The study applies two methods of behavioral simulation and space syntax to study waterfront accessibility from the urban texture levels of street system and property plot, exploring two methods’ differences, advantages and disadvantages in terms of simulation principle, fitting precision, and calculating results. The North Bund area of Shanghai is selected as the research sample. And the software of AnyLogic and Depthmap which are mostly used in the fields of behavior simulation and space syntax are used. The results are: Behavior simulation can visually reflect the usage condition of specific spaces through micro behavior data such as pedestrian flow, walking time, etc. But it has limitation in precision and stability of calculation, and the model need much time to construct and run if the site is large. Space syntax is more mature in accessibility analysis with high precise indexes such as choice and integration degree. However, the fitting precision between the output and real situation is lower than behavior simulation, and it can’t directly evaluate the capacity and service level of the urban space. In general, both behavior simulation and space syntax can be applied to urban space research and have their own advantages and disadvantages, and complementary in between.

Chunxia Yang, PhD Associate Professor, Doctoral Candidate Supervisor College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University Penn IUR Scholar Council Member, IUD – ASC National Licensed Architect

Commercial complexes have played an increasingly important role in contemporary cities. Due to the occurrence of crowded people or equipment overhauls, some paths in a commercial complex may become impassable, which can be seen as disruptions to its spatial system. This paper provides a practical method to quantify the spatial resilience of a commercial complex taking Beijing APM as an example. This study can be divided into the following three steps. First, transforming the realistic spatial path system to a directed network model. Second, using topological, metric, and angular distance as edge weight to calculate the centrality and present its distribution. Third, using two disruption processes, randomized and attractor-guided strategy, evaluates the spatial network’s resilience. There are three conclusions from this study. The first one is the process of disruption is non-linear, and there is a phase transition process when it reaches the critical threshold. The second one is the most efficient disruption method is the topological BC attractor-guided strategy. The last one is the resilience of a commercial complex, whose 3D spatial network’s resilience is lower than the 2D spatial network’s resilience by comparison with Duan and Lu’s (2013) study.

Wu Shaoji received the B.Arch. degree in School of Architecture from Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, in 2019. I am currently working toward the M.Sc. degree in Theory of Architecture Design with the School of Architecture, Tianjin University. My research interests include network science and environmental psychology.

Embedded in China’s urbanization process, the growth of gated residential estates has gradually induced severance of urban spaces, resulting in an underutilization of public amenities, a lack of walkable permeability, and congestion of traffic. Responding to these negative effects on urban development, the CPC (Central Committee and State Council) has released a guideline in February 2016 to prohibit the development of any new closed residential areas in principle and to advocate ungated communities. In this paper, we utilized ABM simulation analysis to test different degrees of openness, the position of new entrances/openness, and pedestrian network typologies, aiming to explore feasible strategies to accommodate the new urban design agenda. A series of typical gated compounds in Beijing were selected for comparative case studies, conducted under different degrees of openness of each case and under diverse ungating modes between cases. On the basis of these analyses, we summarized a sequence of pedestrian-centric design strategies, seeking to increase the communities’ permeability and walkability by suggesting alternative internal and external road network design options for Beijing urban renewal. By integrating quantified simulation into the empirical method of urban design, our research can positively assist and inform urban practitioners to propose a more sustainable urbanity in the future.

Wenzhao Xu is an architect and a researcher practicing mainly in Shanghai and Philadelphia. She earned her dual degree in architectural design and urban resilience at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interest concentrates more on digital-aided design and simulation from both architectural and urban scales.

Dr. Xiaoran Huang is a lecturer at North China University of Technology and a Researcher at Swinburne University of Technology. He received his PhD degree in architecture at the University of Melbourne and a MArch degree at UCL. As an architectural practitioner, he used to work in Gensler, MAD Architects and Landscape Architecture Cooperation of China and have been actively involved in projects in China, Australia and India. His interest lies in parametric design & digital simulation for both architectural and urban scales with a focal on how to inform design decision via pedestrian agent-based modelling.

In this study, a tsunami evacuation simulation system was developed using a game engine and open data to reflect the conditions of a local emergency situation at low cost. Chigasaki City, which is a heavily populated urban area and tourist destination along the coast of Japan, was selected as the target area for this study. A total of 20 simulations were conducted using 20,000 evacuation agents categorized as child, adult, or elderly residents or visitors randomly placed on the road surface in the target area. The simulation results indicate that a 10.60% agent damage rate may occur for a tsunami of height 10 m. In lowland areas where the river flows inland, tsunamis were observed to move up the estuary, trapping agents between the river and the coast. In such inland areas, several areas with no tsunami evacuation buildings were observed. Thus, the low-cost simulations provided by the proposed system can provide necessary support for planning and designating appropriate tsunami evacuation buildings in disaster-prone areas.

Professor at the Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Information and Communications, Bunkyo University.

Most of the traditional studies on urban morphology are based on aerial views. However, the 2D plane model fails to describe the height information of buildings and the relation of buildings and the urban external space. An urban section is another map of an urban area. Through a series of continuous vertical urban slices, the city texture can be transformed into planar linear information containing height and width information. This paper proposes several indicators to describe a series of urban section slices and uses a three-dimensional coordinate mapping method Sectionmatrix to quantify and analyze the relation between the physical geometrical indicators and urban form from the section perspective. Through the case analysis of multiple residential blocks in Nanjing, China, the results showed that Sectionmatrix is convenient and efficient. Sectionmatrix relates the geometrical properties to the spatial characteristics of urban areas and provides a new way to classify, map and define building typologies. This new classification method reveals the tortuosity and complexity of residential blocks. By bridging the gap between quantity and form, the research also suggests other possible applications of Sectionmatrix as a control instrument and test framework for entire cities’ planning and design.

Xiangshu Gu, an undergraduate student major in architecture, minor in arts from Nanjing University.