The concept of GeoDesign involves a more interactive interface to geospatial layers with the means for sketching and design upon those layers in a collaborative way while contributing and interacting with an evolving intelligent model. The concept itself isn’t new, but various technology pieces have been missing, and the enabling software is now being worked on.

Solving the connections between various software tools and discipline workflows is a sticky problem that will take some time to address and unravel. Now is the time for more dialogue on the definition and practice of GeoDesign.

The definition is being considered by practitioners, associations and academics. As the concept, process and technologies come together, it’s interesting to consider the question of whether GeoDesign is an activity, can be defined as a  practice, or can become a software-enabled approach.

Changing By Design

The master of the idea of GeoDesign is Carl Steinitz from Harvard University who has been active in consensus-building urban design approaches for a long time. ESRI’s Matt Artz wrote up a nice profile piece about GeoDesign in which he quoted Steinitz’s definition as: GeoDesign is changing geography by design.

In this definition, the emphasis is on the active role of GeoDesign to shape and mold our surroundings to our desired uses. The desire to change geography looks at broader-scale plans beyond individual buildings for a better understanding and affect on the  landscape.

GeoDesign as an activity centers on projects for specific outcomes in specific locations. The individual GeoDesigns for an area can be thought of as integrating over time in a larger planning-oriented repository, but in order for GeoDesign to be realized it must have funding as individual projects, perhaps even in a way that mandates the approach.

Defining a Practice

GeoDesign involves the modeling of desired outcomes that goes beyond building plans to incorporate the design of the broader geography. This purview for broader change involves the input of such disciplines as landscape architects, environmental scientists, engineers, urban planners, elected officials and citizens.

In order for GeoDesign to truly take off, it must take an interdisciplinary approach that is inclusive of all of the various parts in the planning process. The practice of GeoDesign would need to be taught and promoted in each individual discipline. The role of GeoDesigner might even involve being the coordinator and keeper of the central model, ensuring its integrity and compliance, while also spurring the project to completion.

GeoDesign from a practice perspective emphasizes collaboration and interdisciplinary cooperation toward the best and most sustainable design that takes into account livability (people), the environmental impacts (planet), and efficiency (profit).

The Role of the Model

The interoperability of the model between different disciplines is the central enabler of the GeoDesign concept. With a malleable central model that lives and is updated, we can realize the vision of more sustainable and more informed designs.

The key software requirements for GeoDesign include rich 3D visualization, an ability to store and search all project data regardless of format, the tools to model change through time, inputs from real-time sensors, and customizable interfaces for all participants and all workflows. Given the process-oriented nature of GeoDesign, another key component involves the means for individuals to communicate and design collectively. The model becomes the medium for project design, construction, management and maintenance.

Because digital design software and a rich 3D model are central to GeoDesign, it seems reasonable to think that software will be central to facilitating and enabling the GeoDesign approach. Without the tools to increase the communication and efficiency of the process, we might as well stick to today’s repetitive and wasteful processes.

Thankfully, the hot concept of GeoDesign neatly coincides with an expanding foundation of enabling technology, an interest in interdisciplinary approaches and a renewed interest in making our cities the most livable spaces for human habitation. The advancement is also being spurred by new projects for green and livable city initiatives that have funding.

The emphasis of GeoDesign so far seems to favor an active design-centric vision with a process that can exist outside of software. Ultimately, however, the definition rests with the properties and capabilities of the collaborative model that are dependent upon some software advancements, and a public will to take a new approach.

REFERENCES

The Next Big Thing: Green Neighborhoods, Sustainable Life, March 11, 2010

The photo sharing site Flickr is hosting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Documerica Project from the 1970s. The project ran from 1971-1977, with freelance photographers hired to take images related to environmental problems. There are more than 15,000 photos archived on the site.

This photo is one in a series from the ground and air that documented pre-pipeline conditions from Prudhoe Bay south to Valdez. This shot is of pattered ground as the result of massive ice formations north of Galbraith Lake. Photo by Dennis Cowals.

The U.S. Census Bureau is hard at work on the 2010 Census, fighting technological hurdles and an apparent malaise about being counted. In order to highlight the tradition of the these population counts that occur ever 10 years, the agency has put together some highlights for each of the 23 counts that have taken place since 1790.

The “Through the Decades” website contains interesting facts about the population size, the number of census workers, any new types of questions or race categories, and any new technologies deployed to ease this monumental task. There are some fascinating facts here about the changing size and makeup of the population as well as the march of technology.

Here are some of the details about the progression of computers and geospatial tools:

• 1890 is the first year that census workers were given detailed maps to help complete their tasks, and it’s also the same year that an electric tabulating system was utilized for the count
• 1950 was the first time a computer was used to tabulate results, and it was also the first computer designed for civilian use
• 1960 was the first time that census results were digitally recorded (on magnetic tape)
• 1970 was the first time that census data products were made available digitally on magnetic tape.
• 1980 saw the creation of the State Data Center Program for easier access to digital data on computer tapes
• 1990 was the year that the Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER), computer-based maps, was introduced. It also was the first year that data was released on CD-ROM
• 2000 was when the Internet became the primary means of distributing Census data
• 2010 won’t include the “long form” because this more detailed collection has been converted to the ongoing American Community Survey

Taken in 10 year chunks, this condensed history provides uncovers some trends about how society has changed, the growing role of technology for administration, and the way that Americans view themselves. The 2010 Census is less of a focal point for geospatial technologists given that the American Community Survey has provided much more detailed and ongoing data for spatial analysis, but it’s still the largest ongoing geographic data collection effort in the world.

