Special issue article

EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science

2022, Vol. 49(5) 1489–1506
A grammar-based © The Author(s) 2022
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optimization approach for sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/23998083211048496
journals.sagepub.com/home/epb
walkable urban fabrics
considering pedestrian
accessibility and infrastructure
cost

Fernando T Lima 
Stuckeman Center for Design Computing, The Pennsylvania State University, USA; Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz
de Fora, Brazil

Nathan C Brown
Department of Architectural Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

José P Duarte 
Stuckeman Center for Design Computing, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

Abstract
Designing urban areas that provide smaller distances to their amenities is a key factor toward more
walkable environments. Moreover, this is a critical aspect of climate-resilient urban planning since it
is broadly assumed that areas with greater walkability discourage automobile usage and reduce CO2
emissions. Generative and data-driven design approaches, in turn, increase designers’ ability to
explore wider sets of potential solutions. In this sense, identifying designs with an optimized
performance out of the vast possibilities that computation can provide is crucial. Shape grammars
are a formal method of shape generation that facilitate the elaboration of complex patterns and
meaningful designs. This paper hypothesizes that coupling shape grammars with multi-objective
optimization can help address trade-offs and decision-making in urban design. It focuses on the
pedestrian accessibility and infrastructure cost (as estimated by cumulative street length) trade-off
in urban fabrics as a case study to verify the suitability of a grammar-based optimization approach for
more dynamic and efficient solution-finding in urban design. Our findings suggest that a grammar-
based optimization approach is helpful in addressing urban trade-offs as it could be used to filter the
design space and provide optimal alternative fabric layouts with increased pedestrian accessibility
and decreased infrastructure cost.

Corresponding author:
Fernando T Lima, The Pennsylvania State University, 121 Stuckeman Family Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
Email: fernando.lima@arquitetura.ufjf.br
1490 EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 49(5)

Keywords
Shape grammars, multi-objective optimization, urban fabrics, walkability, infrastructure cost

Introduction
Adopting generative, parametric, and data-driven design approaches increases the ability of de-
signers to rapidly explore a wide range of potential solutions. However, robust strategies are needed
to identify designs with better performance out of the vast possibilities generated through com-
putation. In this context, computational optimization (CO) is increasingly used to solve complex
design problems, although CO techniques at the urban design scale have been limited compared to
architecture due to increased complexity and computation requirements. Shape grammars (SG) are a
formal shape generation method that consist of a set of rules that apply recursively to an initial shape
to generate a design language (Stiny and Gips, 1972; Stiny, 1980), facilitating the elaboration of
complex patterns such as urban fabrics. SG can be implemented to describe a corpus of existing
designs, explain how to generate new designs in the same language, or create new design languages
(Duarte and Beirão, 2011). SG can produce design spaces with considerable complexity and di-
versity, with the design space being the set of potential solutions for a specific problem (Brown
2016, 2019) arranged by a multidimensional combination of input variables, even beyond what a
designer might initially conceive.
Existing research has demonstrated the possibility of combining shape grammars with opti-
mization to find high-performance designs. For example, Shea and Cagan (1999) explored shape
grammars and simulated annealing to expand the range of solutions in roof trusses’ conceptual
design. Mckay and Pennington (2006) brought together shape grammars and evolutionary algo-
rithms to generate and evaluate new product shapes. Caldas (2011) combined genetic algorithms,
energy simulation, and shape grammars to generate energy-efficient patio house designs.
Granadeiro et al. (2013b) developed an indirect representation for optimizing solutions within a
shape grammar for Frank Lloyd Wright prairie houses.
These studies suggest potential for moving to the urban scale. Cities concentrate 55.71% of the
world’s population (United Nations, 2018) and are responsible for over 70% of global CO2
emissions, with fuel combustion in motor vehicles creating up to 75% of urban air pollution (Global
Fuel Economy, 2016). Designing walkable urban areas is a critical aspect of climate-resilient urban
planning since it is assumed to help discourage automobiles and reduce CO2 emissions (Brand et al.
2014; Department for Transport, 2011; Nazelle et al., 2010; Sælensminde, 2004).
This paper hypothesizes that coupling shape grammars with multi-objective optimization can
help address trade-offs and enhance decision-making in urban design. It focuses on the trade-off
between pedestrian accessibility to amenities and infrastructure cost (as estimated by total street
length) to verify the suitability of a grammar-based optimization approach for efficient and
effective solution-finding. The city of Chicago was selected for study because its orthogonal grid
is paradigmatic of American cities, and it has one of the top 10 largest carbon footprints in the
world (Ruiz, 2018). The city’s urban fabric was decoded into a shape grammar, which was then
used to generate alternative fabrics for a sample neighborhood while considering the following
scenarios: i) the application of Chicago’s urban rules in a restricted manner, with the same rules
applied to blocks in the same rows, emulating a situation that often occurs in the city; and ii) an
alternative arrangement logic for the same neighborhood, with rules being applied more flexibly.
Our goal is to address the following questions: How can a grammar-based optimization approach
be helpful in the context of urban design? Which of the two scenarios enables optimization most
effectively to push toward better solutions? Are there grid layouts that rank well in both objectives
(pedestrian accessibility and infrastructure cost)? What do these grid layouts look like, and what
Lima et al. 1491

