Human limitation of multi criteria assessment!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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Computers seem to be more reliable and accurate in running algorithm and doing assessment compared to human for the reason that computers are programmed to process  numerous "if this"-"then that"  scenarios, while human being have this innate limitation in processing multiple criteria and  "what if" Scenarios; a dozen criteria and handful of scenarios and most feel this is all that is there which was needed. Until computers completely master the art of attribute selection and scenario building themselves and learn to take judgmental decision on their own, their assessment and outcome shall also be limited as they are still being programmed by very human being having prejudice and limitations of many kinds.

To illustrate, while deliberating with individual client or a family to design their dream home, how many architects  for instance consider the sun sign traits of client, inquire about their past, their medical history, their travel history, their bucket list, their life philosophy, their spiritual inclination, musical preferences, cultural orientation, their sensitivity towards light, their daily routine, sleeping pattern, their food habit, their environmental commitments and children's future aspirations, child's favorite game and comic character, their idea of space and scale  etc. Unfortunately most of these variables are purposefully or by conditioning or out of hesitation being missed out during client's need assessment, but all or any of these can add immense value to architectural design process and outcome. If architects won't ask, client won't tell, then without considering such variables which are integral to one's life and true personality, how will architects  produce truly personalised, holistic and humane design for example.

Likewise, when government is collecting census data or demographic profile about individuals or households, they really don't find it worthwhile to ask about individual's hobbies, their skill sets, their unsettled and future liabilities of various kinds, health issues they are struggling with, their affiliations, what they are engaged in post retirement, areas in which they would like to volunteer given a chance, etc. which are equally tangible and crucial pieces of information and valid criteria of assessment, having potential to create a better society and conditions.

Capability to acknowledge, consider and process multitude of criteria and endless possible scenarios is what differentiates one individual from another, one organization from other, one city administration from other, one governance scheme from other and sometimes may even one nation from another.

Author: Anoop Jha

#Modeling  #financialmodeling #data #assessment  #analysis #algorithm #architecture #architect #governance #administration #nationbuilding #census #demography #survey #urbanplanning

Why it's high time to revisit architectural tradition, architectural wisdom and architecture education?

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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When kitchen's purpose, ideal design and it's appropriate space in a house was being concluded century ago or so, then architects actually had no vision of app based food delivery, home based chef, role of kitchen/kitchen products in remote elementary education, working women, gender equality in kitchen, work from home concept, how important kitchen waste reduction and management is and so on; when this matter is being discussed today, we hardly have any realistic idea how robots are going to take over kitchen in near-distant future, how 3D printed food may altar food production/ preferences, how IIOT/ IOT may impact farm-to-plate food supply chain, whether community/ township level bespoke food/ pizza vending machine may even render private kitchen obsolete.

When architects were convinced that there is basic necessity of having lobby, lounge, drawing room and dining room/area as essential elements of a reasonable house, they had no vision that majority of family individuals in future will spend most of their non-working hours/ personal work hours/ recreation hours/ study hours within two to ten feet range from their TV set and/or desktop/ study table/ gaming console; they didn't envisage that "Activity" and "lifestyle" (scrolling phone, tab, working/ entertaining on laptop, yoga mat time - all virtually devoid of space anchorage) will be paramount compared to need of "Formal Space" (drawing room etc.); they had no idea that family members will be doing part of talking/ communication / information exchange virtually (as a routine) even when present under one roof, getting rid of dining table discussion; they missed visualising that in future due to almost autonomous lifestyle of individual family members of a household it will be almost impossible to bring every family member to dining table, that too at same time and also not realising that with plethora of audio-visual choices and modes available, the empowered individuals in a family will lack the time, motivation and patience to gather in front of TV to watch a common channel, defying purpose of drawing room.

And likewise.

Come today- dining room mutating into study room, drawing room reinvented as gym and so on, calls for urgent need of revisiting the inherited architectural values and reinventing ideology of functional space.

Author: Anoop Jha

#architecture #architect #urbanplanning #townplanning #space #interiordesign #decor #studio #design #art #habitat #housing #hfa #housingforall #smartcity #city #bhk #realestate #township #data #future #futurearchitecture #history #lounge #home

Some embedded economic bias in road and transportation planning and policy to ponder.

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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Speed Breaker experienced differently by different price range cars; flat monetary penalty imposed on breaking any particular traffic rule experienced differently by different income group, one segment better protected while on road due to advanced safety feature of their car compared to not so privileged vehicle owner, VIP and reserved parking spaces in public domain and within public institutions, those opting public transport not out of choice or sense of responsibility but out of economic constraints, those opting private transport not out of ignorance but by choice since they can afford, similar workplace cutoff arrival time or same flexi-hour for those who are insulated from weather while on road (car) and those whose journey is tough and gets Interrupted due to changing weather conditions (bike/ bicycle), those who can afford to take shortcut toll route vs those who cannot, road tax which is not linked to intensity of vehicle usage but type and number of vehicle ownership and some more.

One or many or all may be applicable to any given city and needs a serious thought and deliberation on subject by planners and policy makers.

