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On the discovery of urban typologies
Jorge Gil, Nuno Montenegro, José Nuno Beirão, José Pinto Duarte
Faculty of Architecture
TU Delft / TU Lisbon, [email protected]
Phone number: 00 31 152783885
When pursuing a more sustainable and integrative urban development, the first stage of the urban design process should consist of a pre-design phase where the context of the site is analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. This information provides a base line for the contextualisation of the urban programme, of the design solutions and of the evaluation benchmarks proposed for the site. Our research project aims to develop an urban design system using an urban ontology that can be applied to the formulation, generation and evaluation of urban plans. The purpose of this urban design system is: (1) formulation - to read data from the site context on a GIS platform and then generate adequate program descriptions, given the contextual conditions; (2) generation - to generate alternative design solutions that match the program, and (3) evaluation - to evaluate evolving design solutions against the program to obtain satisfactory results. In this paper we present a methodology for data mining an urban Geographic Information System (GIS) data set, consisting of three main phases: representation, analysis and description. The process reveals a series of block and street typologies that highlight the different character of two neighbourhoods. This methodology is demanding in the preparation phase and requires a high level of GIS and statistics expertise in the analysis phase. However, it successfully addresses the complex multi-scale and multi-level nature of cities in a systematic way, providing a tool for systematic profiling of neighbourhoods, which is site and problem specific.
Keywords: Sustainable urban development; GIS; data mining; urban typologies; neighbourhood profiling
1 Introduction
When pursuing a more sustainable and integrative urban development, the first stage of the urban
design process should consist of a pre-design phase (Montenegro and Duarte, 2008) where the
context of the site is analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. This information provides a
base-line for the contextualisation of the urban programme and of the design solutions proposed for
the site. The definition and description of urban patterns appears to be a useful way to translate the
urban design requirements into a format adequate for flexible, and parametric rule-based design
processes.
We have recently seen statistical classification techniques applied to building typology (Reffat,
2008) and urban block form (Laskari, 2007) where archetypes are identified. Can similar techniques
provide an efficient method for the classification and description of urban typologies from the base-
line information gathered in the pre-design phase?
In this paper we present a methodology for data mining a Geographic Information System (GIS)
data set of two neighbourhoods in the city of Lisbon, Portugal, in order to identify urban typologies
of blocks and streets.
Firstly, we review previous work on urban analysis and urban patterns and introduce the concept of
data mining as a tool for multivariate emergent classification that can be applied to architecture and
planning. The objective is to develop and test a data mining methodology for urban environment
data sets to extract site specific typologies and archetypes based on a variety of attributes from
different disciplines of urban morphological studies to obtain a more integrated perspective.
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We then present the overall stages of the methodology, describe the operations and the outcomes
of each stage, and at the end present the results obtained from the case study. We conclude with
an appraisal of the process, highlighting its strengths, shortcomings and future work.
2 Spatial Assessment of Neighbourhoods
The urban space is perceived, apprehended, and seized by humans. Lynch (1960) wrote that users
understood their surroundings in consistent and predictable ways by forming mental maps. The
classic method of site analysis, deeply embedded in Lynch‟s principles, is elaborated through a
collection of visual annotations. Nevertheless such a process reveals a variety of flaws, due to
cognitive and cultural constraints of the observer. In an attempt to overcome such limitations in the
planning process, it is necessary to implement a collection of quantitative analysis and assessment
tools aiming to assist the planner.
With the introduction of the concept of pattern languages, Alexander, Ishikawa and Silverstein
(1977) offer „patterns‟ as a tool for the systematic description of urban entities. In a catalogue
aiming to achieve a certain ideal of urbanity, it is an explicit attempt to address the multi-scale,
multifaceted and relational complexity of urban environments. The urban design community hasn‟t
adopted this catalogue because the design codes seem outdated and suited only to a very specific
geographic and socio-cultural context. The concept of pattern as a best practice tool has
nevertheless flourished in other fields, like computer science. We consider that this concept can still
be useful in the urban development process if we find efficient ways to update the available
patterns to be problem and context specific.
