Diagrammatic Sketches as a Means of Design Interaction

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DEVELOPMENT OF TOOLS FOR PARTICICIPATORY URBAN DESIGN This research deals with the development of innovative tools for participation in urban design and planning. It mainly focuses on the development of methodologies that encourage active engagement of stakeholders in definition of concepts of urban and landscape form. These are methods that facilitate the use of graphical gestures, drawn sketches and physical models which are then captured via different scanning techniques, analysed and brought back into to the design concepts or further consultation processes. They underlying hypothesis is that these methods due to their "hands on" approach combined with precise data analytics can produce better and more informed consultation processes. CURRENT RESEARCH ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF DIAGRAMMATIC SKETCHES The research is currently focusing on one type of tools for participatory processes, namely the usage of freehand sketching in the development of landscape and urban design. While this would fall into a specific category of urban participation called sketch planning, this research looks at specific types of drawings and data analytics which can help this discipline better address issues related with landscape and urban character. The use of sketches in participatory process is mostly based on the use of certain types of drawings, namely sketch maps and concept maps which are inherently suited to discuss issues of spatial problem solving, land use location and geographical data gathering. However questions of landscape and urban appearance, style and more nuanced discussions on connectivity (what we shall call urban and landscape character) are not addressed properly through these means. Another type of drawings, which we call diagrammatic sketches, can be used to fill this gap. These are typically plan based line drawings of connecting paths, desire lines and landscape components such as planting, artificial topographies or water features. They tend to be simpler than sketch maps drawings (for example they may represent centre line of roads as opposed to both edges) and more abstract than conventionally used sketch/concept maps (for example, lines can sometimes be interpreted in multiple ways). Their use in design practice is more closely related to the discussion on issues of character and can bring new perspectives to the participatory processes if adequately used. However, their level of abstraction can potentially make them hard to adopt or understand by different user groups in the participation process, posing questions on its usability as well as ease of interpretation by non-experts. This study tries to understand the applicability of diagrammatic sketching in public participatory processes. It assumes that questions of urban and landscape character can be collectively discussed with stakeholders by a combination of sketch development and further round table discussions following statistical analysis of the sketches. This in turn should help enrich planning discussion and help stakeholders express concerns and issues which do not emerge through other means. It is currently developing a technique called network characterization, which should help both interpret diagrammatic sketches and link their results to discussion on urban character during participatory processes. The study shall carry out network characterization of existing pieces of urban fabric and compare its results with ground truth of their character based on analysis of existing historical background. Equally, it shall carry out characterization studies of hand drawn sketches of different user groups and ascertain its efficiently in capturing design intent. One test has been carried out so far with 10 year old children.