SketchUp® is a surface modeling software ideally suited for creating a digital representation of a city. It is fully compatible with GIS. The Digital City Project will involve a course to train architecture and planning students in the use of SketchUp® in its modeling and GIS integration; and a design studio for graduate level architecture and urban design students to develop virtual contextual models that would form the base file for the digital city. Future grants can be applied for to enhance the model and to outsource it as a tool for governmental planning and design review.

Informed City 6 credits (ARC4930-003)

At the crossing of design and planning strategies forces that shape the built environment require an assessment and integration of parameters that are simultaneously spatial, political, structural, formal, economic, material, and environmental. The evolution of our urban environment within such a context requires the simultaneous integration of design, construction, public policy, and infrastructure: information that shapes our built environment.

This intensive cross-disciplinary research course intends to examine the possibilities for developing a detailed visual/data model for a test area of Fort Lauderdale’s downtown. By combining the digital visualization tools of design modeling with the visual planning and database tools of GIS software participants in this class will examine the intersection of form, space, and information in the urban context. Students in this course will map, model, assess, evaluate, and present a detailed visual and information model of a nine-block section of downtown Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This intensive summer course will run May 15 - 26, 2006.