Transdisciplinary Collaboration Platform Based on GeoDesign for Securing Urban Quality

Guiding urban agglomerations towards more sustainable development is a great challenge (UN-HABITAT 2009). Existing concepts and rules for generating urban patterns of high urban quality do not work in today’s agglomerations and societies, and concepts for new (sub)urban qualities are needed (CARMONA et al. 2006, MODARRES & KIRBY 2010). New approaches need to facilitate collaborations between science and a variety of public and private stakeholders (DE JONG & SPAANS 2009, SCHOLZ 2011, KUNZE et al. 2011), enabling them to make decisions on urban development taking into account multiple dimensions and values, alternative development possibilities, performance indicators and uncertainties. Furthermore, developments in complex urban systems take place at multiple planning scales and time frames and therefore demand for a solid mutual understanding of spatially explicit information (DE JONG & SPAANS 2009, ERVIN 2011, NEUENSCHWANDER et al., 2011).