Mapping micro-contexts: informing architectural urban design and development

MAPPING MICRO-CONTEXTS: INFORMING ARCHITECTURAL URBAN DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT 

One of the key challenges in creating liveable cities is to encourage private investment in the public good. The goal of the PhD project is to identify social sustainability indicators, consisting of quantitative data, within the context of modern workplaces and learning environments.

Based on a newly constructed university building in Cincinnati, this PhD project seeks to develop a method to measure human behavioural patterns for assessing the inherent qualities that human-oriented design can provide for building users and their daily activities. Based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods, the desired outcome of this project is to support the early stages of the design process of future projects and provide a business case for private investors and create a voice to the public.

Clients are calling for evidence-based architectural design solutions, which requires quantified and objective data on human behavior and well-being. As spaces and places become increasingly ubiquitous, this PhD developed methods that focus on feeding more human-centric data into the decision making about which types of space provisions suit best to the contextual user needs.

Implementing public outdoor and common indoor spaces face similar challenges, as current public spaces tend to lack spatial flexibility and functional diversity. Here, overexposure, stress, and lacking privacy are main trade-offs of public spaces. Detail-oriented designs would increase space suitability for better usability.

This study finds that an increased proportion of open space typologies could lead to both economic benefits and improved experience for buildings users. Empirical literature indicate that evolving trends in education and higher educational facilities may shift the demand directed towards types of space provisions, as the digitization and now the pandemic accelerated the importance of social spaces within education facilities.