The inaugural GeoDesign Summit took place in Redlands, Calif. from Jan. 6-8. The invite-only gathering of roughly 250 people included well-connected representatives from academia, architecture, engineering, landscape architecture and planning. The purpose of the event was to outline a new geospatial approach that is being called GeoDesign

 

The attendees at the GeoDesign Summit represented a core constituency that will drive and benefit from the GeoDesign concept, which was defined at the event as, "a design and planning method that tightly couples the creation of design proposals with impact simulations informed by geographic contexts." There were contingents from top university programs and associations from throughout the United States, making it feel like a turning point where some of the ideas of what GIS could become at its inception are resurfacing. The momentum of technological development are now enabling a whole new paradigm of geospatial application, that also goes back to the “design with nature” concept that was first thrust by Ian McHarg.

Jack Dangermond, the founder and president of ESRI, made the event happen, but he repeatedly stated that the concept is meant to be inclusive and not driven by his company alone. He related that, "GIS is changing rapidly, infecting and affecting everything that people do. Where it will go to bring our science, our understanding, and our modeling together gives me the chills.”

The opening keynote from Tom Fisher, dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota spoke to the urgency of action that is needed to address the many "fracture critical" systems that humans have created. Examples of systems that we have a tenuous hold on include the financial system, housing, food, transportation and ecological systems. He said that we've created an elaborate ponzi scheme with our planet that suck resource and exploit labor to sustain ourselves, but that can't be sustained. He also quoted Bill McKibben in stating that we need to remember what we used to know and used to do, living in an age of great amounts of information, but great forgetfulness.

The Special Role of GIS

Carl Steinitz, research professor at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard led off the plenary on day two of the GeoDesign Summit with a presentation that discussed the different approaches to design. He asserted that the process is by no means linear, and that understanding the decision process is far more important than understanding the technology.

He related different rules that inform the design approach, and that scale matters greatly in the approach as things that work at a small scale don’t often work at a large scale. At the large scale there is a focus on strategy. At the small scale there is a focus on detail.

Before the design process begins there are a number of questions that must be asked and a number of models that must be constructed in order to understand how the landscape operates to understand if it’s working well. This involves evaluation models, change models, impact models, and decision models.

At the next stage after the various data is gathered and a clear picture of problems is understood, then the design process begins. Steinitz outlined five different design approaches and gave examples of each.

Anticipatory – with a holistic view of the future, we use deductive logic to see how we get there.

Sequential – A series of steps that get us to the result with a directed approach that uses abductive logic.

Combinatorial – Most valuable when we’re not sure what to do. Uses inductive logic. We see the choices that you have to make and work to choose the best plan. Some things are more important than other things, and understanding the combinations helps assure the right approach.

Constraining – Getting people to understand what they want by narrowing their choices. This is an experimental approach that uses sensitivity analysis to narrow the response to defined constraints.

Optimizing – This is a directed and objective-driven approach. With this approach the designs are as much about what not to do, as they are about what’s best.

The framing of design outside of technology’s influence provided a good reminder that there are many different approaches that work. Steinitz left us with the thought that designing something is an art that requires judgment. That science is important, tools are important, but there are tradeoffs and ultimately the designers make a choice.

The GeoDesign Summit took place at ESRI Headquarters in the recently completed Building Q, which houses a state-of-the-art theater.

A Language and Storytelling Medium

Michael Gallis, an expert on developing multisystem approaches to strategic planning, gave a lightening talk that related the work that his firm has done with the National Surface Transportation Revenue and Study Commission in the prior administration. Geospatial visualization that conveyed increasing levels of dimensionality and increasing connectivity drove consensus among a contentious group.

Gallis spoke of GeoDesign as a visual language that transforms pictures into a language of information. As a language, it’s important for GeoDesign to have structure and syntax, and must convey meanings. He spoke of the importance of images for executive-level decisions for their power to immediately convey relationships.

Bran Ferrin, co-founder of Applied Minds, provided an entertaining and engaging final keynote at the GeoDesign Summit. Ferren spoke a good deal about innovation and different inventions that changed the world. Beginning with language, the written word, the telephone, and radio. The recurring theme of all these world-changing innovations is that all inventors didn’t understand the purpose of what they invented, and that all the inventions weren’t appreciated for their value at the time they were conceived. Storytelling is also an important element in each of these investments.

GeoDesign has the ability to be the next storytelling medium. Colliding the computer revolution and putting it into a form that has the effect of changing the evolution of our planet. We’ve been designing how we house society for thousands of years the same way, and GeoDesign has the ability to change how we design.

Nine Idea Labs

There were nine groups that met in the afternoons of the event to hash through issues and advancements that are needed in specific areas. Following is an idea of some of the main topics that each of the nine groups addressed along with their action plans.

