Reinhard Koenig

Reinhard Koenig
Verified
Reinhard verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
Verified
Reinhard verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
Bauhaus-Universität Weimar · Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism

Prof. Dr.

About

168
Publications
139,227
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
1,219
Citations
Introduction
Reinhard is Professor for Informatics in Architecture and Urbanism at Bauhaus-University Weimar. He was Principal Scientist at the Center for Energy at the Smart and Resilient Cities competence unit at the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Vienna and acted as Co-PI in the Big Data Informed Urban Design group at the Future Cities Lab (FCL) at the Singapore ETH Centre.
Additional affiliations
October 2015 - March 2024
Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Position
  • Junior-Professor
Description
  • Professorship for Computational Architecture
July 2016 - June 2022
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology
Position
  • Principal Investigator
January 2013 - June 2016
ETH Zurich
Position
  • Senior Researcher
Education
October 2004 - March 2009
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Field of study
  • Urban Planning and Design
April 2002 - September 2004
October 1998 - March 2002
Munich University of Applied Sciences
Field of study
  • Architecture

Publications

Publications (168)
Article
In recent years, the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought about a new paradigm shift in performance-based design, which we will call Predictive-Performative Design (PPD). This paper presents an overview of this new paradigm, as well as the inflection point at which interest among urban designers in this type of model began to emerge,...
Article
G+L Magazin für Landschaftsarchitektur und Stadtplanung. Themenheft zu Digitalisierte Stadt.
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper presents a method for organising urban data inside the CAD environment into a hierarchical structure, which promotes the ease of transferring information between all available urban elements, from streets to buildings passing by the plots and blocks. This is done using parametric methods that map the urban data using the available CAD an...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In this paper, we discuss a few methods for mapping the location of urban activities. We focus on establishing the geometrical relationship between the frontages of urban activities and their morphological context. Frontages act as the interface between the users of the public space and the activities within its surrounding buildings. Studying how...
Article
This article presents the results of research conducted to observe the impact of digital tools on citizen engagement. Parklets (temporary constructions in public space) in Vienna were selected for the research as a case study. The following digital tools for city-making were developed to carry out the experiment: basic information, a parklet potent...
Article
Full-text available
New digital algorithms support architects by partially automating the generation and analysis of design variants in multi-storey residential building construction.
Chapter
Recent advances in generative design, simulation, computational optimisation, and machine learning opened up possibilities in employing data‐driven workflows to achieve design solutions of unprecedented performance. This chapter showcases generative methods for urban spatial configurations that integrate a number of different simulation engines, al...
Conference Paper
Our cities are facing different kinds of challenges-in parallel to the urban transformation and densification, climate targets and objectives of decision-makers are on the daily agenda of planning. Therefore, the planning of new neighbourhoods and buildings in high-density areas is complex in many ways. It requires intelligent processes that automa...
Conference Paper
The benefits of deep learning (DL) models often overshadow the high costs associated with training them. Especially when the intention of the resultant model is a more climate resilient built environment, overlooking these costs are borderline hypocritical. However, the DL models that model natural phenomena-conventionally simulated through predict...
Chapter
Digitalization is changing the way cities are planned. Technological innovations in AI and data analysis are leading to new design strategies and processes in which urban designers must constantly redefine their role in the interaction with digital tools. In this chapter, we demonstrate how various generative and analytical methods can be used to c...
Article
Full-text available
This study discusses the interplays between urban form and energy performance using a case study in Singapore. We investigate educational urban quarters in the tropical climate of Singapore using simulation-based parametric geometric modelling. Three input variables of urban form were examined: street network orientation, street canyon width, and b...
Article
Der Beitrag beschreibt neue Möglichkeiten für den Einsatz von Methoden der Künstlichen Intelli-genz in Architektur und Städtebau-und steckt diesbezüglich die Grenzen des Machbaren ab. Die Autorinnen und Autoren stellen dar, wie diese Methoden die Arbeitswelten von Architektinnen und Architekten verändern. Sie beleuchten, wie die kreative Nutzung ne...
Conference Paper
This study discusses the relationship between urban morphology and energy performance. We investigate educational urban quarters in the tropical climate of Singapore using simulation-based parametric geometric modelling. Three input variables of urban form were examined: street network orientation, street canyon width, and building depth. In total,...
