City Science at the service of urban design and planning for informed decision-making through case studies

Presenter: José Gras, UOC (Spain) and OUA Group

The city and the territory embrace the complexity of today’s life and it is where the life of the future is projected. Urban planning and design must be able to respond to the various layers that make up this complexity and, to do that, traditional planning tools are not enough, but rather it is necessary to rely on data, network and flow analysis tools to be able to model dynamic systems. In this sense, it is necessary to be aware that cities are part of a larger ecosystem and are not immutable realities, but rather they have to adapt to changing contexts.

Through three case studies, it is shown how to design and plan cities based on informed decisions: revealing patterns with more precision and efficiency than with traditional urban planning tools; testing various options for the urban project and drawing environmental and socioeconomic conclusions; helping public administrations to control the proposals with more objective criteria; making territorial and urban planning procedures and instruments more transparent; standardising the quality control of projects and their alignment with sustainable urban development criteria; and identifying in advance the expected results of an intervention in order to have a full understanding of urban systems.