Dynamic Generative Modelling System for Urban and Regional Design

This paper introduces a dynamic generative modelling system for urban and regional design. Through dynamic modelling the system evolves in time according to the interactions of the planners, decision-makers and citizens. On the basis of several synchronous and/or asynchronous user interactions, models are dynamically generated at run time. The models are built by defining the data (datasets) and the actions to perform on that data (tasks). The system reads and correlates data at urban and regional scale from various authorities to generate dynamic datasets. Tasks are especially powerful when they integrate generative procedures in a hierarchical structure. This allows us to model urban and regional dynamics through the interaction of tasks at micro- and macro-scale. Tasks can also implement either Cellular Automata or software agents. We examine the system application to a case project: the simulation of micro- and macro-dynamics in an Alpine valley, with specific challenges to fit competitive and sustainable growth in a landscape quality perspective. The simulation in spatial and temporal dimensions of regional data provided us with the elements to study the territorial evolution over the next twenty years. Four strategies gave as many scenarios highlighting the results of specific policies.