Chapter 1 - Urban systems design: shaping smart cities by integrating urban design and systems science

Abstract

This introductory chapter defines urban systems design as a novel approach to shaping smart cities by integrating urban design, system science, and digital technologies. The question of what new urban form would emerge from the smart cities movement is discussed. Propositions of the space of flow and cities of flows as new spatial logics of organizing cities are reviewed, under the impacts of the information and communication from 1990s to the Internet of Things (IoT) from 2010s. It introduces the intellectual legacy of urban design and system science and elaborates their theories that are facing new challenges of urban technological innovations such as big data analytics, artificial intelligence, urban automation, and IoT. This chapter concludes with four possible models of urban systems design: urban sensing systems as a human interactive model, data-driven urban design as a normative model, urban metabolism as a functional model, and Geodesign as a procedure model.