Urban Grammar

(Urban) form/function through satellite data & AI
https://urbangrammarai.xyz
Dani Arribas-Bel
Martin Fleischmann
[@darribas]
[@martinfleis]

“The point”

How we arrange “stuff” in cities matters…

Source: A map of every building in America (New York Times)

… it matters a lot

Form

What does it look like?
“Physical structure and appearance of cities”

Function

What is it used for?
“Activities that take place within an environment”

Spatial Signatures

A characterisation of space based on form and function designed to understand urban environments

A characterisation of space based on form and function designed to understand urban environments

A characterisation of space based on form and function designed to understand urban environments

A characterisation of space based on form and function designed to understand urban environments

BRITISH SIGNATURES

Countryside

Urban Areas

  • Periphery
  • Suburbs
  • Cities

London’s unique…

Milton Keynes…

Building an Urban Grammar

  • Spatial Signatures are building blocks (the “words”)
  • For the rules to combine them, you need time
  • Phase II: learn Spatial Signatures from satellite

Timeline

  • 🎅🎄Open data products: Spatial Signatures
  • 2022-Q1: AI experiments
  • 2022: Temporal open data product

Urban Grammar

(Urban) form/function through satellite data & AI
https://urbangrammarai.xyz
Dani Arribas-Bel
Martin Fleischmann
[@darribas]
[@martinfleis]

Appendix

Enclosed Tessellation

Characters

Form
  • Dimension
  • Shape
  • Intensity
  • Connectivity
  • Diversity
Function
  • Population
  • Employment
  • Industry
  • Land use/cover
  • Amenity access
N ≈ 300

Context