Towards Context & Climate Sensitive Urban Design: An integrated simulation and parametric design approach

Cities all over the world are redefining their urban landscapes with new buildings integrated within existing environments. Due to the dearth of climate and context consideration, as well as the lack of interoperability of existing design tools, buildings are mostly designed as stand-alone entities which limits their potential utilisation of natural resources and potentially affect existing buildings' performance and outdoor microclimate conditions. To overcome these limitations, an integrated simulation and parametric design approach was developed. This paper presents the qualitative outcomes of the workshop that investigated the usability and appropriateness of the urban modelling, simulation and design platform prototype which embeds the approach. Workshop participants appraised the integrated features of the prototype and emphasised its potential to promote optimised integrated urban designs that consider the users, the buildings, their surroundings and the microclimate as elements of the same system that sustainably adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.