Paper short abstract:

This submission explores the relationship between complex urban phenomena (described here as “emergent cities”) and its representational/modelling techniques in the context of architecture and city planning design studios.

Paper long abstract:

The representation, modelling and communication of design knowledge is central to imagining, planning and developing future built environment scenarios, and form the core of project-based learning in architectural and city planning education.

Challenging more classic expansion-based models of urban growth, however, cities have suffered complex processes of extreme densification, rapid local and global migration patterns, or in-city regeneration/desertification processes. This collection of patterns is what we call "emergent cities", and they arguably reshape our understanding of relevant contents of the canonical architectural curricula such as "the vernacular", "place and place-making", and "regionalism". This paper addresses how this updated knowledge requires updated modes of representation, modelling and communication for the training of future architects and city planners, how students engage with such digital toolboxes, and their impact on the design of future (although fictional) scenarios.

In that sense, a series of recently developed architectural modelling techniques offer a variety of associated methods to process, visualise or represent emergent cities - such as digital fabrication and modelling, augmented reality visualisations, and parametric modelling. To a more elaborated extent, complex models based on urban and big data involve information modelling techniques, and real-time geographic information models. As a result, a discussion around notions (and cases) of the (digital) materiality and model-making in design studios, urban analysis and representation, and imaginary future/fictional scenarios is the core of this submission.

This work is based on the development of a MA Architecture course in Plymouth University focused on emergent cities and digital design processes.