City information modeling (CIM) and urbanism: blocks, connections, territories, people and situations

Abstract

The urban theory is voluminous body of knowledge. There is a kaleidoscope of urban definitions and standpoints, but there are no tools that capture the variegated viewpoints and representations in urbanism. In this article I look at different urban theories, discourses and representations in architecture, sociology, geography, economy, transportation, computer science in order to conceptualize city information modeling (CIM). CIM is conceived and discussed as a system of blocks with dynamic relations or connections that define and redefine territories. The urban life today is a sequence of temporally inhabited and interconnected spaces, movable or fixed. The connections between spaces inspire or inhibit contacts and interactions between people. They bend times and continuously shape and reshape spaces, sociabilities and situations. In architecture there was an evolution from computer-aided design (CAD) to building information modeling (BIM), but in urbanism, where the geographic information systems (GIS) dominate, there is no such analogy.