View Preferences and their Effects in a Contextual Virtual Environment with Adaptable Representations

Design problems are initially ill defined. A process of exploration, conceptualisation, development of alternative solutions and tests of the initial ideas is needed to find interesting and useful solutions. The urban context of a building site can provide hints, inspiration and constrains for various architectural design options. The design process can get the form of a constructive conversation between the designer and the applied design media if those media actively provide specifically needed tools and appropriate representations of the design and its urban context. This paper will report on a recently finished PhD research for design support systems that visualise the urban environment as a context for new architectural design. The main experiment focussed on the constructive conversation while the architect and the researcher'wandered'through the digitally represented urban environment. In relation to the eCAADe theme of city-modelling, this short paper will especially focus on some of the findings and conclusions of the research and several recommendations regarding to city-modelling are provided