An important step in this approach comes from Rapoport (1990) through Environment and
Behaviour Studies (EBS). He suggests that grain, texture and complexity are qualities of the
environment that can be derived or read from data and quantities. His work introduces the
systematic analysis of the environment, looking at the object and the context around the object,
taking data from the past (historical data) and from the present, to construct concepts, models and
theories. The derived precedents or archetypes must not be applied directly in a historicist fashion,
but serve as patterns and process.
2.1 Description and classification of urban typologies
There are several studies that advance into the detailed analysis of urban environments, offering
different methods to describe and classify urban entities to obtain urban typologies.
Urhahn and Bobic (1994) identifies principles of good city life and catalogues urban
neighbourhoods through a quantitative and qualitative description. He covers several scales, from
city to district, block and building and uses different classifications themes for description, including
form, density, land use, and mobility infrastructure. The final presentation is textual for complex
dimensions such as context and accessibility, quantitative for the built form, and highly visual,
displaying the various attributes of each area in a disaggregate format. Interestingly it formally
ignores the street as classification entity, although it receives a brief mention in some descriptions.
Streets receive full attention from Stephen Marshall (2004) underlining the importance of urban
layout and configuration for urban quality. He criticises the misuse of typologies to mime
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appearance and structure of urban neighbourhoods missing the essence of streets in the process.
Furthermore he exposes the limitations of classification and catalogues as they offer a univariate
interpretation on a theme, resulting in a fragmented vision of the phenomenon. Marshall uses
quantitative attributes relating to configuration, composition, complexity, and constitution of streets,
combined in triangular multivariate charts, to define street typologies.
A similar multivariate approach is taken by Berghauser Pont & Haupt (2004) in relation to
neighbourhoods and urban blocks, around the theme of development density using a set of four
built up area indices. A novel aspect is that they create an interactive on-line tool so that users can
systematically compare existing or planned neighbourhoods against the ones on their catalogue for
a characterisation through precedent (http://www.permeta.nl/spacemate/index2.html: April 2010).
Marshall and Berghauser Pont & Haupt have to restrict their themes to three or four variables in
order to achieve a way of visualising and defining their typologies. But the sustainable urban
development process has a degree of complexity that requires the consideration of many
morphological, socio-economic, environmental and cultural attributes.
2.2 Data mining
The data mining process is characterized by a recursive withdrawal procedure enthused by a
statistical platform towards data emergence, and is commonly used to perform three alternative
tasks (Fayyad, 1996):
1) Classification - arranging the data into predefined groups,
2) Clustering - where the groups are not predefined and the algorithm tries to group similar
items together,
3) Regression - to find a function that models the data with the least error.
Technically data mining is the process of finding data correlations or data patterns amongst dozens
of fields in large relational databases. In this paper we perform data mining using a clustering
technique.
The relevance of these techniques to the planning process is that they allow users to analyse the
environment from different angles simultaneously, categorise it, and summarise the relationships
identified. Data mining seems to facilitate the discovery of data patterns that would be difficult to
reveal in a complex urban space, today controlled by a bursting environment of economic and
social phenomena.
Some examples of the use of data mining in architecture research can be found for buildings,
defining archetypal office building layouts (Hannah, 2007) and Arabic house typologies (Reffat,
2008), and for urban block morphology, in terms of shape and density (Laskari, 2007). These
examples demonstrate that using methods of semi-automatic classification according to multiple
variables reveals typologies in a systematic way and may be used to better understand typologies
of the urban space and the relationships amongst their variables.
3 Research objectives
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The “City Induction” research project aims to develop an urban design tool using an urban ontology
that can be applied to the formulation, generation and evaluation of urban plans. The purpose of
this urban design tool is:
1) formulation - to read data from the site context on a Geographic Information System (GIS)
platform and then generate adequate program descriptions, given the contextual
conditions;
2) generation - to generate alternative design solutions that match the program;
3) evaluation - to evaluate evolving design solutions against the program to obtain satisfactory
results.
Within this framework, this paper‟s aim is to develop and test a context analysis methodology for
urban environment GIS data sets through the application of data mining techniques to two levels of
the urban ontology, streets and blocks. We will be using the recommendations in Witten and Frank
(2005) in a process of reverse engineering, where from the existing environment we extract
descriptions of street and block typologies to be used as precedents in formulation and obtain sets
of rule constraints that can support a parametric rule-based design process in generation.
