Value Lab Asia: A Space for Physical and Virtual Interdisciplinary Research and Collaboration

Many contemporary research tasks require complex decision making and interdisciplinary collaboration among different groups of experts and stakeholders. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the planning and design of future cities - rapidly growing cities where the development and allocation of energy, housing, transportation and other scarce resources requires the active participation of architects, urban planners, government stakeholders and private citizens. In this paper, we show how recent advances in display technology can facilitate such collaboration and create new opportunities for participatory urban planning. We introduce the Value Lab Asia as a model for collaborative planning and value creation, and show how a multi-screen display management framework called the Tool Library integrates the laboratory's physical and software infrastructure with the planning process.