#transportplanning #urbanplanning #publictransport #tranport #road #design #architecture #economics #carbonfootprint #publicpolicy

Ever-changing Technology Landscape that is making planning, design and life decisions increasingly tough!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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While you are thinking of purchasing an advanced EV that goes 396 miles per charge, another startup (Michigan) promises to launch an EV battery With a range of 750miles.

The moment you install a city wide Fast charging infrastructure that charges EV in 30 minutes, the new ultra-fast charging technology or startup (Israel) surfaces that promises to full charge EV in just 5 minutes.

The moment city municipality in one corner of world purchases a fleet of 200 modern buses an autonomous Driving Bus Line Officially Commences Operations in another part of world (Guangzhou).

By the time you sanction a mega hydrogen generation plant that uses fossil fuel based electricity, a new technology or company (California) emerges that uses sunlight to generate green hydrogen using "Sunlight Refinery" that stores solar heat to be used even in night making technology commercially viable.

As soon you clad building glass façade with very distinct conventional checkered blue Building Integrated PV glass, a new higher efficiency transparent PV Glass (California) makes way to renewable market.

By the time you inaugurate new building facility equipped with state of art fixed fire sprinkler system at the same time an auto-targeting fire sprinkler system emerges and provides a better alternative.

Unfortunately you can't change expensive city infrastructure at the pace and frequency that you change mobile devices!

Author: Anoop Jha

#technology #EV #VR #IOT #AR #IIOT #Autonomousvehicle #Urbanplanning #PV #Energy #ClimateChange #SmartCity #smartinfrastructure #BIPV #power #IBMS #Startup #Future #tech

Life-cycle gap in architectural services being offered!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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A typical house requires to go through not just periodic renovation but also series of remodeling across it's life cycle as a function of household's life events, lifestyle changes and life adjustment requirements. Home remodeling prompted by changes including but not limited to arrival of kids in life, children going to school, children getting married, parents getting old, realisation of yourself getting old and so on. These changes though obvious and imperative but neither being acknowledged nor getting addressed by architects and one time architectural services being offered, while home owners are left on their own to do the required readjustments to house, think of space planning and redefining space usage.

It's worthwhile that architecture fraternity give a serious thought to this challenge and gap that exists in rendering architectural services. Whether one time architectural service being offered can factor in all above requirements or whether architects can handhold their clients for lifetime or something else.

Author: Anoop Jha

#Architect #architecture #design #building #realestate #urbandesign #urbanplanning #townplanning #city #smartcity #future #profession #corporate #business

Skewed and limited perception of project essentials, budget, timeline and professional fees in developing countries!

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The notion of urban development and architecture in a developing country is more or less, civic amenities, public facilities, parks, road, paving, brick and mortar etc and 3D simulation to either publicise welfare achievements or to lure investors. We see in both public and private domain one such project after another lined up, debated, recognised, argued, praised, awarded or dropped and trashed.

While most of such projects get executed anyways even in developing countries and cities, but most of these projects certainly, sometimes purposefully miss one or several or most of following fundamental elements of urban planning and architectural practice which are part and parcel to developed country's usual planning and design practice, including Heat island effect analysis, Shadow analysis, Wind tunnel test, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation, shading analysis, traffic noise simulation, sustainable city/ neighborhood development practice, Low Impact Development (LID) planning, waste heat recovery, building heat load simulation, green building design, solar passive design, and many more.

It's difficult to understand the root cause of same, whether it is lack of knowledge and awareness at city administration and client level or lack of capital or unavailability of technology or lack of technology know how or inertia of decades of mediocre planning or simply ignorance or reluctance to growth. Whatever be the reason it's high time that city administrations, planning professionals and architects increasingly adopt to good essential planning and design practices, advise clients to consider these and projects must allocate additional budget to integrate these while consultants, consulting firms and advisory firms must be paid judiciously to integrate and adopt to above mentioned necessary measures. Accordingly project timelines should also be increased to make room for adopting such good practices.

Author: Anoop Jha

#urbanplanning #architecture #sustainability #simulation #smartcity #design #townplanning #development #projects #technology #consulting #municipal

Historic shift in city planning approach!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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When cities first started getting planned, it was more of a mechanical, analog and hardware approach, i.e. provision of basic minimum urban palpable elements driven by understanding of functional, social and cultural requirements of specific time period in history, configured in either abstract to subtle to articulate manner. City planning outward appeal, urban fabric and urban growth pattern kept getting readjusted as per need of changing time including industrialization, high speed mobility, migration, environmental awareness etc. but the approach of urban planning more or less remained same as always in spite of all the buzz, talk and interpretation by intelligentsia labeling same as new age of urban planning.

Historically only two major, distinct and realistic but mostly invisible shift in planning approach were felt in true sense; one when country administration changed from monarchy to democracy in multiple parts of world and the other when city planning approach shifted from analog to digital - where former shift in approach prompted a whole new set of governance redefining context, perception and necessity of urban planning while impact of later approach is yet to realise it's full potential.

#urbanplanning #townplanning #smartcity #urbandesign #iot #ict #digitaltwin #digital #urban #cityplanning #publictransport