4 Data mining methodology
The proposed methodology has three main phases, namely representation, analysis and
description (1 – 3). It involves the work of all three modules of the tool, formulation, generation and
evaluation, in the following tasks:
1) Representation
a. Selection of classification attributes
b. Preparation of the plans
c. Integration in the GIS, when required
2) Analysis
a. Spatial analysis of plans
b. Statistical analysis and clustering of attributes
3) Description
a. Statistical profiling of clusters
b. Semantic description of typologies
c. Extraction of design rule constraints
Next we go through the three phases as applied to our case study, describing the key steps and
lessons learned.
4.1 Two Lisbon neighbourhoods
The case study consists of two adjacent, but different in character, neighbourhoods in Lisbon,
Portugal (Figure 1). The first is the Expo 98 PP4, the northern most detail plan for the 1998 world
exhibition site, which is a contemporary neighbourhood, planned from scratch on a brown field site
and developed over the last 10 years. The adjacent Moscavide is a neighbourhood founded in 1928
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and developed more slowly over the following decades suffering from densification, in particular
inside the urban blocks, due to a strongly bounded geographic location without room for expansion.
Can this method identify different typologies between the two sites? Are there elements in
common?
5 Representation
The representation phase involves the selection of classification attributes and the preparation of
the geometric data that constitutes the plan, according to the urban ontology elements, keeping
their topological relations. All the information is gathered in a GIS to build an urban morphology
data base.
5.1 Selection of classification attributes
“The best way to select relevant attributes is manually, based on a deep understanding of the
learning problem and what the attributes actually mean.” (Witten and Frank, 2005)
Since the attributes must be meaningful in relation to the sustainable urban development problem,
the urban program includes an extensive list of attributes that are linked to sustainable urban form
covering bioclimatic, morphological, configurational, socio-economic and cultural aspects
(Higueras, 2006; Uhrahn and Bobic, 2004; Berghauser Pont and Haupt, 2004; Marshall, 2004;
Hillier and Iida, 2005). To develop the methodology, from this list we select block and street
attributes focusing on aspects of morphology and land use for both entities, and density for blocks
and configuration for streets (Table 1). We combine a set of attributes that cover different domains
of urban form research to demonstrate the potential of this method for cross-disciplinary studies.
Table 1. List of the selected block and street attributes
Attribute Entity Code Calculation
Length Street, Block LEN m
Width Street, Block W m
Orientation Street, Block DIR degrees
Solar Orientation Street, Block SOLO N,S,E,W
Number of Buildings Street, Block BLDN integer
Area Block TA m2
Built-up area Block BA m2
Perimeter Block PER m
Proportion Block PROP LEN/W
Compactness Block CMP A/PER
Floor Area Ratio Block FAR GFA / TA
Ground Space Index Block GSI BA / TA
Layers Block L GFA/BA
Open Space Ratio Block OSR (TA - BA) / GFA
Private space area Block PRVA m2
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Public space area Block PUBA m2
Pavement width Street PAVW m
Pedestrian area Street PEDA m2
Continuity Street CNT Links
Connectivity Street CON Degree
Global accessibility Street ACCG Closeness
Local accessibility Street ACCL Closeness
Global movement flow Street MOVG Betweenness
Local movement flow Street MOVL Betweenness
5.2 Preparation of the plans
The proposed methodology requires the use of GIS vector features representing urban entities
linked to descriptive information like number of floors, number of dwellings and land use. This is
different from a conventional geometric representation used in urban design where the urban
elements are not whole topological entities but are composed of lines that define shared
boundaries, and their attributes are encoded in graphic formatting or layers.
In our case study we have used CAD software to create layers to reflect the urban ontology and
organise levels of information that need to be captured, e.g. building type, then edited the available
plans to match these criteria. The other important task was to correct and complete those plans to
define polygonal objects for buildings, plots, blocks, streets and pavements that correspond to
correct topological entities. The typical operation is the closing of polylines and the joining of the
adjacent polygon‟s edges and the task can be more elaborate depending on the method for
representing limits and boundaries used in the original drawings. For this manual editing purpose
CAD software seems to be more flexible.
