Nusantara Capital City Nusantara Capital City Authority - Univ. of Turku

2024 | Argo Mulyo | 🇮🇩

Visualizing Future Urban Transformations

More about this project in Indoensian here.

The “Foresight for Resilient Cities” project is a collaborative initiative aimed at exploring stakeholders’ expectations and perceptions regarding the urban transformation of Nusantara, the future capital of Indonesia. This project brought together the University of Turku’s Centre for East Asian Studies (CEAS) and Finland Futures Research Centre (FFRC), in collaboration with the Nusantara Capital City Authority (OIKN). UrbanistAI’s role was pivotal in visualizing and contextualizing participants’ ideas, helping the future inhabitants of the planned capital city to envision and incorporate their aspirations into the urban development process. The project was funded by Business Finland.

The workshop engaged 30 participants from various sociodemographic backgrounds, divided into six groups: students, housewives, civil servants, traders and SMEs, and their migrant counterparts. Moderators from Universitas Mulawarman’s Department of Architecture guided these groups. In the first phase, participants used UrbanistAI on a white canvas, generating ideas for the site’s development by combining multiple functions and descriptions. This phase allowed participants to create, adjust, and refine their designs, capturing their favorite concepts as custom prompts for the next stage.

In the second phase, the custom prompts were applied to photographs of key sites. Participants could also use their mobile phones to interact with the tool, integrating their designs into real images. Notetakers documented converging and diverging ideas among participants, as well as ideas that were discussed but ultimately abandoned, providing a comprehensive record of the workshop’s creative process.

TAKEAWAYS

The workshop in Nusantara highlighted the transformative impact of AI tools in urban planning. By enabling community members to visualize and contextualize their ideas, the workshop ensured that their voices were integral to the development of Nusantara, setting a precedent for future projects aiming to incorporate community input into urban design and planning.

The use of AI-generated images allowed participants to vividly convey their ideas for Nusantara’s future, demonstrating that visual tools can significantly enhance stakeholder engagement in urban planning.

By involving diverse community groups, the workshop ensured that a wide range of perspectives were considered, promoting inclusivity in the urban development process.

The two-phase approach—starting with ideation on a white canvas and progressing to applied design on photographs—proved effective in translating abstract ideas into concrete visualizations, aiding in the realistic planning of public service facilities.