Senator Chris Dodd aims to pass the Livable Communities Act prior to his retirement at the end of this session. The Act aims to fund transit-oriented development and other green transportation efforts. The Act would provide $4 Billion in competitive funds for projects, would establish an Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities within the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, and would establish an independent Interagency Council on Sustainable Communities. The effort builds on the $150 Million of sustainability grants that were part of the 2010 White House budget and formalizes the inter-agency efforts of the Office of Livable Communities.

The Open Geospatial Consortium has been hard at work on many fronts to drive down barriers to interoperability and to facilitate more open dialog between organizations and institutions. I just conducted a Q&A with David Schell, founder and chairman of the board of OGC, in order to get up to date on the many initiatives. One of the more interesting areas for our coverage deals with the better sharing of information about global change, and I enjoyed Schell’s answer, paraphrased below.

“GI Science” as it’s usually used is still too narrow a term. “Interoperability science” encompasses what we are talking about. One of the first interoperability science issues we need to address is the issue of sharing of information between various data centers, and making research data more discoverable and accessible. Data centers can’t be stovepipes anymore, they have to be “loosely coupled,” so any data center can be accessed by any data provider or user, with appropriate permissions, of course.

We’ve been working toward this for years in terms of technical interoperability issues, and we have working groups in hydrology, Earth system science, etc. who are developing application schemas that meet their intra-community and inter-community data sharing needs. We see individual scientists and small groups in various projects moving in this direction, but what’s really needed is a cultural dialog.

The OGC working groups are hard at work on things like geosemantics, data quality and uncertainty, geospatial rights management, “table joining,” and many other challenges, and application domains are using the OGC to facilitate both technical and semantic interoperability.

This focus on interoperability science is a growing niche to drive through both process and workflow in order to deal with global change. Read the full interview with Schell for more insight into OGC’s ongoing work.

The new digital resource center at the State Library of Queensland envisions the future library as a place for creativity for, “art, design, gaming, engineering, sound, science, craft and architecture.” The idea of the new facility called the Edge is to foster connections for multidisciplinary design work and to foster innovation.

The $7.9 million construction project has created a multipurpose space that includes sound and image recording labs and meeting and function rooms, all equipped with high end digital equipment. The director of the center has an idea for the center to become a hub for urban informatics – the study of how people interact with urban spaces by tapping information and data of our digital lives.

Read more about this cutting-edge facility in this feature in The Australian.

I’m a fan of Thomas Friedman’s mix of doomsaying and praise of innovation. He’s a great cheerleader of the American drive to be the best in the world through innovation. In his column today he outlines two innovators in the green technology space. There’s a truly exciting process that could make coal fired powerplants much cheaper while also producing a useful bi-product as well as a nod to the much-hyped fuel cells from Bloom Energy. To “do good and to make good” is the mantra of green entrepreneurs.

The Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control has just released an online fatal injury mapping model that allows you to query injury statistics to create custom maps of death rates throughout the United States. There’s a fascinating level of detail to this resource, including the intent of injury, ethnicity, age, and cost of injury. The map can be detailed at several different levels of detail, and there’s the ability to smooth and color code the data for definitions.

After the successful and ongoing largely-volunteer mapping efforts to respond to the Haiti earthquake, it’s heartening to see that there’s momentum for this approach in response to the massive earthquake that struck Chile. There are Crisis Camps this weekend and stretching into the future for both Haiti and Chile that are viewable at this page of the Crisis Commons website. There also appears to be growing cultural awareness and celebration of the concept, with a planned event at the SXSW technology, music and film gathering in Austin, Texas in a few weeks.

With just one crisis response, the advent of the geek relief response squads of Crisis Commons would have just been a fad. Now that there’s ongoing commitment, and increased tool refinement, this idea of Crisis Camps is becoming a movement that has the potential to influence policy direction and to speed thoughtful responses to crisis situations. Crisis Commons adds transparency, social networking, interactive assessments, global outreach and a rich communication medium to what has long been disparate mapping efforts.

We’ve seen growing interest in opportunities to showcase innovation that have largely been competitive affairs such as robot wars, and other contests. What the world needs are more opportunities for geeks to show their stuff in a collective and innovative fashion, and the Crisis Commons points the way. The Crisis Commons has a bright future in aiding the world, and particularly the developing world where technology capacity is lacking, while also providing a platform for technology development and STEM education.

The Ushahidi blog has a nice summary of the first week of activities responding to the earthquake in Chile. Students at Colombia University’s School of International and Public Affairs have been responsible for setting up the Ushahidi-Chile platform, and they’ve mapped more than 800 incidents in the first week of response.

Ongoing research of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States draws a direct connection between housing affordability, auto ownership, auto use and transit ridership. By factoring in the cost of transportation, the index puts an emphasis on location efficiency rather than simply the cost of housing.

The Housing+Transportation Affordability Index has been an ongoing project by the Center for Neighborhood Technology along with the Center for Transit Oriented Development with support from the Brookings Institute. The recently expanded website  includes analysis of more than 330 metro areas in the United States that account for more than 80% of the population, thanks to funding from the Rockefeller Foundation.

“Compact neighborhoods with walkable streets, access to transit, and a wide variety of stores and services have high location efficiency. They require less time, money, and greenhouse gas emissions for residents to meet their everyday travel requirements. The savings add up for households and communities. Transportation costs can range from 15% of household income in location efficient neighborhoods to over 28% in inefficient locations. Greenhouse gas emissions fluctuate too, depending on household reliance on costly, carbon-intensive automobile travel.”

Be sure to check out this application to see how your neighborhood rates.