Urban data and decision-making: emerging technologies and built environment design

The research explores the relationship between urban data and built environment decision-making, in terms of policy, planning and design. It focuses on how contemporary urban data innovations, approaches and technologies (e.g. crowdsourcing, big data mining, in-person co-design workshops, IoT, sensors) can provide insight and add value to decision-making processes by informing designs/policy, post-occupancy evaluation or future scenario modelling, and any subsequent impact on user experience, environmental, health and well-being outcomes. For example, by creating pedestrian/cycle-friendly cities, promoting social interaction in public space, or increasing greenspace provision. This will help close a gap, better connecting what can now be learnt about the city, with the practical application of built environment decision-making.
Aims:
Explore how urban data is already used in cities built environment decision-making worldwide.
Investigate the impact on decision-making, including health, well-being, user experience outcomes.
Explore the future potential for urban data to add value to urban planning, policy or design decisions, focussing on user experience.
Disseminate learnings

The research will be innovative. PhD outputs will enable a more effective positive feedback loop between what is built, and lessons learned from what was built previously. Exploration of live data streams and simulated models will support more agile and responsive decision-making. Learnings will feed into industry partner - Connected Places Catapults Future of Planning programme.
Outputs:
Toolkit: summarising 10 global case studies. Successes/lessons learnt. Sharing practical knowledge about applying urban data techniques. Distributed via website/mailing-list of academics, professionals, citizens, including research participants.
Framework: highlighting recommended data-driven techniques/metrics built environment decision-makers could utilise to maximise user experience, health, well-being outcomes.
Conference: sharing framework/toolkit with public, academics, professionals. Speakers: Connected Places Catapult, case study participants, urban data/design experts, researchers.
Website: featuring open source toolkit, framework, conference talks, case studies. Sharing learnings with those delivering built environment public services/policy/initiatives worldwide (professionals, citizen groups).

Research impact will include adding to academic knowledge, as well as improving the effectiveness of future urban policy/design decisions. This is particularly valuable given the costs of physical infrastructure changes and long-term city-wide impacts of planning policy. The PhD would help decision-makers take practical steps to use urban user experience data, improving societal (health/well-being) and economic outcomes (better targeting finite public funds/services).