Expanding the application of Evidence-Based Design and Planning (EBDP) using comparative data models across different contexts.

The TWIN2EXPAND research project was registered on Open Science Framework (OSF)!

The research project ‘Expanding the application of Evidence-Based Design and Planning (EBDP) using comparative data models across different contexts within the framework of social-ecological urbanism’ is a research project within the ‘Twin2Expand. Twinning towards Research Excellence in Evidence-Based Planning and Urban Design’ project. The project is funded by the European Union’s ‘Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme’ (No. 101078890) and by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) (no 10052856, 10050784). It is led by the University of Cyprus (UCY), in partnership with three leading institutions in the field, University College London (UCL); Chalmers University of Technology (Chalmers); Politecnico di Torino (PoliTo) and one pioneering SME practicing EBDP, Space Syntax Limited (SSL).

The general aim of the research project is to expand and facilitate the application of EBDP to urban design and planning practice across geographical contexts, updating its methodological framework to address the current environmental and social challenges in line with the global sustainability goals, and especially SDG11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). Based on a review of the state-of-the-art of the theoretical and methodological framework of EBDP, two main gaps were identified regarding application to practice and relevance for sustainable urban development in the contemporary context.

First, there is a lack of comparable and generalisable EBDP methods and practices across different planning contexts, that can provide a generalised scientifically valid and applicable model of EBDP to practitioners across the globe. Although there are established knowledge areas, methodologies and tools that can support EBDP in practice, these have developed and tested for specific geographic and planning contexts and scales (e.g., UK, northern European countries). Moreover, they are generally data demanding methods that have been applied by planning institutions or actors with relatively large resources and high institutional capacities, meaning that their potential application in planning contexts where data availability is low is highly challenging.

Second, even the well-established and EBDP praI mainly include methods to assess the socio-economic impacts of planning and design interventions, largely overlooking their parallel socio-ecological effects. A case in point is the numerous densification projects that are mainly assessed for their benefits (e.g., increase walkability and accessibility, reduce car dependency and increase active travel, hence reduce greenhouse gas emission and promote physical health) but not for their potential disbenefits related to the urban microclimate, biodiversity and health (e.g., less open and green areas reduce access to green, urban heat island effects, biodiversity and green connectivity). However, to address the complex sustainable development challenges especially under climate emergency, the EBDP framework has to be extended to allow for an integrated assessment of urban development projects, developing methods to evaluate their combined impacts on both society, economy and urban ecology, to identify synergetic but also conflicting effects and to outline integrated design and planning strategies.

These two main gaps have been translated into three distinct research objectives that form three independent but interrelated research work packages. These are described in full in the three respective ‘Registration’ sections. A short description is given below:

Objective 1: Applicability of EBDP in different planning contexts and scales. The objective of work package 1, led by UCY, is to explore comparable, adaptive, and generalisable EBDP methods and practices across different planning contexts and scales. This work package investigates how currently well-established methods and practices that have been developed and tested in specific geographic and planning contexts with high institutional resources and capacities can be adapted and applied in planning contexts where the data availability and institutional resources are lower (e.g., developing countries) but also in a variety of planning and design scales and types of projects. It aims to identify the challenges and barriers of EBDP, understanding how different methods best fit different types and scales of projects as well as different planning contexts and institutions.

Objective 2: Explore less data-intensive EBDP methods and models to enhance applicability and adaptiveness. Based on the hypothesis that data availability and quality is often a challenge for implementing EBDP not only in different geographical contexts, but also in different projects or by different institutions in the same geographical context, the objective of work package 2, led by UCL, is to investigate ‘lightweight model’ alternatives. These are methodologies that are not data-intensive and could support the adaptiveness of the EBDP framework in different contexts, scales and types of projects where data unavailability is an important hindering factor. The question is, how does a ‘light model’ perform in the assessment of urban interventions in comparison to an existing complete data-intensive model? More importantly, what should these ‘light-models’ include at the minimum to be affective and accurate in assessing the impacts of design and planning interventions?

Objective 3: EBDP for and under climate emergency. The objective of work package 3, led by Chalmers, is to develop a conceptual framework, relevant spatial models, analytic measures and tools to include social-ecological performance in EBDP. The work will build on the ‘Socio-Ecological Urbanism’ theoretical framework and will develop methods relevant for EBDP practice. The developed methods should allow to evaluate the combined impacts of design and planning interventions in all scales, on society, economy and urban ecology (including climate and biodiversity), so as to identify synergetic but also conflicting effects and help outline integrated design and planning strategies to support benefits and counteract disbenefits in line with the sustainable development agenda.