Aiman Tabony
Supervisors: Michael Weinstock, George Jeronomidis

The rapid undergoing and coming climatic and ecological change coupled with rapid acceleration in population growth, raise doubts and concerns regarding the ability of the existing urban systems to adapt to the future change. Although, these changes represent key opportunity for using ecological based design superblocks. The research departs from a critical reflection on the work of Hilberseimer’s “Decentralized City “and Soleri’s “Arcology”, who considered the city and the superblock to be a single and unified ecological system. It contextualizes the research within the larger scope leading the focus to the investi- gation of ecology and its subfield, the ecosystem. This brings the study down to three dominant areas of research: ecology, computational ecology and urban design. Through the integration of System Dynamic modelling method in the design process, the research investigates the Implantation of ecological parameters coupled with morphological and metabolic parameter and process. The design methodology is proved by the development of a computational design model which integrates System Dynamics model And Evolutionary Design model. The model was examined through a set of design experiments of a superblock that is integrated with the flow of the dynamics of the climate and ecologi- cal system. The output of the design method is a multi-dimensional da- tascape, opening up new possibilities in the field of urban design and planning that are more robust to changes in the environmental context. 

Biography: Aiman Tabony is a researcher and the second generation architect in Dr Tabony Architects. An architecture and engineering office founded in Nazareth in the 1960s by his father. During the last two decades, Aiman has been the leading architectural agenda of the practice, building an extensive curriculum in the design of public buildings. From 2012 to 2013 Aiman was teaching in the Technion-Haifa, as member of the computational design group. Aiman moved to London in 2014 to continue developing his curriculum in architecture, computation and ecology as a PhD researcher at the Architectural Association in London. He develops his Thesis under the supervision of Dr. Michael Weinstock; founder and leader of the design research group Emergent Technologies EmTech at the Architectural Association, London. His research concentrates on the implementation of computational methods for design and fabrication of ecological architecture and urban design. Departing from the city understood as a dynamic complex system his work focuses on the development of dynamic system models for cities and how the development of these systems influences the architectural discourse at the scale of the urban block.