br Visualization as a design tool

Visualization as a design tool
Introduction to the activity counter maps In order to study these personal spaces and use them as a design coordinate, first we need to find a methodology for translating them into architectonic language: a clear figure-ground relationship showing the interactions between solid, boundary and void. The Activity Counter Maps (ACM) is a digital tool that allows representation and visualization of different kinds of data in a geographical context; combined with GIS, any database containing geographical locations could be translated into ACM. For instance, a database of all the tourist attractions in Tokyo, when translated into ACM, allowed an easy visualization of clusters of tourist activity (Kubota, 2006). What the ACM does is to assign an area of influence to an object or location in the space. The radius and height of the area of influence can be assigned accordingly to the specific needs of varied researches (Figure 1). When x areas of influence meet, the highest point where they are intersected is multiplied by x, generating a new common area of influence. The process goes on until every area of influence is combined with the others into a resultant common area, allowing visualization of both the shape of the combined personal spaces and the intensity of activity, since the combined spaces grow vertically. Therefore, the intensity of activity can be expressed three-dimensionally, just like topographic contour lines. Especially for this research, here is where it I-BET-762 lays the potential of this tool; it can be used not only for generating graphics, but also to generate form and, therefore, space.
Case studies: Introduction to Ueno Park For the first case study, we decided to test the form-generation capabilities of the ACM in Ueno Park (Ueno Onshi Kōen, ). Ueno Park is located in Taitō ward, to the northeast of the Imperial palace. It is the first public park in Tokyo and the most popular one in terms of number of visitors. The main reason why we decided to carry out the case study in a park was because it allowed us to study people interacting with an undemanding and flexible environment, in which the location, duration and range of activities carried out by the visitors were more related to personal choice and not partially dictated by the constraints and limitation of a fully shaped urban environment.
Second case study: Visualizing personal spaces For the data collection we filmed a series of videos on both sub-places. We filmed two days per place, one day on a weekend and another during the week, making sure that the weather conditions were similar in every filming session, and no extraordinary events (parades, flea markets, etc.) were happening in the park during filming time. For each place, we filmed five minute videos every thirty minutes, from 10:00AM to 07:00PM, giving a total of 16 videos per day. Two days per place resulted in thirty-two videos per place, sixty-four in total.
Conclusions and future development
Introduction Climate policies cover long-term perspectives but in the built environment the future is literally casted in concrete. The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) 2010/31/EU (EU, 2010) wants new buildings and major renovations to apply the passive or near zero energy standards from 2020 onwards. The Flemish region responds to the EPBD by prescribing tighter energy performance standards year by year (VEA, 2010). Frontier energy performance concepts are not widely adopted by the housing market in Flanders. Builders chose among a range of energy performance levels because current standards lack tightness. They often believe that financial returns of low energy buildings do not compensate the higher investment costs, especially not in the nearby years. This myopic perspective perceives energy efficient measures as expensive. As a result, most recently built houses are designed to harshly meet the legally imposed standards (VEA, 2011). Many, e.g., Feist (1998), Verbeeck (2007), Verbeeck and Hens (2005), Versele et al. (2009), recommend higher energy performance levels in new houses of Central-Europe. Applying proper investment theory, Verbruggen et al. (2011) show that installing the frontier energy performance endowment is the financially sound option at first construction.