Semantic Urban Elements: Linking Urban Analytics, Design, and Usage for Cyber-Physical Cities

- Our paper, led by NUS, Global Streetscapes — A comprehensive dataset of 10 million street-level images across 688 cities for urban science and analytics, has been published in ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Q1 journal. More information can be found on the project website.

- The NUS team had potential collaboration discussions with Vonu Thakuriah from Rutgers University

- Chenyi’s collaboration paper titled “Digital Modelling and Analysis of the Network Structure for Residential Historic Areas in China” was presented at AESOP Annual Congress 2024, Paris.

Dense and Green Cities

- Thomas was interviewed by Business Insider to comment on Dr Liu Thai Ker's statements in his recent profile in The New York Times. Dr Liu, the former master planner of the Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority and current Chairman of the Centre for Liveable Cities, shared his reflections on urban planning and design in Singapore. The discussion delved into these insights, highlighting key aspects of sustainable urban development.

Circular Future Cities

- Two postdoc researchers, Goran Sibenik & Bibek Gupta have joined the Singapore team.

- A workshop titled “Circular Cities: Explainable Material Inference and Parametric Archetype Modeling” was organised in collaboration with Tongji University. The instructors were Wanyu Pei and Rudi Stouffs, with Shuyang Li as the teaching assistant. A total of 28 graduate students participated in the workshop. During the workshop, students learned how to develop Dynamo scripts to automatically calculate the concrete usage index (CUI) of 60 Chinese building projects according to their BIM models in Revit. After that, students were divided into six groups, each tasked with developing a research topic related to embodied carbon calculation, material stock dynamic analysis, region disaster and material recycle management and so on, based on the CUI data collected. Prof Rudi delivered an online keynote on urban prototype and data collection.

- The workshop achieved excellent results, with students not only gaining valuable technical skills but also contributing to meaningful research on sustainability. The participants expressed a high level of enthusiasm and engagement, and their final presentations reflected a deep understanding of the topics covered.

Urban BioCycles Mycelium Digitalisation

- Two conference papers titled "Mycelium-metal hybrids: Exploring fabrication and application for reconfigurable design structures" and "Elephant skin-inspired mycelium tiles for thermal regulation of buildings" respectively that were previously presented during SEGT 2023 last December are now available on IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science.

- A part-time student assistant, Himani has joined the Singapore team to assist in preparing displays exhibiting mycelium tiles for the purpose of collecting public perception surveys.

Potential Agriterritories: Agrarian Questions under Planetary Urbanisation and Agroecological Transitions

- Our PhD candidate, Metaxia Markaki, successfully defended her doctoral thesis, entitled "ARCADIA ­– Politics of Land and Nature: From Peripheralisation to Extended Citizenship”. Chaired by Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete, the doctoral committee was composed of her supervisors Prof. Milica Topalovic (ETHZ), Prof. Dr. Christian Schmid (ETHZ), Prof. Dr. Kenneth Olwig (SLUA) and external co-examiners Prof. Dr. Stavros Stavrides (NTUA) and Prof. Dr. Shubhra Gururani (York University). Congratulations Metaxia!

- Several module researchers, including Metaxia, are preparing for the RC 21 Conference in Santiago, Chile, on July 24-26th, 2024, “The politics and spaces of encounters: advancing dialogues between and within the Global North and the Global South”.

Adaptive Mobility, Land Use and Infrastructure

- Assist Prof Prateek Bansal, Prof Kay Axhausen, Zhuhan Jin from AMIL presented or participated at the 17th International Conference on Travel Behavior Research in Austria on July 15 and 16th

- Congratulations to Prof. Kay Axhausen, Co-Investigator of AMIL, for receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 17th IATBR!

- Prateek Bansal presented his work, “A novel data fusion method to leverage passively-collected mobility data in generating spatially-heterogeneous synthetic populations.'

- Zhuhan Jin presented her work, “A novel approach to study the role of social networks in planning joint leisure activities,” at the 17th International Conference on Travel Behavior Research in Austria on July 16.

The Sea-​City Interface

- Rudi gave an online lecture lecture last Thursday (11th July) at Harbin IT, as part of a summer camp academic event titled “Innovating the Future: Interdisciplinary Frontiers.“. The lecture was titled “AI supported building design generation” and showed work from Shuyang and Cao Qian, Jielin, Abraham, and Aries, as well as from MArch students.

- Pengyuan's co-authored paper (collaborated with Jiangnan University, CUHK, and HKUST)"How does spatial structure affect psychological restoration? A method based on Graph Neural Networks and Street View Imagery" accepted by Landscape and Urban Planning

Engagement Platform

- The Engagement Platform Training is becoming GLOBAL Since November 2023 we have been carrying out monthly training sessions about and around the Engagement Platform. This training is occurring on the 4th Wednesday of each month and so far has been designed for module coordinators or designated module representatives, who are using the platform. In light of the success of this initiative, we have decided to extend the invitation to the whole FCL Global Members starting from the upcoming session, scheduled for the 28th of August. If you want to participate to the training and have not received an invitation yet, please get in contact with Nicolò Guariento.