Developing a living city process : an architect's approach to enabling interdisciplinary practice in infrastructure development

This research project develops a methodology for creating multifunctional infrastructure projects. It focuses on enabling an interdisciplinary approach to the establishment of a brief for the redesign of a road, the orbital route, in Galway City, Ireland. The research begins with the premise that infrastructure projects are unavoidably multifunctional in nature, having both social and utilitarian aspects. The project defines a method of conceiving of these projects using mapping, case studies and interactive networking to include social, aesthetic and ecological concerns as well as technical criteria. The hypothesis being explored is that employing multidisciplinary, creative forms of practice in conceiving of infrastructural development can both assist in creating a healthy, humane and liveable public environment to improve civic life and can facilitate participatory urban planning. The research concentrates on defining an alternate process of project inception and definition for infrastructure projects, the living city process, which can more closely implement the aims of sustainable development policy than the result of current practice. This process envisages an approach which is both top-down and bottom-up in its nature. The research project begins with the top-down end of the equation, setting up a systematic way of enabling creative thinking and using design processes to coordinate local authority direction in managing development of infrastructure projects.