Synergies of radical paradigms and emerging technologies in knowledge production for transforming the modernist urban design. A focus on artificial intelligence, extended reality and sensor technology

Emerging technologies, such as; Artificial Intelligence, extended reality technologies (MR, AR and VR), and sensor technologies are increasingly used during knowledge production within urban design processes. This thesis shows that the combination of different paradigms underlying experimental initiatives that bring together design and technology can lead to either vicious loops that continue to reinforce the modernist city, or virtuous loops where the interweaving of fundamentally different paradigms of knowledge production with emerging technology possess potential for radical urban transformation. The key findings of this work include: Sensorial ways of knowing the city can be in synergy with these emerging technologies 1) augmenting our human senses and overcoming spatial-temporal constraints in experiencing ecological change, 2) they can create fully embodied experiences of sidelined or marginalized narratives in urban planning and the future of cities, 3) they open up new space for more collaboration in research design and planning. In the same way, democratization and co-production of knowledge for urban design, can be in synergy with these emerging technologies that; 1) allow for the expansion of collaboration and the integration of multiple sources of knowledge, 2) that promote an open relation with the future by rapid prototyping of alternative scenarios, and that 3) democratize the power over the process of data collection and data analysis all the way to ‘open-sourcing’ the tools themselves