Spatial Planning and Geodesign

Geodesign is a new buzzword currently used to refer to a novel but growingly popular approach to spatial planning and design. It entails the integrated use of methods and enabling technologies to address the complexity of current urban and territorial development challenges by integrated processes, including project conceptualization, knowledge building and evaluation, alternative design creation, impact evaluation, collaboration and participation. This chapter presents the geodesign approach, contributing three main complementary section. The first section sets the context for geodesign diffusion, from its origin to its most recent developments. It includes a brief overview of the history of geodesign, a review of the relevant growing literature, the diffusion of geodesign education, and the community involved in its application. The second section, in the light of the Steinitz framework for geodesign, reviews the main technologies for geodesign support, and their coupling in planning support systems (PSS) which may enable planners to handle complex workflows within the planning and design process, before focusing on the novel Geodesignhub PSS. The final section discusses the opportunities that geodesign and enabling technologies can contribute to bring innovation into current spatial planning practice and to address some of the most critical parts of the weakest and less understood issues of the design process, such as the effective link between knowledge building, design creation and decision making.