Context Decoder - Measuring Urban Quality through Artificial Intelligence

Understanding the quality of places during the early design process can improve design decision making and increase not only the chance of effective site development for the place and surroundings but also provide foresight to the mental, physical and environmental well-being of the future occupants. A context can be described differently depending on the designer's studies. However, in order to view the place holistically, various layers should be considered for a cross-disciplinary correlation. This paper proposes a prototypical tool to evaluate the quality of places using machine learning to help cluster and visualise design metrics according to the features provided. By selecting a location in a city, it offers other site contexts with similar characteristics and a similar level of complexity in relation to the surroundings. The tool was initially developed for Naples (Italy) as a case study city and incorporates key indicators related to connectivity of amenities, walkability, urban density, population density, outdoor thermal comfort, popular rate review and sentiment analysis from social media. With current open-source data, these indicators such as OpenStreetMap or social media sentiment can be collected with embedded geotags. These site-specific multilayers were evaluated under the metrics of 3 ranges i.e 400, 800 and 1,200-metre walking distance. This paper demonstrates the potential of using machine learning integrated with computational design tools to visualise the otherwise invisible data for users to interpret any context comprehensively in a holistic approach. Even though this tool is made for Naples, this tool can be extended to other cities across the world. As a result, the tool assists users in understanding not only site-specific location but also draws lines to other neighbourhoods within the city with a similar phenomenon of correlation between key performance indicators.