Article
Citizen participation is a complicated piece of the urban development puzzle as it is prone to conflicts and manipulation. However, new, partly unsanctioned methods of citizen participation have appeared in recent years, opening new forms of engagement for citizens. At the same time, technology is increasingly being used to change the relationship...
Conference Paper
Climate emergency urges the reduction of CO2 emissions. Energy is the major contributor to climate change, and the building sector accounts for a large share of rising global energy consumption. Previous research has shown a strong interplay between urban form and energy consumption. The transition towards net-zero cities is challenged by the space...
Conference Paper
Recent cases of so-called Ghost Towns in China raise the question of how-to better account for the risk of much slower or stagnating growth in the making of masterplans. This paper argues that more attention should be given to the spatiotemporal development strategy of new towns. To approach this issue, a parametric analysis framework (implemented...
Article
Full-text available
RaumPlanung: Fachzeitschrift für räumliche Planung und Forschung. Digitalisierung verändert die Art und Weise wie Städte geplant werden. Technologische Neuerungen der KI und der Datenanalyse führen zu neuen Planungsstrategien und -prozessen, bei denen Architekt*innen und Planer*innen ihre Rolle im Zusammenspiel mit digitalen Werkzeugen immer wied...
Preprint
Full-text available
This paper introduces ARCH-Elites, a MAP-Elites implementation that can reconfigure large-scale urban layouts at real-world locations via a pre-trained surrogate model instead of costly simulations. In a series of experiments, we generate novel urban designs for two real-world locations in Boston, Massachusetts. Combining the exploration of a possi...
Chapter
Overview “We are living in the age of cities. It is an urgent time, and an uncertain one. Never before have human beings built so much with such haste. Yet we understand so little about how our urban world grows and — sometimes — declines.” Thus wrote Anthony M Townsend, then a Senior Research Fellow at the New York University (NYU) Rodin Centre fo...
Article
One of the most important consequences of digitalization and the progress of artificial intelligence is automation in all areas of life. In this paper we investigate the automation of urban design. Based on four levels of automation, we provide a conceptual framework for the classification and comparison of various urban design automation approache...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The aim of this paper is to demonstrate a new developed parametric workflow for efficient semi-automatic generation of design options for multi-family residential buildings. The generation process is performed by modular components that generate design variants for building volumes automatically but enable the user to combine them in the preferred...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The emerging countries are confronted by an unprecedented wave of urbanization, which seeks rapid urban planning and sustainable development. A typical example is Ethiopia where the need for economic growth, food security, water, energy and social infrastructure is being fostered. To achieve this Ethiopian government plans to develop a large number...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Design optimization, as one of the major generative design methods, has been studied ever since the 1960s. However, half a century later, in an urban design context, it is still in the research and experimental phase and rarely employed in actual projects. This paper aims to reflect design optimisation methods through a comprehensive review from th...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Climate resilience is a global emergency. Buildings are still responsible for nearly half of the energy consumption and the CO2 emissions annually (UNEP 2016). Architects, city planners, environmental consultants and clients need innovative ways to respond to the climate crisis and design resilient solutions for the future. Environmental simulation...
Article
To better support urban designers in planning sustainable, resilient, and livable urban environments, new methods and tools are needed. A variety of computational approaches have been proposed, including different forms of spatial analysis to evaluate the performance of design proposals, or the automated generation of urban design proposals based o...
Conference Paper
The importance of performance feedback and simulation in early design stages has been argued for numerous times. Therefore, the employment of generative design solutions becomes more and more an indispensable part in the production pipeline of architecture and space. However various barriers prevent the integration of such tools in early design sta...
Article
Full-text available
For architects as well as developers and urban planners working on the floor plans or estimating the shape and dimensions of large buildings is always a challenge. This task requires some knowledge and what is more important – even with understanding of the process it is a very time-consuming task. One should take into consideration the arrangement...
Chapter
Full-text available
By 2050 an estimated 70 percent of the world's population will live in megacities with more than 10 million citizens. This growth requires innovative, efficient and interdisciplinary digital methods for planning. The need for target-oriented, regenerative and efficient urban planning and design in cities is continuously growing due to progressive u...
