Among the most important skills an architect needs today is the ability to communicate and consult with a wide array of stakeholders involved in every project. Clients are stakeholders of course, but so are building end users, neighbors, planning commissioners, and members of the extended community surrounding any new project. The architect’s ability to listen to and respond effectively to this diverse audience can make the difference between a project’s success or failure. Architects can help their clients and themselves by hearing objections early on or learning from building users what works and what doesn’t in proposed designs.

For many practitioners, the Internet is proving to be an excellent platform for just this kind of broad-based communication. Architects and planners are taking advantage of the Web’s interactive and multimedia capabilities to create communities of interest around their projects. “More and more, citizens expect to have a say in public and private investment decisions that impact the public domain. I use my Web site to document and add transparency to a community-based design process,” observes Berkeley based urban designer Bruce Race, FAIA.

The Planning and Building Web Site at Cambridge University

Academic projects tend be particularly stakeholder-rich, with faculty, students, administrators, alumni and highly articulate neighbors all vying for a chance to be heard. Simon Ruffle is an architect by training and researcher with the Martin Centre, the research arm of the Cambridge Department of Architecture. He is fascinated with the Web’s potential to be a conduit for better communication among designers, clients, and users.

In 1999, Ruffle, together with Michael Trinder and Martin Centre Director Paul Richens, helped devise a Web-based bulletin board system for collecting building user comment around the design of a new computer science building. The faculty were loath to attend meetings and insisted that all communication with the architects take place online. Vigorous debate ensued—over everything from bicycle parking to energy efficiency. Feedback from users contributed significantly to the final design. When the architects proposed a “finger plan” organization to the building, researchers noted that such a plan made circulation between the various labs difficult and encouraged the architects to consider a courtyard plan instead. When private offices were first drawn at 2 x 5 meters, researchers considered them too narrow and asked the architects to make them more square. A computer room originally located on a sunny south façade was moved to the north in response to user comments.

The success of that experiment helped persuade university administrators to take on a more ambitious project: creating an information and consultation Web portal for Cambridge’s entire $750 million capital building program comprising 60 projects spread across four areas of the campus.

Isometric view of a portion of Cambridge University constructed by combining CAD files, photographs and line drawings

In developing the portal, Ruffle’s first task was to evaluate precedents—participatory Web sites associated with large scale urban planning projects. He discovered that the best such sites had common characteristics:

The Cambridge site went live in July 2000 and serves about 10,000 pages of content per month. It is aimed at the general university community, which is assumed to be reasonably Web-savvy and able to access the site through a high-speed connection. The site’s layout and navigation are clear and intuitive, and the “look and feel” is consistent with the university's primary Web site. Ruffle made effective use of relatively low-tech media, including a stunning isometric view constructed by combining CAD files, photographs and line drawings. Ruffle devised a procedure for converting layered CAD drawings to GIFs viewable in an ordinary Web browser without plug-ins. Visitors can turn layers on or off to see how the elements of the master plan will be put in place over time. Interactive panoramas and roof-mounted Web cams add a sense of presence and immediacy for the online viewer. A companion Web site allows viewers to enter navigable, interactive VRML models of the site and leave comments.

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