Building and Urban Informatics Group

Building the future of architecture, construction and planning design

The Building and Urban Informatics Group undertakes hybrid and collaborative research exploring computational and simulation systems across the disciplines of architecture, construction and urban and regional planning. The group employs state-of-the-art facilities and methods for conducting computational visualisation, analysis, fabrication and collaboration research, supporting contemporary design, building and planning studies.

The group employs advanced tools and approaches for simulation, computational design, planning and analysis, information management and collaboration, and prototyping and fabrication. This supports a wide range of research projects in design, building, and urban and regional planning. These advanced facilities and innovative techniques include virtual, augmented and mixed reality, including the immersive Hyve-3D collaborative design environment, urban analytics utilising big data and GIS, digital prototyping, 3D printing and fabrication and more.

These systems are applied in research in areas such as:

• architectural style and design culture
• collaborative practices in the housing sector
• building, construction and waste project management
• environmental and social sustainability
• transport and infrastructure planning
• smart cities and urban information management.

The group is currently comprised of seven active researchers and a dozen research students and assistants, whose projects have been generously supported by major funding agencies including the Australian Research Council, Department of Education and Training, Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation and Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living.