The Neighborhood Visualizer , developed by MIT PhD candidate David Quinn and Lisbon research student Daniel Wiesmann, aims to bring about a better understanding about urban patterns that relate to material use and energy use.
Built on top of a selection of open-source tools, the web-based map reveals the currently available data on material (i.e. kg/person) and energy use (i.e. kWh/person) in about 42 different US cities. ‘Materials’ include parameters like asphalt or gravel roads, or the use of masonry, glass or timber in residential housing, all based on estimations of urban form. Users can select specific neighborhood areas and create heatmaps that are normalized by population or household size. Further analyses are automatically generated as PDF files.
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