Code
The DeCodingSpaces Toolbox for Grasshopper is a collection of analytical and generative components for algorithmic architectural and urban planning. The toolbox is free software released by the Computational Planning Group (CPlan) and is a result of long term collaboration between academic institutions and praxis partners across the globe with the...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
A common understanding exists that citizens should become more involved in the design, planning, and governance of the city. Due to a lack of common platforms and difficulties in the meaningful integration of the participatory input, however, the tools and methods currently employed in citizen engagement are often ill connected to the design and go...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
By 2050 an estimated 70 percent of the world's population will live in megacities with more than 10 million citizens (Renner 2018). This growth calls for new target-oriented, interdisciplinary methods in urban planning and design in cities to meet sustainable development targets. In response, this paper exemplifies an integrated urban design proces...
Conference Paper
This paper introduces a prototype for a user-friendly, responsive toolbox for spatial accessibility analysis in data-poor environments to support urban design processes. It allows for real-time computation of several evaluation indicators, mostly focused on accessibility related measures. The proposed framework is exemplified with three real-world...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper introduces a prototype for a user-friendly, responsive toolbox for spatial accessibility analysis in data-poor environments to support urban design processes. It allows for real-time computation of several evaluation indicators, mostly focused on accessibility related measures. The proposed framework is exemplified with three real-world...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
There are a lot of discussions about digitalizing university teaching and opening it to civil society. In this context, we investigate the current options for setting up and distributing video-based online courses. First, we make a review of a subjectively selected set of existing platforms and technologies for video-based online courses. Next, we...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In this paper, we introduce a simulation framework for examining the effect of street network configurational on the evolution of the relationship between movement and land use allocation over time. The causal chain introduced in Space Syntax literature suggests that the potential generated by spatial configuration of a street network influences ho...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This research aim is to develop a design support system for interactive exploration of urban space variants. During the early design process for urban masterplan, the design support system can evaluate the state of the design stage quickly and suggest alternative design variants to the designers. Design variants obtained while developing the design...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The better integration of the knowledge and expertise from different disciplines into urban design and the creation of more interdisciplinary and collaborative work processes to accommodate this have been under discussion in related research for decades. Nevertheless, many barriers preventing a seamless collaborative work flow still persist. In thi...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Urban development projects in flood-prone areas are usually complex tasks where failures can cause disastrous outcomes. To tackle this problem, we introduce a toolbox (Spatial Resilience Toolbox-Flooding, short: SRTF) to integrate flooding related aspects into the planning process. This, so called toolbox enables stakeholders to assess risks, evalu...
Chapter
Full-text available
Collecting and analysing big data is beginning to change governance and societies worldwide. Not only is big data voluminous and complex in nature, but it also comes from a number of different sources, across different time frames and spatial scales. On the urban scale, we suggest that data-informed design, rather than data-driven design, is a bett...
Article
Full-text available
This research proposes a framework for signal processing and information fusion of spatial-temporal multi-sensor data pertaining to understanding patterns of humans physiological changes in an urban environment. The framework includes signal frequency unification, signal pairing, signal filtering, signal quantification, and data labeling. Furthermo...
Article
Full-text available
Urban planners are often challenged with the task of developing design solutions which must meet multiple, and often contradictory, criteria. In this paper, we investigated the trade-offs between social, psychological, and energy potential of the fundamental elements of urban form: the street network and the building massing. Since formal methods t...
Preprint
Full-text available
This research proposes a framework for signal processing and information fusion of spatial-temporal multi-sensor data pertaining to understanding patterns of humans physiological changes in an urban environment. The framework includes signal frequency unification, signal pairing, signal filtering, signal quantification, and data labeling. Furthermo...
Article
The paper explores how innovative Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques are leading to new urban planning methods based on the interplay between human creative thinking and the computational power of modern computers (Figure 1). The goal of the new planning tools is to plan cities more efficient and, despite their complexity, more comprehensible,...
