Developing the best professional talent is critical to the success of planning. Graduate school admissions procedures often rely heavily on prior grade point averages and standardized test scores to determine who is allowed to study toward planning degrees. The efficacy of these credentials in...

Charles Babbage used an example suggested by the computational power of his calculating engine to suggest that 'miraculous events' might be as lawful as the regularities presumed by 'vast inductions'. In this paper I revisit the issue by employing a simple shape grammatical example. Induction...

In this paper I introduce a knowledge-based analysis system, called the fuzzy reasoning system (FRS), as a design analysis and evaluation tool. The FRS consists of fuzzy reasoning charts (FRCs) and fuzzy reasoning equations (FREs). The FRCs depict design-related knowledge with networks of nodes...

HeGeL-2 is a heuristic-based layout generator equipped with a nonserial dynamic programming algorithm. HeGeL-2 finds optimal solutions to plan-layout design (PLD) problems which are defined as problems that involve the allocation of a nontrivial number (ten or more) of design units in one...

The expression and use of urban design rules as the bases for moves in a game of development scenarios played with a computer urban model are described and discussed.

The Internet is fast becoming an essential channel for communications and research and is likely to play a pivotal role in recent initiatives at the European level to face up to the challenges of an information society and develop a European data infrastructure. As the diffusion of computer...

In this paper, a parametric shape grammar which can generate the plans of traditional Turkish houses is presented. The grammar is based on a corpus of traditional Turkish houses that have been built in Anatolia and Rumelia for the past five centuries. The shape rule schemata are used for...

In this paper, advice-giving software which uses various strategy-evaluation criteria is described. Ultimately the software will make use of an artificial neural network to connect the scores of strategies on the evaluation criteria with their overall desirability scores, and such 'learning'...

Employing Markov chain models to predict the distribution of land uses is always plagued by several types of error. One type of error stems from the uncertainty which always resides within the transition matrix. In this paper we therefore present a method for estimating such error and for...

Fractals are a subclass of shape grammars. The more general formalism of shape grammars is explored in this recreational paper, and special characteristics are noted. Single shape rules may lead to a 'rumpus of shapes'.