Urban Grammar

Developing detailed, consistent and scalable characterisations of urban form & function

Masters Gathering｜AI and Smart City
Dani Arribas-Bel
@darribas
Martin Fleischmann
@martinfleis

Today

  • Urban Form & Function
  • Urban Grammar
  • A peek into the future

(Urban) Form & Function

How we arrange “stuff” in cities matters…

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

Form & Function

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”

Urban Grammar

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

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

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

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

British Signatures

Sub-classifications

Building Spatial Signatures

[STAGE] Delimiters Enclosure Anchors Encl. Tess. Characters Clusters Signatures
Enclosed Tessellation
Embedding form & function
Spatial Signatures
+

A peek into the future

📡 🌎 + 💻 + 🤖

Two examples on Form & Function…

Source: Sentinel-2 cloudless

Wild countryside (320x320m)

Urbanity (320x320m)

Predicted class (320x320m)

Urban Grammar

Developing detailed, consistent and scalable characterisations of urban form & function

Masters Gathering｜AI and Smart City
Dani Arribas-Bel
@darribas
Martin Fleischmann
@martinfleis