As for the streets‟ network it was also represented as a linear model based on road centre lines,
which had to be verified for connectedness, and a space syntax model based on an axial map of
the city.
5.3 Integration in the GIS
When importing the geometry it is important to specify the correct coordinate system for each
source so that they overlay correctly, in this case we used the Portuguese National System D73. If
the coordinates in CAD don‟t comply with a geographic coordinate system, the plans have to be
moved to a correct reference location. At this stage we have to verify the imported geometry,
converting any remaining closed polylines to polygons and creating the polygonal objects with
holes.
We then add columns to each entity for its descriptive information, like names, codes, land uses or
number of floors. First we transfer the information contained in text layers to the relevant entities,
the most important being any unique ID code that enables linking these entities to urban plan data
available in other formats, like CSV or XLS.
Once we complete the preparation of the features describing the two neighbourhoods, both in terms
of geometry and plan information (Figure 1), we end up with the following data layers in the GIS:
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Building: any built-up object, both public and private.
Open space: empty space within blocks, both public and private.
Plot: the legal boundary of a property, containing buildings and open space
Block: group of plots and private or public open space, forming an island surrounded by the
transport network.
Pavement: the public space between the blocks and the roads.
Road centre line: linear representation of the street network.
Figure 1. Plan of the case study areas in the GIS
6 Analysis
In the analysis phase the plan is analysed spatially to extract further attributes and statistically to
evaluate the importance and relation between attributes. We then perform k-means clustering on
the resulting data set to identify typologies of streets and urban blocks.
This is where the statistical data mining occurs, which can be defined in the following terms:
Concepts – Block and street.
Instances – The collection of blocks and streets from the case study.
Attributes – The selected meaningful properties of blocks and streets, both numeric and
nominal.
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6.1 Spatial analysis
A GIS is used to perform spatial analysis operations involving geometric and network calculations
on the axial map, as well as simple data filtering and mathematical calculations, to obtain all the
required attributes (Table 1).
Once this is completed it is important to visualise the individual attributes of blocks and streets by
mapping them as it helps the verification of representation mistakes, inconsistencies in the
calculations and is also a first step in becoming familiar with the data (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Maps of block area (a) and block FAR (b)
6.2 Descriptive statistics
At this stage, we explore the data through descriptive statistics, data distributions, and perform the
cleaning of errors, understand outliers or missing values. Because most urban spatial attributes do
not have a normal distribution, we transform those using log(x), as a normal distribution is expected
in most statistical operations.
Next, performing pair-wise correlation can help identify and exclude dependent attributes, which
would bias the study towards a specific theme of classification. For example, in our case study we
found a strong correlation between block area and the other dimensions of length, width and
perimeter, which are excluded from the classification process, but are accounted for in other ratios
like proportion and compactness.
6.3 Clustering
Clustering allows the classification of numeric and nominal attributes in multi-dimensional space
where there are no classes beforehand and their number (k) is not known. We apply a classic k-
means clustering technique, which is suitable for a small database (in data mining terms) with many
outliers, and also gives us the distance of every instance to the centroid of the cluster, which allows
us to select the k-medoid (archetype) of each cluster. Other clustering techniques can be used
depending on the data set.
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We produce various sized (k value) sets of clusters of block and street typologies according to the
notable points in the scree plot function (Figure 3) that uses the sum of squared distances in all
clusters. The optimum should be where the plot shows a kink; when it flattens more clusters provide
more detail with lower information gain.
Figure 3. Scree plot of block (a) and street (b) clusters, where circled are the selected k numbers
for testing
We visualise each cluster by mapping its elements on the plan (Figure 4), to observe if there are
any clear typologies or known classes being identified. We observe that some cluster sets look like
transitions in the classification not giving obvious typologies, but there are points that produce clear
separations of increasing detail. For blocks we identify 4, 6 and 12 clusters and for streets 4, 8, 10
and 14 as such demarcation points.
Figure 4. Mapping of (a) six block and (b) four street clusters
7. Description
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The description phase translates the results into a format that is more useful for the urban design
process, which includes a semantic definition of the emergent clusters of urban typologies. In
addition, the cluster attributes, e.g. length, width, number of floors or density, can serve as inputs
for a parametric rule-based urban design process.
