Integration of Collective Knowledge into Simulative Urban Modeling

The presented research is based on combination of two approaches while working in historical Šančiai neighborhood community in Kaunas. The first approach is based on the principles of tactical urbanism for collection and content analysis of local authentic data about three aspects of neighborhood life: (1) collective memory, (2) present usage of public spaces and (3) interaction with nature. For implementation of the project local inhabitants have collected data in the three online maps: Memory map, Present map, Nature map. The content analysis of collected data was further carried out using qualitative and quantitative approaches for understanding the emotional dimension of people’s interaction with the place. The second approach is based on the idea of simulative modeling for complex urban systems, which allows to reflect bottom-up processes essential for urban development both in present and predicted situations. During the project, the location spots and the results of content analysis focused on identification of emotions attached to precise neighborhood spaces, based on data entered by inhabitants were used as an additional input into mathematical graph based simulative models. The results of modeling demonstrated fluctuation in the most important public spaces (e.g., walking routes, intelligible buildings, reachable central locations) depending on various urban life scenarios (e.g., working days, weekends, mornings, evenings, celebrations, etc.) and could be used as a part of decision support system while discussing urban development ideas between interested stakeholders and local community.