The future of our cities- planning for 2030 and beyond
COP26 has put a spotlight on the urgent need for change, in the face of the climate crisis. We need to adopt changes in policies, changes in markets, and changes in our built environments. Diagonal’s technology is built to help planners understand and imagine the future we want and need - at a city scale.
Backed by our analysis engine, we work with organisations who are changing our cities. We want our cities to become more inclusive, healthier, and more sustainable places. Our tooling is designed to work with very large and very sensitive data. We can rapidly analyse the context of new infrastructure or property developments- considering factors like population demographics, access to amenities, and space typology. Empowering architects, planners, and property developers to focus on the complex consequences of changes to our cities. With interactive, fast visuals of analysis, we also make it easier to share work and engage stakeholders in the analysis process.
Our technology-powered, data science consulting supports research, urban planning, and stakeholder engagement.
Research
We help organisations to understand city systems today and build the case for change. We enable transparent, rapid analysis of cities' systems. We work with any information that describes the urban form including environmental factors, transport networks, buildings, demographic and economic systems.
For example, to achieve the benefits of a 15-minute city, cities must first map access to amenities. With our analysis engine, we can calculate how many grocery stores are within 1km of every building in a city - in under 15 minutes. We can add in other amenities like, schools, green spaces, and health services. This approach can identify what neighbourhoods may be amenity rich, and where there are amenity gaps.
Planning
We help planners, urban designers and property developers understand the impact of changing our cities. Our analysis engine allows us to compare the effects of change across multiple urban systems.
For example, we can reveal the potential consequences of extending cycle lane infrastructure in a city. We can integrate speculative assumptions about population change and development plans to build a picture of tomorrow’s city. One new cycle lane is not going to address all the challenges of the climate crisis. If we can understand how a network of cycle lanes might change urban accessibility, and how many people might be impacted, then we can make better land-use plans and incentivise zero-emission travel. Our tooling can explore both the hyperlocal- and broader consequences of changes to the urban form.
Engagement
Technology alone is not the answer to cleaner, more equitable, healthier cities. We provide visualisation tools for engagement processes with stakeholders, members of the public, and domain experts.
How does our analysis engine support these outcomes? We do more than clean data. We built a cloud-based, semantic model of the world which means data analysis is more intuitive and faster.
If you are researching, planning or working on engagement in urban spaces - we want to work with you. From workshops to in-depth research, we help clients bring data to their ideas for positive change, and explore the impact these can have in the built environment.
Get in touch: hello@diagonal.works.
