Illustration of Beppe Giacobbe
Flows. Modelling mobility
The search for a common languageThe function of architecture is much more complex than engineering. Crossing a bridge, containing water or moving along a road are clearly defined problems and less complex than life and living. However, if we include the structure of the area in the problems to deal with, the engineering is more complex.
The difficulty in the dialogue between engineers and architects is a good example of the weakness generated by the division between different disciplines typical of our era. Architecture brings knowledge that is too general and engineering is too absorbed in processing the data from the sector, and both are often unable to give adequate answers to complex problems on a large scale.
In just a few years, design has gone from the abstract, static image (drafting machine-AutoCAD-realistic 3D) to the realistic, animated image produced by Building Information Modelling (BIM), which uses techniques similar to those of animated films and augmented reality in a precise, reliable and sophisticated system. When BIM is used in the design of transport infrastructure, ‘regional planning’ and all the flows generated by the infrastructure become a dynamic, integral part of the project.
Currently, transport systems mainly intersect statically, just like the lines produced by the drafting machine or AutoCAD. At the design stage, BIM is able to elaborate simulations in movement of the system and monitor operation during management in real time, creating the suppositions for making the system pliable (Modelling Mobility) and the lines of transport similar to flows (Flows), able to adapt to the context and not just be superimposed on the area. Can we imagine that, after contributing to the specialist divisions, the new technologies are now reaching a level of maturity that enables them to reactivate communication channels between the different disciplines? It’s only by making co-operation between the different forms of intellectual creativity more fluid that adequate answers can be found to design integrated, intelligent transport systems on a human scale.
