CREATING VIRTUAL CITIES

Can you create or model the ideal city using virtual technology? 

This is the type of question being addressed by architects, working with mathematicians and scientists according to Mr Ben Doherty of BVN, one of the contributors to the ‘Designing the Dynamic’ Workshop and Symposium being held at RMIT in Melbourne from 21 to 25 November 2011.

‘For example you could model the impact of tilting the entire city towards the sun, which would mean tilting every building so that the sun beats down onto a small well insulated roof and not onto the whole wall of a building, that would reduce energy bills, but what other effects would it have?’ said Mr Doherty.

‘Designing the Dynamic’ commences with a week-long series of workshops that cut across multiple disciplines in order to tackle complex design problems in real-time interaction.

During the workshops computational design will be used in the production and testing of physical artefacts that will bring together built environment designers with specialists from mathematics, engineering, computer and material science to explore the design and representation of dynamic systems.

The aim is to build virtual and physical design prototypes and simulation tools that represent complex tradeoffs in ways that support intuitive design decision-making.

Speakers at the one day symposium following the workshops on Friday 25 November include Mr Hugh Whitehead Partner in charge of the specialist modelling group for Foster + Partners one of the world’s leading architecture practices, whose notable buildings include the Gherkin in London and the Beijing Airport. 

Other contributors are Kristoffer Josefsson, Tim Black BKK, Mark Burry RMIT, Tom Kvan University of Melbourne, Andrew Maher Arup, Simon Watkins RMIT, Mike Xie RMIT.

Supported by RMIT, SIAL, Design Research Institute, Memko and BVN, further details can be found on www.designingthedynamic.com.  ENDS

18  NOVEMBER 2011
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