Industrial research with universities in Europe and North America. Partnering with tech startups and construction companies
How do social norms and cultural values impact the way in which people use public space? Supervising a PhD at Copenhagen University gave us the opportunity to develop and publish a method of crowdsourcing data. We tracked and mapped how women and men use public space differently in Saudi Arabia, one of the most gender-segregated societies in the world.
Potzdamer Platz Public Realm
2017
Bundesbank Campus
2018
München Feldkirchen
2019
Princeton University Campus
2017
Technical University of Denmark
2014
City of Riyadh
2014
Washington University
2013
Smart city research in our studio includes the development of GPS-based crowdsourcing techniques, the development of hyper-local surveys deploying object recognition software and tools for the evaluation of design via public life simulation based on agent-based-modelling.
Building on the evidence-based design methodology developed by Jan Gehl and others long before computers were used in commercial urban design practice, we are actively developing new urban design surveying and design tools. We draw on state-of-the-art research and technology available to our generation today and we experiment with the many opportunities afforded by consumer-level electronics today. Our research is funded by Innovationfund Denmark and Realdania.
TITLE:
CLIENT:
SITE:
CITY:
SIZE:
COMPLETION:
LEARN MORE:
Smart City Research
Realdania, Innovationfund Denmark and Bloxhub
Global
Copenhagen, Denmark
Global
Research ongoing since 2015
Can computer game technology open new possibilities to immerse people in design proposals? Under the Realdania and Innovation Fund Denmark Smart City and Smart Buildings research cluster we developed a platform that uses agent-based-modelling environments to simulate public life in design proposals.
London​
2019
Toronto Downsview
2019
Berlin Siemensstadt 2.0
2019
Museum of the Danish Archipelago
2019
Toronto Downsview
2019
Frederiksberg
City Hall Square
2020
A successful application of our public life simulation was used under Covid-19 in Frederiksberg in Copenhagen. We invited people to experience an existing city square in person and provided them with personal VR-goggles to experience half a dozen future design scenarios for this space. Here, technology helped the municipality to facilitate public consultation in a new and safe format. Our bespoke platform is designed for people of all ages and requires no computer literacy.
The Interactive Building Site
2020
©KnightDragon
Techmatch
2020
One of the practical applications of our smart city research was to develop an interactive building site in collaboration with contractor Enemærke & Petersen. Based on feedback from building site planning professionals, we created a virtual world where people can learn about the most prevalent sources of conflicts experienced with urban construction sites.
Our project scales are growing. On this project we developed urban design frameworks at the scale of entire city regions. We have secured funding from Realdania to develop a web-based platform that uses learning algorithms to analyse video footage of urban areas. The project is carried out under the Tech Match programme collaborating with surveillance tech startup Heptasense of Lisbon.