URBAN DESIGN CASE STUDIES Vol. 3 No. 1 January-March 2006 Environmental Simulation: Michael Kwartler Draws People Into Process By Anna Holtzman, Contributing Writer, Architecture community is asked for feedback on hotbutton issues such as affordable housing, public transportation, and the ratio of urban density to open space. Community input is then converted into numerical data, which is plugged into a 3D real-time model of the given site using a software program called CommunityViz, developed by ESC in the mid 1990s. When the data inputs are changed, the effects of various zoning strategies are reflected in the 3D model in the form of virtual prototypes of elements such as housing, retail, and infrastructure. These prototypes are kept fairly abstract, as the visioning process is a precursor to physical planning. As the community visioning process progresses, users adjust the input variables until they are satisfied with the landscape of their
Michael Kwartler, head of the New York– based firm the Environmental Simulation Center (ESC), is one of a small handful of planners pioneering the emerging field of community visioning using graphic information system (GIS) mapping technology and 3D real-time models— virtual environments that users navigate as though they are walking through the streets of the 3D model. While the tools are high-tech, the aim of the work is to integrate grass-roots community involvement into policy-making and planning. Community Visioning When ESC takes part in a community visioning project, the firm’s aim is not to develop an urban plan, but rather to create consensus among community members on what future growth should look like. This provides developers and policy-makers with a better idea of what constituents want, contends Kwartler, while giving residents a greater sense of commitment to their common goals. Typically, at the outset of a visioning initiative, ESC will work with a partner organization, such as Gianni Longo’s firm ACP Visioning & Planning, conducting a series of town hall meetings in which the
virtual community.
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from Envision Sustainability Tools; and the California Energy Commission’s PLACE’S.
Technology Evolution According to Bill Jepson, director of the UCLA Urban Simulation Laboratory at the university’s Department of Architecture and Urban Design, 3D realtime urban simulation had its genesis thirty-two years ago, when UCLA’s Peter Kamnitzer used a research grant to investigate NASA moon landing simulation technology. Real-time simulations were subsequently adopted by Ininstitutions Santa Fe, a hypothetical strategy is mapped such as thezoning Environmental over the existing topography of an underdeveloped Simulation Lab at UC Berkeley, founded area. An adjacent, radial trailer park is left untouched, as in the late 1960s by Donald Appleyard and affordable housing. currently running under the leadership of Peter Bosselmann. In 1991, the Lab spawned a New York outpost, run by Michael Kwartler, that was converted into Kwartler’s independent nonprofit in 1997.
Process in Practice: Santa Fe In 2000, the City of Santa Fe asked ACP Visioning & Planning to create a $140,000 study titled The Southwest Santa Fe City and County Planning Initiative that would provide a policy framework for future private development on a 6400-acre site. ESC came on as a partner in the visioning process, which took place from summer of 2000 to spring 2001. Existing development, recalls Kwartler, was characterized by a “Taco Bell blandness that could have been Anywhere, USA,” with a radial trailer park in one section and an adjacent series of narrow, linear parcels created by generations of lot divisions that maintained access to the Santa Fe River. Looking back at the process and evaluating its effects on development since then, Diane Quarles—who, at the time of the project, was a Senior Planner with the City of Santa Fe—reports that the city adopted much of ACP and ESC’s recommendations in November 2001. Subsequently, a large private development called the San Isidro project that arrived in the area near the major artery of Route 66 partially incorporated the recommendations. The development includes big box commercial development along the front of the road, with multifamily housing behind the retail, and a more traditional single-family residential area at the rear. The developer compromised, Quarles relays, by reducing the initial commercial quota and including a setback that buffers the residential zone from the commercial strip.
