AI in Planning & Design 3rd Annual Prof Tony Hall Memorial Lecture, 2025

The 3rd Prof. Tony Hall Memorial Lecture
This is jointly hosted by Anglia Ruskin University, School of Architecture and Planning & the Royal Town Planning Institute, Wales (live-streamed for in-person attendees at Cardiff University). It heralds the start of the RTPI’s World Town Planning Day (WTPD) 2025 activities.

Prof Tony Hall was Emeritus Professor at Anglia Ruskin University, with interests in Planning, Urban design and Transport. He passed away in 2022 and was the author of amongst other publications; The Robust City, The Life and Death of the Australian Backyard, Turning a Town Around, and Town Planning - the Basics

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Planning and Design

AI, as it came to be called as far back as the 1950s, constitutes a broad field of information technologies that has grown dramatically in the last 5 years as computers have become ever more powerful, hence capable of increasing our ability to process ever larger volumes of information – big data. The many computerised tools for planning that we have invented in the last half century are continually being reinforced and reinterpreted using AI. More recently, such tools have been extended to process qualitative data, text and various languages, that enable us to build up intelligent ways of searching for answers in large data bases. In this talk, I will sketch the short history of AI, focussing on problem-solving tools as well as various simulation models but point in particular to new developments in searching for pattern and ‘answers’ in data using what is called machine learning. These suggest new ways of generating intelligent answers to complex queries through what are now called large language models. I will attempt to illustrate how these tools have real potential tor new ways of thinking about future plans for urban development and transport.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Michael Batty CBE FRS FBA FRTPI

Michael Batty is Bartlett Professor of Planning at University College London and Chair of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA). He is a graduate of the University of Manchester in Town and Country Planning and of the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology in Architecture where he was Professor of Town Planning in the 1980s. He was Director of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) at SUNY-Buffalo from 1990 to 1995 before he set up CASA at UCL. His most recent book is The Computable City (2024, MIT Press) and with Wei Yang he is co-author of .

Event Details

Event Location: Marconi Lecture Theatre MAR001

5.30pm refreshments on arrival (Tea, coffee, cookies and mini cakes)

7.30-8/8.30pm post lecture canapes and drinks reception

The 3rd Prof. Tony Hall Memorial Lecture is presented by Professor Michael Batty on AI in Planning & Design.

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