Analysis and Strategic Foresight of Urban Spaces – K-City-E-Space

The research unit ESPACE (Étude des Structures, des Processus d’Adaptation et des Changements de l’Espace), UMR 7300 of CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur, Aix-Marseille Université and Avignon Université, and the firm KINAXIA, want to create a common research lab to produce methodological innovation in the analysis and strategic foresight of urban spaces, resulting in new multi-scale and multi-thematic geographic knowledge of 21st century French cities. The research program of the common laboratory will operate a convergence of three domains:
- Morpho-functional analysis of urban space: the 21st century city, the form of its urban fabrics, of its networks, the functioning of its real-estate, retail, mobility systems, its new digital components (third spaces, smart cities, e-commerce), as well as the data driven analysis of social representations and of public reception of these forms and functioning.
- Urban spatial strategic foresight and scenario building of urban futures, the anticipation of adaptation and transformation potential of urban spaces, linked to the understanding of their evolution trajectories, regulatory constraints, sustainability challenges, socio-demographic changes, technological disruptions, reversible and resilient planning.
- Methodological innovation in spatial analysis and modelling, thanks to artificial intelligence (machine learning, neural networks, Bayesian networks, agent-based models, etc.) and to the geoprocessing of massive urban databases (urban analytics) enriched by the integration of the factors of urban form (urban morphometrics).
Virtual laboratory without physical premises, K-City-E-Space will be agile and flexible, strongly oriented to scientific watch and innovation in urban analytics. The common lab will be steered by the Nice Site of ESPACE but will benefit from the expertise of the whole UMR, as well as from the collaborations with the SPARKS team in the computer science lab I3S at UCA. Its feasibility is ensured by the many scientific partnerships between ESPACE and KINAXIA within the last 4 years (2 IDEX UCA-JEDI research projects, 2 industry-oriented CIFRE PhD projects supported by ANRT).
The goals of the common lab are to accelerate ESPACE’s scientific agenda in the spatial analysis and modelling of the forms and functioning of the contemporary city and to position the firm KINAXIA as a leader in delivering new services in the domains of real estate and urban planning, based on an original and fine-grained knowledge of urban spaces.
The synergy of knowledge and know-how between ESPACE and KINAXIA aims at creating new approaches to urban analytics by coupling academic and industrial questions, and developing protocols conceived by the academic partner that will produce new pertinent knowledge on urban space. These new perspectives can bring an original contribution to key challenges of 21st century cities, like reducing resource consumption (land, energy), becoming inclusive and working on short distances, producing reversible and resilient forms in the face of an uncertain future, preserving place identity while accepting new solutions, and adopting transparent evidence-based decision processes, both in public and private domains.