Data-Driven urban representations: Systems thinking as an operational challenge for a deep reading of contemporary cities

Résumé

Contemporary urban conditions, where different agencies are associated through various spatial confrontations, are redefined as a system with all its components; socioeconomic, biological, geographical, ecological, and experiential. Incorporating these coexistences in the definition of urban conditions necessitates a multi-focal rendering of the associations and a speculative practice of a new methodological approach.

This article considers the use of data-driven urban representations for achieving a ‘systems thinking’ approach as a new methodology to research the pluralities, contradictions, degradations, and climatic challenges of contemporary cities. In this respect, experienced data avalanche and interaction with the large scale of bytes used for data-driven practices can be considered as a challenging transformation that proposes deep readings of cities and hence can be used in practising a ‘systems thinking’ approach. Mapping the information and producing data-driven urban representations can be considered as a challenge in defining the systems thinking approach and responding to the transformations, definitions and conditions of contemporary cities. This new method of engagement with data-driven practices cultivates an architectural transformation by sourcing, inspiring, and informing the architectural design processes for understanding the notion of resilient cities. The article speculates on the potential of systems thinking initiated by data visualizations in producing deep readings of contemporary cities and its use as a methodological approach in architectural design education. Massive amounts of data collected, studied, and represented at different scales expose the city’s visible and invisible features and enable alternative readings and representations of the city. Various data sets translated into different forms of mapping strategies are believed to unfold a series of discussions on the capacities of the city to reinvent itself constantly, correlate innovation at many scales, and therefore, bring out alternative frameworks for urban innovability in the digital transition era.