Project Description

The team would like to develop a community based, interactive planning tool which aids in the understanding, design, and regulatory planning relationship between building density, pedestrian walkways, and public space. The tool aims to simulate and measure projected conditions on the density and comfort of pedestrian circulation, a gradient from low to high circulation density, and whether it is comfortable or not. The comfort metric is defined by measuring against a function of the context’s building occupant loads, typologies, and times of day. By understanding the relationship between zoning metrics, typology and pedestrian circulation, the community, designers, developers, and planners, will be able to make more informed decisions considering occupant load and pedestrian walkway widths, designs, locations, and connectivity within a specific site. A major component of the tool is that it is highly considers the public opinion, allowing them to access and experience digital twins of projects in their community via the cloud, where they may view the impacts of developments in their area, as well as be an avenue for them to make suggestions to projects that are within their community.

The tool will utilize unreal engine in creating a usable and relatable platform to simulate the pedestrian circulation conditions on specific sites. It will also provide a GUI menu that will allow the public to easily interact with the project, view it, experience it, try testing parameters, and see results. By allowing the “player” to view the site from a Bird’s eye view and fly mode, or by viewing the pedestrian condition from a human-eye perspective, players can actively take part in the design process of their projects within their community.

The tool hopes to add value to the AEC industry, by attempting to develop a quantitative, logical, and systematic approach to designing public walkways, spaces, and density controls, and to allow the designers, planners, and developers to have an interactive, real-time public consultation with the community to experience and be part of the design process behind projects within their vicinity.  

The tool can also be further developed with more specific AI Behaviour Trees that can be expanded to consider a whole set of other environmental variables such as, Sun, Wind, Noise, and other comfort metrics.

External Resources:

• https://cadmapper.com/ 
• Advanced Cel Shader Lite by Skull