7.1 Statistical profiling of clusters
The block and street attributes, which in most cases are continuous numeric values, e.g. area or
length, should be classified to facilitate the description process. Data discretisation can be achieved
using:
quantiles
normal quantiles
equal intervals
natural breaks
domain knowledge classes when these are known
Ideally there are domain knowledge standard classes, which are more useful in practice because
they are meaningful beyond the data pattern, but in this case we have used quartiles. We then
profile each cluster according to the share that it has of each of the attributes (Figure 5).
Figure 5. Sample of the categorisation charts: profile of street clusters 1 and 2
7.2 Semantic description of typologies
For the semantic description of the clusters we focus only on the attributes that have dominant and
unique characteristics, in order to highlight the specificities of each typology instead of the
generalities common to both neighbourhoods. Dominant characteristics have a share of a class
above 70% within that attribute, e.g. 94% of blocks in cluster 3 have an area of public space
classified as very low. Unique characteristics have a share of a class 50% above or below the
average of that class in other clusters, e.g. cluster two has 6% of blocks with the lowest open space
ratio, which is 50% below the average of all other clusters. We present a succinct description of the
six block and four street cluster sets (Table 2), together with a sample of the “archetype” block and
street entities (Figure 6).
Table 2. Sample of block and street typology descriptions
Cluster Description
Block 1 Closed block, medium density with private courtyard only
Block 2 High density, compactness and pressure on open space
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Block 3 Low density with private open space
Block 4 Open block of medium density with privileged public space
Block 5 Open public space with no built area
Block 6 Large, low density block with equipment and associated public space
Street 1 Very low or no continuity and movement flow
Street 2 High connectivity and continuity streets
Street 3 Low continuity streets
Street 4 Long streets with wide pavements and high average of tall buildings
Figure 6. Sample of block (a) and street (b) typology archetypes for the clusters in Table 2.
7.3 Design rule constraints
Another output of this process is a table with the quantitative description of each cluster, in terms of
minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation values of every attribute used, which can
provide useful input to parametric rule-based design.
8 Results
The results of applying the data mining methodology to the case study are encouraging. By
statistically correlating the instances in the clusters to their pre-defined neighbourhood, Expo 98 or
Moscavide, we observe the degree to which the clusters are characteristic to a neighbourhood. We
find that some clusters clearly correspond to one of the areas, eventually with few outliers indicating
the odd instances of that area (Table 3). The overall R2 between clusters and neighbourhoods is
0.67 for the block clusters and 0.58 for the street clusters, where a value of 1 would correspond to
complete identity between the two variables.
The clusters with an even share of instances from both areas, e.g. “Block 3” and “Street 3”, tend to
get subdivided when the number of clusters is increased demonstrated by an R2 of 0.8 between
four and six block clusters, and 0.87 between four and ten street clusters (Table 3).
Table 3. The percent share of instances from the two neighbourhoods in each cluster.
Cluster Size Expo 98 Moscavide
Block 1 45 0.00 100.00
Block 2 16 93.75 6.25
Block 3 17 52.94 47.06
Block 4 22 90.91 9.09
Block 5 2 50.00 50.00
Block 6 2 100.00 0.00
Street 1 14 28.57 71.43
Street 2 96 3.13 96.88
Street 3 44 63.64 36.36
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Street 4 66 95.45 4.55
Visual inspection of the cluster instances on the plan (Figure 3) confirms the consistency of the
statistics and demonstrates the extent of typological overlap between areas. Some blocks in
Moscavide are more recent and correspond to the typologies found in the Expo 98 site, and some
street typologies, such as the dead end, are universal and can be found on both areas. Only further
clustering of those groups would eventually identify types of dead end unique to one area or the
other.
9 Discussion
The emergent classification helped us to identify a series of block and street typologies at various
levels of detail that at expert inspection correspond to known typologies and highlight the different
character of the two neighbourhoods. In doing so, this clearly moves away from the one-
dimensional classification on a theme criticised by Marshall (2004) and picks out instances that are
typical according to different themes, an essential aspect of a less fragmented vision of complex
urban environments.
9.1 Methodological issues
However, this context analysis methodology can be demanding in the preparation phase if an
adequate GIS database is not available and requires a high level of GIS and statistics expertise in
the analysis phase.