Developing Theories, Practices and Approaches: This group aimed to address the integration of GeoDesign with GIScience. They aim to build a common ontology that aligns languages, tool sets and workflows to meaningful work in a globalized world where everything is connected. Among the challenge items they identified was the need to integrate design methods with the models that use scientific knowledge to inform us about our world and about human behavior. The action item that this group discussed was to put together a library of cases.

Education and Training: The educators looked at geodesign as an approach that could be taught rather than a body of knowledge. The group spoke of the age of Twitter and instant information as a means to enhance collaboration with a whole new approach. The action items they identified were to compare the body of knowledge between GIS and landscape architects and other disciplines in order to better understand what a collaborative cross-disciplinary approach entails.

Sketching, Inference and Feedback: The tools and design flow group spoke about harnessing new technologies such as multi-touch and tablet machines to approximate and enhance the intuitiveness of sketching. The idea is to capture design stages, iterations and versions over time in a way that becomes the preferred medium for communicating design.

Architecture (BIM): This group looked at the key processes of preliminary design, detailed design, construction, operations/maintenance and redesign. They cautioned that a good deal of work needs to be put into developing standards through the OGC and the Building SMART Alliance in order to focus on user needs as the established vendors and users have a stake in the status quo.

Participatory: The contextual issues that this group addressed were to make sure the geodesign process enhances and enables creativity, is inviting, is replicable, is modular and interoperable and is distributed. Their goal is to improve public participation and the workflows that can make geodesign a more collaborative process.

Urban Areas: This group stated that the idea of geodesign will be make or break in the urban context because our cities are our most complex human design, and it is geodesign that will provide the ability to understand the complexities.

Landscape and Regional Scales: At the regional scale were ways to use ecological concepts to inform the management of land use, resources, infrastrucutre and energy distribution. This group spoke a great deal about the means to manage dependencies across large projects and the need to integrate many different models as well as disciplines and individuals. The action items for the group were to foster education, research and the development of case studies that test and evolve the existing tools.

The Role of 3D: This group spoke to the ability of 3D to enhance visualization and to immerse the viewer into the story that the designer is trying to tell. To date performance is a huge issue as the speed needs to improve greatly in order to make sure 3D doesn't get in the way.

Simulation, Analysis and Assessment: Time and 3D were seen as the core elements for this group and they suggested that dashboard approaches may be the way to integrate users experience and present data in a way that enhances and integrates the user experiences. The dashboard hides complexity and allows the designer to focus on design.

Next Steps Underway

At the end of the event the different discussion groups involved a great deal of action items that were fostering follow up work and committee commitments. A great number in the audience pledged additional work to further define and advance the ideas that this inaugural event fostered.

Discussions for further outreach included the idea of engaging various association communities such as the American Planning Association, the American Society of Landscape Architecture, the American Institute of Architects, the Association of American Geographers, and others. The American Planning Association was present at the event and a commitment was made to hold sessions and panels at their annual conference and to publish features within their magazine and journal to outline the event. Similar outreach is expected within other associations and communities.

The idea of a book or books was discussed, and there was a good degree of debate about whether a book was the right medium and whether it should be a coordinated effort. Various ideas for wikis and other collaborative sites were discussed as an alternative or addition to a hard bound and finite collection of ideas.

Funding for research was discussed, with the idea of a new approach to the National Science Foundation. The Department of Energy was also suggested as a source for funding for projects along the lines of combating climate change. There was also discussion of environment-oriented associations and the possibility for funding on a more local or regional scale for research projects and agendas.

The participants in the event were heavily North American, and the idea of broader global participation was also suggested. The idea of funding from the international communities such as the United Nations and World Bank was of interest to broaden the scope. It was suggested that there are more designers and planners internationally than there are geospatial users, and there are opportunities to spread the word worldwide, particularly with the expressed intent to change the world.

One of the takeaways from the GeoDesign Summit is the idea of a GeoDesign Challenge to encourage the adoption of geodesign principles, and to spur showcase projects that address issues of global change for the stewardship of the planet. The idea is a significant award ($50,000) that goes to the best application of the concept of GeoDesign to leverage the idea on real landscapes or the development of research projects that have impact on advancing the idea of GeoDesign.

There was wide consensus among the participants that this event should be held again to further the work and to bring more participants together.

Related Blog Posts

• GeoDesign as a Return to the Potential of GIS
• Goodchild on the Yin and Yang of GIS
• GeoDesign Provides the Basis for a New Language
• Steinitz Discusses Different Design Approaches
• Ferren Asserts that GeoDesign is the Next Storytelling Medium
• The Inclusive Push for GeoDesign
• GeoDesign Challenge to Spur Meaningful Work
• The Fresh Start that GeoDesign Offers