A research project investigating how generative design can support more human-centred neighbourhood park planning. Human qualities such as traversability, cohesion, tranquillity, and road safety were translated into computational metrics to generate and evaluate alternative park layouts.
Computational design ◦ Design research ◦ Urban design
Methods: Literature review ◦ Participatory design ◦ Parametric design ◦ Generative design
Client: The Daniels Corporation
Collaborators: iCity 2.0 ◦ Autodesk Research ◦ The Daniels Corporation
How might we design neighbourhood parks to better support everyday human experience while balancing competing design priorities?
Overview
Developed as part of the multi-year iCity 2.0 research initiative, this project explored how Generative Design could support the planning of complete communities. Working with researchers, advisors, and The Daniels Corporation, I developed a bespoke generative design model that generated, ranked, and optimized park layouts using custom-designed performance metrics.
The project combined stakeholder consultation, literature reviews, requirements gathering, objective setting, metric development, parametric modelling, and generative design studies to explore trade-offs between competing complete community objectives.
Process
Outcomes
- Complete Communities and social cohesion literature review
- 5,000 generated park layouts
- Peer-reviewed conference paper and presentation at ICSDI 2026
- Project poster and presentation at SimAUD 2023
- Presentation at Autodesk Research, Research Connections Speaker Series, 2022
