Author

Li Zhang*, Huishu Deng, Xiaohan Mei, Lingbo Pang, Qixu Xie & Yang Ye

Afiliation

School of Architecture, Tsinghua University

Abstract

Urban Ergonomics is a design science driven by modern ergonomic data. It reacts to the challenges to architecture posed by changes, emergencies and advancements of the contemporary world, signifying a return to architectural humanism powered by new sciences. The key methodology of Urban Ergonomics is the quantitative descriptive model through which ergonomic data inform design with precision. The rise of Urban Ergonomics is aligned with the new human-centred urbanisation movement in China while offering positive potentials in the country’s transformation towards carbon net zero. This paper is a general introduction to Urban Ergonomics, putting basic discussions on its “why”, “what” and “how” in three sections: 1 emergence, 2 ranges, 3 tools. Urban Ergonomics opens up a whole new dimension for the revival and redevelopment of design science in the 21st century discourse.

Combined with the emerging human factors technologies, Urban Ergonomics supports a more precise design decision-making process based on ergonomic analysis. For the project to-be-built, ergonomic analysis generally takes the parameter of enumeration of virtual scenario as the independent variable, and takes ergonomic data as the dependent variable, with the help of descriptive models for a precise selection among different solutions; for the built spaces, real life scenarios are analysed and assessed through the descriptive models and ergonomic data to support the renovation and regeneration; for the design purposes, ergonomic analysis adds new design targets based on new quantitative spatial experience to the traditional targets. All of the processes, results and quantitatable targets of design above can lead to replicable application scenarios and bring new knowledge to design science.

According to the four-level system of spatial experience of survival, efficiency, reception and expression, Urban Ergonomics transforms relatively vague urban space quality issues into clear design targets, and divdes these spatial experience issues into five scales: Macro, far, medium, near and micro. Initial research progress has been made in the fields of urban design, architecture, lighting design, ventilation and heating design, and so on. It shows that human factors techniques can be applied in the quantification of spatial experience and that their quantified results can lead to a more precise design intervention.

Urban Ergonomics demonstrates its great potential in the core area of urban-architecture design intervention — forming space in which it fills the gap between the ergonomic data and the spatial form. With the help of tools such as Ergonomic Notation Systems, Urban Ergonomics studies the objective and regular parts of the traditional aesthetic experience and helps both post-design evaluation as well as design decision-making, which can be widely applied in the design process in the future: In the early stage of design, Ergonomic Notatioin System can help determine spatial requirements; in the late stage of design, when the ergonomic notation of the design is basically decided, the ergonomic data collected in a VR environment can help accurately search the optimal solution to some extend; when the environment has been built, ergonomic data can also be collected in the real-life scenarios to help evaluation the spatial experience quality and to summarise and redefine the knowledge of design methodology, spatial typology, spatial cognition, so on and so forth. It is expected to provide a new pathway for the redevelopment of design science supported by the interdisciplinary in the 21st century.

Keywords

Urban Ergonomics, design science, ergonomic analysis, cross-scale design intervention, Ergonomic Notation System, spatial experience quality

Publisher

Science Bulletin, 2022