Usually there aren‟t GIS vector data sets available for urban areas with the architectural level of
detail required for urban morphology studies, which go down to the building scale, although these
are becoming more common with the introduction of GIS in local authorities, the upgrade of national
data bases, as is the case with the UK Ordnance Survey‟s “MasterMap” data set, or the increasing
availability of public domain GIS data, for example OpenStreetmap (http://www.openstreetmap.org/:
Accessed April 2010). For the required level of detail one often has to resort to CAD drawings and
to extra survey or plan information in text format to complement it.
There are many operations needed to convert a CAD drawing into a GIS urban topology for
analysis, partly due to inconsistencies in the original plan representation, including defining the
entities‟ geometry clearly and grouping each type in separate layers. Even the definition of the
entities‟ topology in certain urban areas, such as the unclear boundary between street, public space
and private space can be problematic
Furthermore, there needs to be clear agreement on the attributes‟ selection and how they should be
calculated, otherwise one risks ending with typologies that are of little use for urban regulations or
design operations. For a complete appraisal of this matter we would need a more complete data set
with attributes for other types of indicators relating to socio-economic conditions, in particular land
use, population size and type.
Still this methodology offers insights into the complex nature of urban environments that could not
be obtained manually, by identifying multivariate typologies within large numbers of instances. Also,
by using systematic statistical operations the process can be consistently applied to different sites
by different people, avoiding much of the subjective nature of urban environment profiling.
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9.2 Further work
With such a methodology we offer a process of producing a context sensitive sample of typologies,
which can be used as precedents for an urban design program. Furthermore, when integrated in a
parametric rule-based urban design system, it provides useful quantitative rule constraints that
direct the system towards solutions that fit to the context or to an urban program of sustainable
development. Both of these scenarios need to be formally tested by using these outcomes in a
formulation and generation process.
Two other topics deserve consideration. In this example we assume that all attributes are of equal
importance, but maybe using domain knowledge one could assign weights to the attributes to better
address a specific problem. The danger is to bias the clustering results towards some
misconception, reducing the emergent quality of the process.
On the other hand, by not filtering attributes for the site or for the specific problem, we would obtain
more universal results and could consider building a catalogue of precedents. But would it be
actually useful for design practice? Many criticisms exist of standard catalogues and design codes.
Ultimately, by following this data mining process, we are acknowledging that urban interventions
deal with complexity and are problem and site specific.
Finally, further work using a similar approach involving more detailed information on other aspects
of the public space and their relation with the blocks, for instance, issues of ground floor
transparency, land use and permeability may me able to give a deeper insight towards the
understanding of urban typologies and neighbourhoods, and inform the development of new urban
patterns.
10 Conclusion
In this paper we presented a data mining methodology that applied to urban environment data sets
is capable of identifying typologies from the site context during the pre-design phase and is useful
in defining values for parametric rule-based design. In doing so it addresses the complex multi-
scale and multi-level nature of urban environments binding qualitative and quantitative
requirements.
While descriptive statistics facilitate the general description of a neighbourhood as a whole,
according to socio-economic, morphologic and network layout information, using data mining
techniques it becomes possible to classify the elements of those neighbourhoods according to
multiple qualitative and quantitative attributes simultaneously. This provides a more detailed
profiling of the character of a neighbourhood, which facilitates the understanding of the site context
or of a plan‟s design rules and constraints.
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Acknowledgements
The City Induction research project is supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal,
hosted by ICIST at the Technical University of Lisbon (PTDC/AUR/64384/2006) and coordinated by Prof. José
Pinto Duarte. J. Gil, N. Montenegro and J.N. Beirão are responsible for the evaluation, formulation and
generation modules, respectively.
J. Gil is funded by FCT with grant SFRH/BD/46709/2008. N. Montenegro is funded by FCT with grant
SFRH/BD/45520/2008. J.N. Beirão is funded by FCT with grant SFRH/BD/39034/2007.
The spatial network of the study area and its surroundings was taken from the “axial map” of the Lisbon region
with permission from its author, João Pinelo, University College London (UCL).
The following academic software was used in the described methodology: Confeego 2.0 from Space Syntax
Limited and UCL Depthmap 8.15 by Alasdair Turner, UCL.