Some recent developments in 'gravity' modelling of shopping behaviour are reviewed, in the light of Breheny's comments on their increasing level of use in commercial forecasting of retail activity. It is shown that the well-known singly constrained 'retail potential' model can be transformed...

Some of the major implications of the field of philosophical hermeneutics to how we understand design are presented. The author summarises the major challenge to the scientific orientation that imbues much of design thinking. The major tenets of philosophical hermeneutics are explained, in terms...

The author argues for a review of the principles upon which planning programmes are based. The paper is set in the context of British planning education in the 1980s, which was forced into preoccupations with cuts and rationalisation. This led to neglect of explicit discussion of the content of...

The author describes the development of a computer tool for urban design and the study of urban morphology: the Town Simulator. The incoherence and lack of cohesion which have characterised much recent urban development show the urgent need for such a tool. Several factors are identified as the...

The author draws attention to certain problems encountered in the business of simulation of urban ambient environments. He aims, in the first place, to situate the whole problematic of the urban environment in relation to recent thinking on the subject of the design and administration of cities...

The TRAPU system developed by the Institut Géographique National is a computer tool for the digitising and modelling of three-dimensional urban forms using photogrammetnc techniques. The data structures employed allow the creation of convex polyhedra, laminae and lines in space. Topography of...

In this paper examples are given of how modern information technology may have an impact on the way we build and use computerised models for different applications. The KBS - MEDIA (knowledge-based systems - media) group of projects is described. These projects are aimed at integrating advanced...

After a decade of increasingly pragmatic and localised planning in the United Kingdom, promoted by the Tory government, strategic planning is back on the professional, political, and, arguably, the popular, agendas. There has been no ideological U-turn, but on a pragmatic basis certain important...