This book examines the use of big data in regenerative urban environment and how data helps in functional planning and design solutions. This book is one of the first endeavors to present the data-driven methods for regenerative built environments and integrate it with the novel design solutions. It looks at four specific areas in which data is used – urban land use, transportation and traffic, environmental concerns and social issues – and draws on the theoretical literature concerning regenerative built environments to explain how the power of big data can achieve the systematic integration of urban design solutions. It then applies an in-depth case study method on Asian metropolises including Beijing and Tehran to bring the developed innovation into a research-led practical context. This book is a useful reference for anyone interested in driving sustainable regeneration of our urban environments through big data-centric design solutions.

This book sets the stage for understanding how the exponential escalation of digital ubiquity in the contemporary environment is being absorbed, modulated, processed and actively used for enhancing the performance of our built environment. S.M.A.R.T., in this context, is thus used as an acronym for Systems & Materials in Architectural Research and Technology, with a specific focus on interrogating the intricate relationship between information systems and associative material, cultural and socioeconomic formations within the built environment. This interrogation is deeply rooted in exploring inter-disciplinary research and design strategies involving nonlinear processes for developing meta-design systems, evidence based design solutions and methodological frameworks, some of which, are presented in this issue. Urban health and wellbeing, urban mobility and infrastructure, smart manufacturing, Interaction Design, Urban Design & Planning as well as Data Science, as prominent symbiotic domains constituting the Built Environment are represented in this first book in the S.M.A.R.T. series. The spectrum of chapters included in this volume helps in understanding the multivalence of data from a socio-technical perspective and provides insight into the methodological nuances involved in capturing, analysing and improving urban life via data driven technologies.

This volume employs an urban lens to provide a critical analysis of the North Korean style of sustainable urban development in the face of severe sanctions and a scarcity of vital resources. With a focus on five major areas—population, economics, architecture, urban planning, and culture—the authors examine the preconditions that led to the emergence of ideas related to urban sustainability, assess and reassess the trends in sustainable development brought about by market forces, and recommend paths for their further intensification. Since this work covers a variety of topics, ranging from geomancy and social control to economic issues and green architecture (both locally and in comparison with European post-socialist cities and South Korea), it will point to lessons that other countries could learn from. This book will be a valuable reference for scholars, researchers, students, and the general public who have a regional interest in North Korea, Korean unification, and East Asia as a whole; and/or a topical interest in urban studies, urban sustainability, and post-socialist urban transformation.

This is one of the first few books to discuss the Covid-19 crisis as an urban phenomenon and illustrates this through the case of Singapore and its pandemic response efforts. The book describes the implications and impacts of the pandemic on Singapore’s urban landscape, economy, and society. It also assesses the urban interventions that have emerged in response to the pandemic. It examines the spatial implications and challenges of delineating safe distancing in various public and commercial spaces and evaluates the effectiveness of these interventions. The book also explains how Singapore’s smart city capabilities help with its Covid-19 response. This book will be of great interest to urban planners, healthcare professionals, and policymakers across the world, particularly those who are hoping to learn from the success and limitations of Singapore’s Covid-19 responses.

This open access book offers a comprehensive exploration of the digital innovations that have emerged in recent years for the circular built environment. Each chapter is meticulously crafted to ensure that both academic readers and industry practitioners can grasp the inner workings of each digital technology, understand its relevance to the circular built environment, examine real-life implementations, and appreciate the intriguing business models behind them. Our primary objective is to blend scholarly knowledge with practical inspiration by providing real-life case studies for each innovation. The authors, who possess extensive expertise in their respective fields, have contributed chapters dedicated to digital technologies within their areas of specialization. The book is organized into three distinct parts. The first part focuses on data-driven digital technologies and delves into how their capabilities can facilitate the transition to a circular built environment. Essential aspects such as building information modeling (BIM), digital twins, geographical information systems (GIS), scanning technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), data templates, and material passports are explored as vital tools for data collection, integration, and analysis in the context of circular construction. In the second part, various digital technologies for design and fabrication are introduced. Topics covered include computational design algorithms, additive and subtractive manufacturing, robotic manufacturing, and extended reality. These discussions shed light on how these technologies can be leveraged to enhance design and fabrication processes within the circular built environment. Finally, the last part of the book presents emerging digital concepts related to business and governance. It explores the role of deconstruction and reverse logistics, blockchain technology, digital building logbooks, and innovative business models as enablers of circularity in the built environment. The book concludes with a chapter dedicated to digital transformation and its potential to propel the built environment towards a regenerative future. In addition to the substantive content, the book features forewords and perspectives from esteemed experts, providing valuable economic and creative insights to complement its comprehensive approach.

This book unravels China’s new megaregional structure, new megaregional planning and development, new megaregional governance, and new regional planning system. It draws upon a diversity of megaregional cases: city clusters of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, Yangtze River delta region, and Greater Bay Area; and metropolitan circles of Chengdu, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Zhengzhou. Megaregions are the new form of Chinese-style urbanisation. China’s new discourse of ‘high-quality development’ and ‘new-type urbanisation’ is reshaping its megaregional strategy. Imbalance and fragmentation characterise the diversity of megaregions - developed or developing, coastal or inland. The central goal of megaregional planning and governance is to achieve integrated, balanced development of them. Hu challenges the official notion of ‘top-level design’ that dominates the planning, governance, and development of China’s megaregions. Instead, he argues for the importance of engaging nongovernmental stakeholders, rebalancing the government-market relationality, encouraging bottom-up initiatives, and enabling grassroots ingenuity. The volume offers the first and most comprehensive study of megaregional China in the new contexts of both national development and urban development. It will be of interest to anyone looking into urban and regional development, and Chinese studies.

This research book aims to conceptualise the scale and spectrum of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches in energy efficient building design and to develop its functional solutions with a focus on four crucial aspects of building envelop, building layout, occupant behaviour and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. Drawn from theoretical development on the sustainability, informatics and optimisation paradigms in built environment, the energy efficient building design will be marked through the power of data and BIM-intelligent agents during the design phase. It will be further developed via smart derivatives to reach a harmony in the systematic integration of energy efficient building design solutions, a gap that is missed in the extant literature and that this book aims to fill. This approach will inform a vision for future and provide a framework to shape and respond to our built environment and how it transforms the way we design and build. By considering the balance of BIM, AI and energy efficient outcomes, the future development of buildings will be regenerated in a direction that is sustainable in the long run. This book is essential reading for those in the AEC industry as well as computer scientists.