SUSTAlNABLE ClTlES PLANNlNG

SOFTWARE - FABRlC

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Local zoning codes restrict how a particular piece of land can be used, putting design restriction on the height of a building that can be constructed, how far the building must be set back from the property line, how long a shadow it can cast on a nearby park during particular times of the day and whether the building may be used for residential, commercial and mixed- use purposes.

There are roughly 1.7 billion buildings on this earth today serving an urban population of 3.9 billion. If that population is to double by 2050, we will need an- other 1.7 billion buildings to be built in the next 35 years. This seemingly insurmountable task is beyond the capabilities of current technologies, considering that it took us 8,000 years to build the existing 1.7 bil- lion.

To achieve that target, we will have to re-imagine Planning, Design, Construction and Management of our built environment. New technologies will have to dramatically cut the "plan-design-build" cycle of new developments, while introducing new levels of sus- tainable designs and materials. In addition, these new technologies must be able to be applied onto the exist- ing cities to make them sustainable – while most of these buildings do not even have their original draw- ings.

The team at Urbanetic has nearly three years of re- search experience in developing web-based tools for planning, design, simulation and analysis of urban spaces. We are ready to provide municipal govern- ments, developers and planners software tools to translate their re-imagination into working, living real- ity

The future will be increasingly connected and fast- paced, and development practices will have to keep up. At Urbanetic, we are building tools that combine data modeling, analysis and visualization to help cities find smarter and more sustainable solutions to the problems with the built environment.

We have just released a beta version of Urbanetic Fabric, with two important features: a 3D city explorer and a development feasibility analysis and simulation tool. The explorer provides a visual understanding of the regulatory, built and natural environments within the city and their interrelationships.It can also simplify understanding some of the livability-related problems a city faces, such as those relating to energy, emissions, waste generation and water demand.

The development analysis feature makes it easy to un- derstand what one can build (or rebuild) on a piece of land by providing instant, three-dimensional visualiza- tions of the development restrictions imposed by local zoning codes. At the same time, data related to devel- opment opportunities (market, regulatory, consumer, economic and environmental) are automatically pro posed, and may be customized visually and interac- tively

Preview of Melbourne's “City North” Precinct

In the example below, City North precinct of Mel- bourne, we aggregated data to provide users a 3D vi- sualization of the existing built, regulatory and natural environments. Fabric overlays the maximum build-out permitted under Melbourne's development code, which is used to populate it with procedurally-generat- ed building massing models. These new developments can be assessed within the existing environment, en- abling investigation of their impact on infrastructure and services.

While zoning (and overlays) regulations are intended to guide future land development and promote sus- tainability and general welfare, they are notoriously complex. Making building construction more costly and time-consuming - At the same time one is eager to un- derstand the short- and long-term economic opportu- nities, the data from the surrounding neighbourhood, districts and ecologies may provide – dealing with an array of variables makes development feasibility analy- sis a complex and time consuming undertaking.

Fabric takes these variables as constraints and oppor- tunities and assists in planning the most optimal devel- opment in matter of minutes. Describing and visualis- ing the parameters in this way makes it easy for plan- ners, developers, and residents to understand and work within.

We are constantly adding new features and functional- ities to help cities make their renewal and development easier for the local government, planners and devel- opers to understand and execute. Although the pre- view is functionally limited to a subset of Melbourne, Fabric is designed around a unified data model that can be applied anywhere in the world. We are actively working to expand Urbanetic's geographic reach and partner with cities that want better innovative and in- tuitive tools for planners, developers, and residents.

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