Real-time simulation, says Jepson, is a useful tool for gathering community input, because unlike 3D animations and 2D renderings, real-time models can be freely navigated by the user, offering a relatively objective view of a project. Animations present a predetermined path through a project, so, like still renderings, they may act more as marketing devices than as evaluation tools—showing only views that the creator has selected. A variety of urban simulation software packages now cater to a range of different approaches. Index, created by Criterion Planners/Engineers is a program that measures the effects of zoning changes; it is not 3D, but can be integrate it into 3D visualizations. While CommunityViz users must create their own set of indicators and formulas, Index comes with a choice of pre-determined indicators, giving the latter software less flexibility but an easier set-up. Other packages include What IF?, from Community Analysis and Planning Systems; QUEST,
While Quarles lauds the effectiveness of the community input process, she also addresses a challenge that planners face. “In the visioning process,” she relates, “you get people to think outside the box
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infrastructure and public facilities assessment, an open space and green infrastructure assessment, and a performance evaluation framework. Begun in October 2005, the $500,000 visioning study spans 512,000 acres of North and South Kona, and is slated for completion in June 2006.
and create a vision, but it may be one that can’t come true, since there are no constraints. It’s very tricky to take what people want and translate it into a code that will function and that developers will buy into.” In Progress: Kona, Hawaii
“Hawaii is all one county and it’s very diverse,” says Kwartler, so working toward a comprehensive county plan is a challenging proposition. ACP has trained 30 locals to hold forums for community input, and so far there have been 90 of these meetings with roughly 50,000 residents of North and South Kona. Ultimately, ESC will hand over a series of recommendations to the county, and a group of other consultants will take over to bring the plan to a higher level of detail—however, says Kwartler, ESC may return to the project to modify zoning.
Currently, ESC is taking part in a community visioning initiative for the County of Hawaii, again in partnership with ACP Visioning and Planning, as well as with local planning and engineering firm Wilson Okamoto & Associates. The study will be used to inform the creation of a comprehensive community development plan that will include an
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Future Projections The future of visioning, predicts Kwartler, is agent-based modeling, a tool for predicting the growth patterns of dynamic, changing systems. Agent-based planning, Kwartler explains in plain-speak, can be observed in such examples as the emergence of loft living in SoHo. The phenomenon started without a preconceived plan—one person (or “agent”) moved in, and another one followed, until the trend reached a tipping point, and was eventually incorporated into legal code. ESC is currently developing a “policy simulator” that will predict the cumulative effects on urban environments of incremental policy changes, such as minor tax hikes. “Since the world happens in small increments,”
A zoning study of Kona, Hawaii, delineates preferred growth areas outlined in red, existing development in gray, conservation zones in green, and approved development in gray-and-white checkers.
Kwartler says, “you need to provide a structure for small, incremental decision making.”
Project Credits: Santa Fe Client: former City Planning Director Cyrus Samii -ACP Visioning and Planning (Lead) (New York); Visioning, Planning, and Public Process - ESC (New York): Visioning, Planning and Urban Design, Simulation, GIS
Quarles concludes, “Visualization and visioning are here to stay. The planners’ job now is to mesh the science of planning with the community process and create a plan that can withstand the test of realization.”
Project Credits: Kona Client: County Planning Director Christopher Yuen Lead Firms: - ACP Visioning and Planning (New York); Visioning and Public Process - ESC (New York): Visioning, Planning and Urban Design, Simulation, GIS - Wilson Okamoto Associates (Hawaii); Local Lead, Project Management, Engineering, Technical Studies Consulting Firms: - David Paul Rosen Associates (California); Affordable Housing - Charlier Associates (Colorado); Transportation/Green Infrastructure - Will Allen, The Conservation Fund (North Carolina); Green Infrastructure - Harrison Rue, Citizen Planner Institute (Virginia); Public Involvement
Michael Kwartler Michael Kwartler is an architect, planner, urban designer, and educator. He is the founding director of the Environmental Simulation Center, a non-profit research laboratory created to develop innovative applications of information technology for community planning, design, and decision-making. During over thirty years of professional practice and teaching, he has focused on urban design and the theory and practice of legislating aesthetics and good city form. He was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1990.
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