Events

This workshop is organised by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (NUS); with support from the NUS Humanities and Social Sciences Seed Fund – Follow the Code: Urban Models and Resilient Future.

Urban models have been used to construct views on urban environments and manage and project the unpredictable future of cities amid the current pandemic risks and the pressing threat of climate change. Such models construct different understandings of possible futures (e.g. through scenarios) and the past (e.g. through explaining past events). Moreover, they facilitate experimentation with adaptive strategies and communication between scientists and policy-makers, and thus provide justifications in decision-making and policy formulation. As these models are designed and used by people, entail complex processes, involve diverse stakeholders, and have long life-cycles, the consequences or impacts can often be unexpected, unintended and even negative (Tenner, 1997). This social embeddedness further bind models and technologies by normative rules that members of the group follow and construct (Friedland and Yamauchi, 2011), including rules concerning knowledge construction, generalisability and validation (Edwards, 1999). Exactly how design strategies construct these models, how they generate knowledge, how they are subject to power relations are empirical questions that cannot be anticipated in entirety. Situating urban models within the social and political context they are developed helps establishing a reflexive practice in model making for modellers to better understand and communicate the potential impacts and limits of their models (Stahl, 2011; Kitchin, 2014).

The Asian context is unique in the development of urban models and the implementation of technology in decision making processes. There is a significant body of work studying different kinds of models historically, socially and epistemologically in Science, Technology and Society (STS) studies (eg. Godin, 2006; Sundberg, 2009; Edwards, 2016; Weinkle and Pielke, 2017; Hansen, 2021), but less examining specifically urban environmental models and the practice of model construction in the particular cultural context of Asia or Singapore or with a focus on stakeholder decision-making and modeller practice. This workshop aims to create a venue to investigate the social life of scientific urban model construction and use with a focus of Asian cities. The workshop is planned in two parts to firstly anchor the discussion of urban models locally in the Singaporean context and then further to expand the treatment of models and modelling practices to other Asian and inter-Asian contexts. Through a series of invited talks and panel discussions, the workshop will reflect on and compare different models and start to develop a network of scholars in Singapore, Asia and beyond.

Many events around scientific urban modelling focus on the computer science and engineering aspects of urban modelling. This workshop aims focus on interdisciplinary STS approaches to initiate develop an understanding of politics, reflexive practice and fairness, with focus on the relationship between modelling teams and stakeholders such as urban planners and policy-makers. Such processes are deeply influenced by the cultural and political structures in which the knowledge creation happens. Given the strong preponderance and impact of Smart City rhetoric in Singapore and other Asian cities, it is timely and necessary to investigate the politics within and around scientific urban models in Singapore and other Asian countries. By initiating a conversation with Asian scientific urban models as the starting point, this workshop aims to reflect on and investigate the politics that shape model building practices from perspectives that are situated directly in the Asian context.

The objectives of this workshop are to: 
1. understand and reflect on the practices of building scientific models of the built environment that manage, plan for and simulate the future of cities in Asia;
2. compare different uses of models of environments (e.g. buildings, urban space, climate, economy, health) across different Asian cites and inter-Asia;
3. understand the positionalities of multiple stakeholders in Singapore across academia, government agencies, and industries;
4. begin to develop an Asian and global network of urban modelling scholars.

The broader foci are to: 
1. situate urban models within the unique socio-political context in Asian cities to deeper understand the practice of urban model building;
2. develop an understanding of how different kinds of models construct, practice and relate knowledge and the future;
3. discuss the methods and value of  establishing a reflexive practice to develop specifically better urban models.

PARTICIPATION

Please note that participation in the closed-door workshop is by invitation only.

WORKSHOP CONVENORS

Dr Connor Clive GRAHAM
Asia Research Institute, and Tembusu College, National University of Singapore

Asst Prof Chaewon AHN
Division of Social Sciences, Yale-NUS College