are the underlying rules? Are there specific rules and parameters that tend to lead to better grid
layouts?
To address such questions, this article contains (1) a formulation of the problem; (2) a char-
acterization of the materials and methods of this research, with a delineation of the research
framework including shape grammars (Chicago urban rules), walkability assessment through
pedestrian accessibility, multi-objective optimization, and the pedestrian accessibility versus in-
frastructure cost trade-off; (3) a description of the case studies, in which Chicago’s urban rules were
set in an optimization framework to find optimal arrangements for an existing neighborhood; (4) a
presentation of the case studies results; (5) a discussion; and (6) final remarks, limitations, and future
developments of this research.

Materials and methods

Research framework
The overall research framework combines shape grammars and multi-objective optimization in a
generative environment for urban fabrics addressing selected trade-offs. We hypothesize that this
approach can provide more dynamic and efficient solution-finding and decision-making toward
climate-resilient cities than conventional methods. While a multi-objective process does not
necessarily find a definitive solution that must be directly implemented, as urban design involves
many different factors, a computational process driven by several key design goals can stimulate a
greater understanding of the design problem, thus supporting deisgners.

Shape grammars—Chicago Urban Grammar

Shape grammars rely on implementing transformation rules that apply recursively to an initial shape
to generate a set of designs (design language). According to Stiny (1980), shape grammars consists
of applying simple visual rules to transform one shape into another, requiring an initial state, a set of
instructions, and a termination condition. Shape grammars allow one to either describe or generate
designs in the same language, providing the means to elaborate complex designs or create new
design languages. We test the conjecture that using shape grammars in an optimization framework
improves the solution-finding process by filtering the design space of topological variations toward
meaningful solutions that belong to existing design languages.
The application of shape grammars in urban design is still limited compared to architecture,
although a body of related literature exists. Teeling (1996) presented the first urban grammar for
describing a neighborhood in Friedrichshafen, a German city, while Mayall and Hall (2005)
proposed a grammar to define landscape object types. Duarte et al. (2007) developed an urban
grammar for the ancient fabric of the complex urban form of the Marrakesh medina, and Duarte and
Beirão (2011) explored shape grammars to support flexible urban planning. Despite previous
applications of shape grammars in urban design, our work is, to the best of our knowledge, among
the first to combine the synthetic capability of shape grammars with multi-criteria optimization to
find solutions with improved urban performance.
To test this framework, Chicago’s urban fabric was encoded into a shape grammar (Figure 1),
which was then connected to a multi-objective optimization algorithm to push generations of urban
fabrics toward optimal performance within the language defined by the grammar. In brief, the first
set of rules (Rules 1 to 8) place two main perpendicular axes (av = main vertical axis, ah = main
horizontal axis) and create a square grid of half-mile (approximately 800 m). These axes correspond
to the city’s major roads and determine admissible subdivision operations, resulting in typical blocks
with 330 by 660 feet (100 m × 200 m). The grammar can generate urban arrangements that vary
1492 EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 49(5)

