Title: Digital environments and spatial information and intelligence systems: New conceptual and operative determinants and arguments of the design intelligence strategic approach to spatial and environmental research and design

Abstract

Based on arguments published in the paper “Location intelligence dynamics and complexity: the questions of design strategy,“ this study introduces a discussion on conceptual, terminological, operational, and representational determinants of digital spatial information and intelligence systems and platforms, as forms currently having a central impact on spatial and environmental design and research. It puts emphasis on refinements of these research instruments in terms of stated determinants, dynamics and complexities they need to address, and design-based discourse, claims, requirements, and orientation. The latter has been recognized as involving features that might steer the next phase of development of digital spatial and environmental platforms and performances within the contribution that design disciplines have offered to convergent spatial and environmental research. The environmental sciences, on the other hand, incited new research and design frameworks in all spatial design disciplines, causing their significant expansion in direction of environmental objectives. Strong demand for environmental awareness and shift in or alternation of scales in which designers think, created a situation in which an idea of a design at the global scale or at the scale of the world became a precondition to each spatial intervention of a smaller range and has made the firm connection between the environmental design and architectural, urban, regional, and landscape design and planning. The mediation of such exchange and integration through digital formats, raised the importance of digital environment, space, information and intelligence systems and processes theory and design, while transfers of knowledge between all spatial and environmental disciplines made the paradigm of spatial research and design convergence the framing one. An additional question has been raised regarding adjustments of new research and development results for various professional and educational contexts, involving the entire network of professions required for digital operation of spatial and environmental tasks and problems. The integration of spatial sciences and disciplines requires a definition of new professional profiles having the capacity and qualifications for critical and design-based problem-solving in digital environments, as well as upgrades to their parameters and functions.