Encouraging Interaction: Neighbourhood-Specific Computational Design

Abstract

Most high-density urban housing, while successful in meeting escalating population and financial demands, fails to sustain the local identity and community that make cities desirable. While high density typologies tend to isolate their residents, established neighbourhoods encourage the interactions necessary to allow a distinct identity and community to emerge. Formal patterns on the urban, building, and inhabitation scales are observed in these typologies to help or hinder interactions with the physical and social contexts. The thesis creates a custom computational tool that allows the architect to aggregate these neighbourhood-specific patterns in response to real time visual and data feedback, simultaneously evaluating qualitative and quantitative targets. A proof-of-concept design is carried out in the North End neighbourhood of Halifax, NS, resulting in an engaging and realistic residential development while contributing to thought on using computation to design for the human experience.