Figure 1. Rules for generating the compositional structure of Chicago’s street grid (Rules 1–6), block
orientation rules (Rules 7 and 8), different alternatives for block arrangement, and rules for inserting alleys
and dividing blocks into parcels (Rules 10–17).
Lima et al. 1493

from eight east-west blocks by four north-south blocks to four east-west blocks by eight north-south
blocks, and the possible combinations therein. The second set of rules (Rules 10–17) are applied to
the typical blocks, altering the positioning of alleys. These rules define different parcels, which, can
in turn be divided into plots. Different applications of these rules generate a wide variety of urban
fabrics within the Chicago language, each with different distances between destinations in the grid,
as depicted in Figure 1. The generated fabrics can then be assessed using the quantitative urban
metrics described in the next section.

Fitness functions for fabric design: Physical Proximity Index and estimated
infrastructure cost
The framework proposed here uses two criteria to drive optimization: walkability and infrastructure
cost. The concept of walkability is challenging to define or operationalize, and it depends on many
factors that have been widely discussed (Dovey and Pafka, 2020; Ewing and Cervero, 2010; Forsyth
et al., 2008; Gehl, 2010; Pushkarev and Zupan, 1976). Nevertheless, it is broadly accepted that
pedestrian accessibility, understood here as proximity to amenities, has substantial implications for
the walkability of an urban area. Thus, although it is not the only metric for measuring walkability,
pedestrian accessibility is one of its most addressed urban features since the likelihood of walking
trips decreases with greater distances (Sevtsuk et al., 2016).
Accordingly, a considerable body of research has estimated walkability by measuring distances
to amenities, focusing on grid design and amenities positioning. Brewster et al. (2009) assessed
walkability in urban developments using Walkscore (Walkscore, 2020), a distance-based indicator.
Carr et al., (2011) validated WalkScore for estimating access to walkable amenities, while Nourian
et al. (2015) proposed accessibility measures based on an “Easiest Path” algorithm, developing a
toolkit that provides actual temporal distances between locations. Lima et al., (2016) explored
algorithmic systems for generating and evaluating urban morphologies, setting the distance to
amenities as a criterion. In a similar context, Dogan et al. (2020) presented a computational design
toolkit to model active transportation and evaluate pedestrian accessibility to amenities and public
transport, while Sevtsuk et al. (2016) assessed the pedestrian accessibility of different grid layouts.
Most recently, Koohsari et al. (2021) concluded that WalkScore was positively correlated with
several perceived walkable environmental attributes, and there was a medium correlation between
WalkScore and overall perceived walkability.
In addition, several authors address walkability assessment through a broader perspective, taking
other features into consideration. For instance, Cervero and Kockelman (1997) address density,
diversity, and design and Dovey and Pafka (2020) advocate that density, mix, and pedestrian access
are key factors for understanding and measuring walkability. More recently, Otsuka et al. (2021)
developed an adapted version of WalkScore, including traffic noise, pedestrian casualties, road
speed limits, and air quality as metrics. However, considering this preliminary study’s focus on
observing the usefulness of a grammar-based approach for managing trade-offs at an urban scale,
adopting a single metric (pedestrian accessibility) to estimate walkability allowed us to explore a
bidimensional trade-off, providing simplicity and accuracy to our analyses. It is understood that in
many design contexts, an automated multi-objective approach for several prioritized objectives
would provide only a starting point for synthesizing all competing concerns.
As it relates to sustainability, adopting low carbon transportation modes such as walking and
cycling is recognized as crucial in carbon demand reduction strategies (Maibach et al. 2009; Nazelle
et al., 2010; Lovelace et al., 2011; Rabl and Audrey de Nazelle, 2012). In this regard, Yamagata et al.
(2019) state that walkability is a key performance indicator for achieving low carbon cities, as it
reduces the number of cars without losing convenience and comfort. Nevertheless, efforts toward
1494 EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 49(5)

