Visual Impacts of Building Heights on Public Spaces

A recent research paper is published and presented at the 20th Digital Landscape Conference held on 23-25th May 2019 in Dessau, Germany. The conference — “Landscape: Informed by Science, Shaped by Design” — emphasised the conjoined nature of science and design and the sequence, with “informing” preceding the “shaping” (Erwin, 2019):

Landscape architecture and architects have long resided – with varying degrees of conviction and comfort – between “Art” and “Science.” With feet firmly planted on either side of this conceptual divide, they have long worked – with varying degrees of success – to marry or hybridize the two.

The published paper by RMIT researchers looks at visual changes of public spaces in Melbourne and develops new methods to quantify attributes such as enclosure and complexity. The computation of a volumetric visual bowl and its fractal dimension potentially offer a new approach to study visual impacts of high rise developments.

The next DLA Conference will be held at Harvard Graduate School of Design (Cambridge, Mass, USA) from June 1-3, 2020.

Link to the published paper (Ata Tara, Philip Belesky, Yazid Ninsalam)

Link to JoDLA 2019 Publications