Article
Full-text available
The article proposes a method for teaching advanced urban design to working professionals in Singapore. The article aims to expand the discourse on parametric urban design education by introducing 'Urban Elements' as conceptual urban design instruments with an inherent rule-based logic, which can help to bridge gaps in teaching parametric urban des...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In this paper we introduce mineR-a tool that integrates statistical data analysis inside the parametric design environment Grasshopper. We first discuss how the integration of statistical data analysis would improve the parametric modelling workflow. Then we present the statistical programming language R. Thereafter, we show how mineR is built to f...
Article
This article is motivated by the fact that in Cape Town, South Africa, approximately 7.5 million people live in informal settlements and focuses on potential upgrading strategies for such sites. To this end, we developed a computational method for rapid urban design prototyping. The corresponding planning tool generates urban layouts including stre...
Article
Full-text available
A common approach to evaluating the quality of urban environments in terms of walkability is to measure the accessibility of walking attractors. For this purpose, the information on street network configuration and distribution of walking attractors is required. However, in the early planning stages when not all the necessary data on land use alloc...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Dynamic urban development simulation models are usually separate to urban planning tools making it difficult to test the consequences of urban planning variants directly without switching between expert tools. This paper presents an approach to integrating system dynamics simulation at various scales and abstractions in the visual programming envir...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper will discuss the process of development and application of procedural methods in urban planning and design. Despite a lot of progress being made at architectural scale to consider a planning area as an integrated system of infrastructure, constructions, uses, socio-economic indices and many more, there is a gap in approaching larger urba...
Preprint
Full-text available
This work is based on the concept that the structure of a city can be defined by six basic urban patterns. To enable more complex urban planning as a long-term objective I have developed a simulation method for generating these basic patterns and for combining them to form various structures. The generative process starts with the two-dimensional o...
Chapter
The chapter describes an approach for the development of a future cognitive design computing system for urban design. The aim of this system is to enable an urban planner to treat a planning problem as an inverse problem by defining what performance a design solution should achieve and to automatically query or generate a set of best possible solut...
Chapter
Full-text available
Designing pleasant, sustainable cities is a long-term goal of urban design researchers and practitioners alike. Since changes to existing streets and buildings are hard to implement once constructed, evaluations are iteratively needed in the early design stages. However, urban designers may find it challenging to anticipate how future inhabitants p...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In emerging countries there is a need for rapid urban planning, since they are confronted by unprecedented wave of urbanization. This need is even bigger since usually there is no adequate number of professional educated urban planners in these countries. Therefore, we investigate in this paper how to develop a set of methods that allow to generate...
Technical Report
Full-text available
In this research project, we investigate the impacts of urban morphology (UM) on citizen’s social potential as a function of accessibility and perception and compare it with the impacts of UM on building energy consumption for parallel case studies in Zürich Switzerland and Weimar Germany. This is of particular interest since urban planning decisio...
Conference Paper
In this paper, we present a method for generating fast conceptual urban design prototypes. We synthesize spatial configurations for street networks, parcels and building volumes. Therefore, we address the problem of implementing custom data structures for these configurations and how the generation process can be controlled and parameterized. We ex...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Traditional urban design methods, still relying on the static and sectoral approaches, reach their limits to adapt themselves to the growing complexities and dynamics of modern cities. With the flourishing of artificial intelligence, a new approach called " cognitive design computing " has been proposed to utilize both the human creativity and comp...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Floor plan retrieval for supporting design by suppliance of reference objects requires comparable information in understandable categories. Spatial properties of floor plans are objectively comparable, but hard to relate to subjectively perceived verbal demands toward a searched-for spatial configuration in a digital reference repository. In thi...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Although Cape Town city in South Africa is generally regarded as the most stable and prosperous city in the region, there are still approximately 7.5 million people living in informal settlements and about 2.5 million housing units are needed. This motivates the so-called Empower Shack project, aiming to develop upgrading strategies for these infor...
Article
Full-text available
Finding a method to evaluate people’s emotional responses to urban spaces in a valid and objective way is fundamentally important for urban design practices and related policy making. Analysis of the essential qualities of urban space could be made both more effective and more accurate using innovative information techniques that have become availa...
Article
Good governance is necessary to make cities resilient and sustainable. To achieve this, we propose the Responsive City, in which citizens, enabled by technology, take on an active role in urban planning processes. Adequate planning of Responsive Cities requires a change and evolvement of the role of policy-makers, government experts, urban planners...