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This paper presents an assessment method that uses weighted graphs to quantify a building’s capacity to support changes. The method is called Spatial Assessment of Generality and Adaptability (SAGA), and evaluates the generality (passive support for change) and adaptability (active support for change) of a building’s spatial configuration. We put forward that the generality and adaptability of a floor plan can be expressed in terms of graph permeability, and introduce a set of five quantitative indicators. To illustrate the method, we evaluate six representative plan layouts, and discuss how their generality and adaptability scores relate to their spatial configuration. We are developing the SAGA method for two areas of application. First, SAGA’s global graph indicators can be used to analyse and compare large sets of plan graphs, for example to map or plan adaptable capacity throughout a building or city. Second, the SAGA method can serve as a tool to inform design, allowing architects to improve the generality and adaptability of their plan layouts. While we conclude that the method has significant strengths and promising applications, the paper ends by discussing ways to make the assessment more robust and extend it beyond measuring spatial configuration.

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This review focuses on recent research literature on the use of Semantic Web Technologies (SWT) in city planning. The review foregrounds representational, evaluative, projective, and synthetical meta-practices as constituent practices of city planning. We structure our review around these four meta-practices that we consider fundamental to those processes. We find that significant research exists in all four metapractices. Linking across domains by combining various methods of semantic knowledge generation, processing, and management is necessary to bridge gaps between these meta-practices and will enable future Semantic City Planning Systems.

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Walkability has become an important theme of urban design research and practice. Evidence suggests that environmental attractiveness can have a significant impact on the amount of walking activities that take place, but relatively little research exists on which environmental features linked to attractiveness increase walkability. Using a virtual reality experiment, the present study examined the effects on walkability of three key features, as defined by Jan Gehl, an influential urban planning practitioner and theorist: liveliness, high-quality façades and low buildings. A virtual reality simulation allowed isolating the effects of these features, while avoiding confounding factors, such as the presence of shops, which has been difficult to do in past field studies. Our study confirmed that the combination of features recommended by Gehl promoted walking activity in the study’s context. Further exploratory analyses suggested that improved façade quality was positively linked to walking activity, and that building height and liveliness had negligible effects. Our findings contribute to the existing understanding of walkability, which may benefit urban planning practice and models of walkability. Further research is necessary to confirm our results regarding the effects of specific features on walking activity in different contexts.

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Singapore's urban planning and management is crossdomain in nature and need to be assessed using multi-domain indicators -such as SDGs. However, urban planning processes are often confronted with data interoperability issues. In this paper, we demonstrate how a Semantic Web Technology-based approach combined with a SWOT analysis framework can be used to develop an architecture for automated multi-domain evaluations of SDG-related planning targets. This paper describes an automated process of storing heterogeneous data in a semantic data store, deriving planning metrics and integrating a SWOT framework for the multi-domain evaluation of on-site solar energy potential across plots in Singapore. Our goal is to form the basis for a more comprehensive planning support tool that is based on a reciprocal relationship between innovations in SWT and a versatile SWOT framework. The presented approach has many potential applications beyond the presented energy potential evaluation.