Urban Systems Office is an architectural practice that employs innovative computational methodologies to deliver architectural and urban design solutions.
Through maintaining collaborative links with leading academic institutions, Urban Systems pursues a rigorous research agenda and constantly searches to advance the ways by which we recognize, interpret and redefine the quality of our built environments.
Research and Design
Our research methods incorporate generative design strategies, developing a digital workflow based on rule sets which are informed by the characteristics and challenges of each individual project. Applicable to a wide range of project scales and sites, this methodology allows for the generation of highly adapted and site specific outcomes, producing informed design solutions that can be constructed within given limitations such as budget and time.
Our expertise is based around the advancement of existing design communication work-flows and construction scenarios through the critical and strategic use of digitally aided design methodologies. Setting up open-ended and collaborative communication protocols, we build transparent, individual and unique design processes that capture the intelligence and underlying logics of materiality, organisation and spatial performance.
Methodology: Generative Design
We pursue a rigorous research agenda focused on innovative digital design methods and building construction technologies, supported by our teaching at several international academic institutions including the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Included in this research is a strong expertise in the integration of environmental performance parameters into the conceptual design process for building and urban planning projects. Our methodologies allow our designs to achieve the highest sustainability classifications including LEED certification. Our research also includes a strong interest in contemporary urbanism in Asia. Having worked on several projects in various cities, we have experienced rapid urban development first hand. We have organised academic visits in collaboration with several high profile universities in China, Japan, Europe and the Middle East.
Our project design methodologies integrate the latest research in advanced generative design technologies within the context of realistic challenges and opportunities of each new project brief. Our design process is informed by rigorous research into the specificities of the project’s context, brief and site, and executed using a set of customised digital tools.
Integrated Design through Collaboration
Urban Systems collaborates with established consultants and local design institutes to deliver highly evolved, performative, and sophisticated architecture and masterplanning projects. We seek a close relationship with our partners from the early stages of each design process, to integrate detailed information about the constraints and opportunities within each project into our work. We employ architects that are registered with the Architects Registration Board (ARB) and Royal Institute of Architects (RIBA), as well as several highly specialised professionals experienced in computational design, Building Information Modeling, environmental design and construction. Urban Systems works by the standards of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in setting up clear working guidelines, time schedules, tasks and sets of deliverables and understands the need for the tailoring of the process to the specific requirements of each client.
Current and Past Collaborations:
ARUP, London
Bollinger and Grohmann, Frankfurt
Buro Happold, Beijing
Changsha Planning and Design Institute, Changsha
IPPR, Beijing
NOUS Engineering, London / Los Angeles
Relational Urbanism, London
Tsinghua University, Beijing
Chongqing University
Chinese University of Hong Kong
South China University of Technology, Guangzhou
Hunan University of Technology, Changsha
Henan University, Kaifeng
German University in Cairo
University of Kuwait
Qatar University
American University of Sharjah
Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar
Tokyo University
Pratt Institue, New York
Architectural Association, London
Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London
Delft University of Technology
