Author: Prof Tim Stonor

1.         The nature of transaction
The principal purpose of cities is to facilitate human interaction and, as a result, socio-economic transaction. Cities are transaction machines. With the rise of online transaction, what will be the role/nature of physical transaction? How will the physical and online worlds interact to create a “digital urbanism”?

2.         The nature of movement
In the 20^th century, cities have grown at low densities, occupying ever larger spatial footprints. To overcome such distances, cities became movement machines. This led to the erosion of the street (in which movement and transaction both occurred) and its replacement by a twin system of highways and neighbourhoods: the separation of movement from “place”: the parcelisation of the city. And, with this came social isolation, sedentary lifestyles and obesity. There was a shift in the “fundamental urban paradigm” away from transaction and towards movement.

More recently, some cities have attempted to turn this tide with a greater focus on walking and cycling as principal movement modes – a more local focus geared towards the creation of “place”.

What are the future trends in urban movement?

3.         The look and feel of cities
What will the physical-spatial signature of cities be? This is less a question of high-rise v low rise but more about high-density v low density. Especially about high-speed, divisive motorway (needed to connect low-density cities) or mixed-mode boulevard (possible if densities are great enough)?

What are the most effective street patterns? Land use arrangements? Transport mixes? What will future cities look like?

4.         The modelling of urban performance
We have witnessed an institutional failure of international urban planning to create “place”: to create social vitality as well as economic success. Successes are exceptions to the rule. There is a lack of system-wide urban performance modelling: social, economic and environmental. Instead, there has been a historic focus on traffic modelling alone, principally private vehicle modelling. Cities have been planned with these models and have grown to be dominated by private vehicles.

What is the future of urban performance modelling? First, mixed-mode traffic modelling, including walking, cycling and public transport? Second, social, economic and environmental modelling?

How will developments in sensing permit more robust urban modelling systems?

How can changes in the fundamental urban paradigm (from movement to transaction) inspire new modelling approaches?

What are the key societal/transactional objectives around which urban performance models should be developed?

Call for Abstracts
It is hereby announced that the Parametric Thinking & Making on Architecture and Urbanism (PaTMAU) International Conference will be held at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan, during 24-25 November 2012. Further information on this event will be announced and continually up-dated on the conference website.

Timetable
Invited scholars will process submitted abstracts through blind review. The time table for this conference is as following:

11 Jun 2012
Announcement of conference and call for abstracts

15 Sep 2012
Last date for abstract submission

15 Oct 2012
Announcement of accepted submissions

31 Oct 2012
Last date for full paper submission
This is not required for attending the conference deliberation but for those who are interested in letting their papers be published in the Journal of Art and Design, a peer-reviewed international journal, published yearly under the editorship at the College of Creative Design and Art, Tunghai University.

24 Nov 2012
Opening of Conference

Keynote Speakers
Andrew Witt, Director of Research at Gehry Technologies, Lecturer at Harvard University
Marcos Cruz, Director of Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London
Tim Stonor, Managing Director, Space Syntax, Visiting Professor, The Bartlett, University College London

25 Nov 2012
Closing of Conference