper file

04| CITY GRAPH ONE WAY ROADS

The underlying spatial graph is directed one, which means that to every street we can assign different distance weight in each direction. In the example we demonstrate how this can be used to model traffic regulation such as one way streets.


Download Grasshopper file

02| PARK EDGE WEIGHTING

Calculating shortest paths by assigning custom distance weights (graph edges) to the spatial network. The edge weights can be metric, angular, custom or any combination of these. Thus we can represent different concepts of distance (e.g. time, safety, cognitive distance)


Download Grasshopper file

05| CITY GRAPH CENTRALITY VERTEX WEIGHTING

When calculation street network centrality, we can assign custom weight to each graph vertex (origin and destination of shortest path). This can be used to model network in which some nodes (e.g. train station) produce more movement than others.


Download Grasshopper file

03| CITY GRAPH BUS EDGE WEIGHTING

The application of custom distance weights (edge weights) is demonstrated on the example of multi-modal transportation network. Street segment which serve as bus routes are given shorter distance representing travel time compared to pedestrian street segments.


Download Grasshopper file
Download Rhino file

06| CITY GRAPH CENTRALITY DISTANCE DECAY

In several centrality measures (e.g. gravity), the attractiveness of destination is  inversely proportional to function of distance. As distance grows, the attractiveness is getting lower. In the street network analysis toolbox, this distance decay function can be defined by user representing different types of behavior and aversion to travel.


Download Grasshopper file

Street Network Editing Utilities

01| NETWORK EDITING TOOLS

To gain correct and speedy analysis results of any street network, this has to be usually simplified and corrected for drawing errors. DeCodingSpaces toolbox offers range of tools to split lines, remove duplicates, simplify intersections and remove dead ends.


Download Grasshopper file

02| CUSTOM OFFSET

Transforms the street network into closed polylines – street blocks which can be offseted by custom value for each block edge. We demonstrate this functionality by offseting the block edges by their respective street network centrality values.


Download Grasshopper file

Part 2 – Street Network Synthesis

Hands on example files:

Street Network Generation and Optimization

01| STREET NETWORK SYNTHESIS

02| Chromosome Demonstration

03| Evolutionary Multi-Criteria Optimization

In case you have issues with the Selector component of the DeCodingSpaces-Toolbox, it may be caused by the decimal symbol used by your operating system: make sure you use point, no comma. Second, ensure that the path to your PISA folder (part of the DeCodingSpaces-Toolbox in your libraries folder) has no space characters, points, or other special characters. You can copy the PISA folder with its content to C:\PISA and delete it from the libraries folder.

Part 3 – Exploration

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