B.Arch Curriculum · Semester 8 · Elective (Lab)

GIS Modelling in Urban & Regional Planning

A planner's most powerful question is 'where' — and a Geographic Information System is how that question is answered with data. This computer-lab elective builds the planner's GIS toolkit from the ground up: what a GIS really is (not a digital map, but a system that links a place to its data and lets you analyse both), how the world is captured as spatial data in two rival models — vector and raster — and joined to the attribute tables that describe it, how spatial analysis combines layers through overlay to ask new questions, and how all of it builds the planner's signature models — land-suitability analysis and urban land-use modelling that decide where a city should and should not grow. Learn to read the map, build the data, run the overlay, and model the city. The map stops being a picture and becomes an argument you can test.

5Units

6Outcomes

3Credits

FreeForever

Jump to spatial analysis All student courses

Unit IV · The analytical heart

Spatial Analysis Using GIS

This is the analytical heart of GIS — where layers of data combine to answer questions no single map can. Learn OVERLAY, the signature operation: stacking layers and combining them (intersect, union and more) so that 'residential zoning' AND 'within 500 m of a road' AND 'above the flood line' produce a NEW layer of plots that satisfy all three; manipulating attribute data and GIS MODELLING; the data-processing groundwork — digitization, topology building and METADATA creation; AUTOMATED MAPPING and FACILITY MANAGEMENT (AM/FM) for utilities and infrastructure; and turning the result into MAPS and REPORTS. Overlay is the move that turns a stack of maps into an argument.

OverlayIntersect & unionGIS modellingAM/FMMap & report

Open the lesson

The syllabus

Five units — from what a GIS is to modelling the city.

Transcribed from the official B.Arch syllabus. All 5 units are live as full interactive lessons, each with original diagrams, a self-assessment quiz and a lab task.

Unit 1 — Introduction to GIS

Live

What a GIS is — capturing, storing, analysing and displaying spatially referenced data in layers; map and map analysis and automated cartography; the history and development of GIS; system concepts and hardware; coordinate systems and projections; and the standard GIS packages a planner uses.

CO1

Unit 2 — Spatial Data Input

Live

Defining the GIS planning problem; the types of data — spatial and non-spatial; the two great data structures, VECTOR (points, lines, polygons) and RASTER (a grid of cells); files, databases and data formats; data entry by digitizer and scanner; and data compression.

CO2

Unit 3 — Attribute Data Input

Live

The role of attribute data in defining geographic features — geometry plus a table; adding an attribute data file and joining it to its geographic features by a key; TOPOLOGY generation — encoding the spatial relationships (adjacency, connectivity, containment); and satellite images as a data input to GIS.

CO3

Unit 4 — Spatial Analysis Using GIS

Live

The analytical heart — OVERLAY functions that combine layers to ask new questions; manipulating attribute data and GIS modelling; GIS data processing (digitization, topology building, metadata creation); automated mapping and facility management (AM/FM); and map and report generation.

CO4CO6

Unit 5 — Urban Land-Use Modelling

Live

The planner's payoff — the need for a model; LAND-SUITABILITY ANALYSIS by weighted overlay (where should a use go?); urban land-use modelling; and change and demand modelling that forecasts how a city's land use will shift.

CO5CO6

Course outcomes

What you should be able to do after completing all five units (CO1–CO6, from the syllabus).

Understand

Explain what a GIS is — maps, cartography, coordinate systems and packages.

Apply

Build spatial data input — vector and raster, data structures and entry.

Apply

Add attribute data, generate topology and join data to features.

Apply

Perform spatial analysis — overlay, AM/FM and map and report generation.

Create

Build urban land-use and land-suitability models.

Analyse

Interpret GIS data and judge a model's assumptions.

GIS for urban and regional planning (L1 · T0 · S3; 150 marks; a computer-lab elective). Every diagram is original Studio Matrx work; the GIS concepts are accurate (vector/raster, topology, overlay, weighted-overlay suitability, McHarg, AM/FM, QGIS/ArcGIS). This course owns the GIS METHOD; for the planning-law context it serves, see Planning Legislation.

The map becomes an argument.

What a GIS is, vector/raster data, attributes and topology, overlay analysis, and land-suitability modelling. Read the five units, study the diagrams, then test yourself.

Open Unit I Back to Students

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