more connected cities have often relied on allowing people to move faster (using motorized
transportation) around ever-expanding urban fabrics, rather than bringing urban services closer.
This paper builds on this research thread by using the Physical Proximity Calculator, a City-
Metrics tool (Lima, 2017), to assess and optimize urban fabrics walkability through pedestrian
accessibility. The Physical Proximity Calculator (PPC) computes the Physical Proximity Index
(PPI) on scale of 0–1 by calculating the smallest distance between two or more points of interest,
considering the street network and relationship between distance and likelihood of walking instead
of using other transportation. For instance, a 400 m (5 min walk) or less distance between two
locations corresponds to a Physical Proximity Index (PPI) of 1. The index decreases as the distance
approaches 1600 m (20 min walk) and is 0 when the distance becomes greater than 1600 m. In our
experiments, which aim to estimate the pedestrian accessibility of a given fabric, we set the PPC to
calculate the PPIs between each parcel’s corner to the boundary corners of the neighborhood.
In an orthogonal grid system like Chicago, the average distance between all parcels corners and the
grid corners is always the same, no matter the size of the urban blocks. However, since PPI does not use
distances on a linear scale above and below the stated thresholds, the average distance to the corners and
the average PPI of the entire neighborhood are slightly different. Maximizing the PPI of a neighborhood
means looking for arrangements that avoid distances larger than 1600 m (PPI = 0) while not further
prioritizing distances smaller than 400 m (PPI = 1). Therefore, maximizing PPI as a fitness function
means obtaining more homogeneous proximity values, in this case, distances to the grid’s corners
within a neighborhood and providing more balanced proximity values to more blocks and people.
Figure 2 illustrates the differences between each of these quantities. For instance, fabric 1 and fabric 5
show opposite PPI and standard deviation distances, meaning that the former is less balanced (less
homogeneous distances to the boundary) than the latter. Thus, the main question regarding walkability
in this study is where should certain rules be applied to promote more proximity-balanced fabrics?
Moreover, for Chicago, the boundary corners serve as mass transit stops for buses, which tend to
run along the main N-S and E-W streets, as well as elevated or subway trains in specific
neighborhoods. Thus, the algorithm expresses the pedestrian accessibility of a given parcel by
calculating the average physical proximity indexes of its corners. When considered an entire district,
these calculations provide information about the whole urban fabric.
In theory, pedestrian accessibility to destinations should increase as street networks get denser,
and the possibility of connecting basic urban needs through shorter paths improves. In this regard,
Zhao et al. (2019) concluded that urban areas with orthogonal street grids and high street density
have good accessibility. However, as estimated by street length, infrastructure cost proportionally
increases with the density of street networks, outlining a trade-off to be addressed toward less CO2
emitting and more climate-resilient cities.

Multi-objective optimization: managing pedestrian accessibility and infrastructure

cost trade-off
Multi-objective optimization (MOO) is a computational methodology that supports decision-
making in the presence of trade-offs between two or more conflicting objectives. It enables the
exploration of complex search spaces while managing and prioritizing multiple objectives (Brown,
2016). While it has been used extensively in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, and
economics for decades, forms of multi-objective optimization have recently become more common
in architecture and related design fields (Brown, 2019; Cichocka et al., 2017; Coello and Romero,
2003; Evins et al., 2012; Marler and Arora, 2004).
For a meaningful multi-objective optimization problem, there is no single solution that si-
multaneously optimizes all objective functions. In this context, optimal solutions occur when none
of the objective functions can be enriched without worsening others. This kind of solution is called
Lima et al. 1495

Figure 2. Steps for calculating the Physical Proximity Index (above). Different fabric arrangements and their
respective values of streets length, average PPI, standard deviation distance for corners, and average distance
to grid’s corners (center and below).

Pareto optimal or non-dominated, and without additional preference information or post-Pareto

analysis, all Pareto optimal solutions in an optimization problem are considered to be equally viable.
The set of all Pareto solutions (often presented graphically) is called the Pareto frontier, also known
as the Pareto front or Pareto set. While a theoretical Pareto front exists for a design problem,
optimization algorithms attempt to “find” the front through increasingly accurate approximations.
1496 EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 49(5)

At an urban design level, Navarro-Mateu et al. (2018) and Makki et al. (2019) are among the
firsts to implement MOO in the generation of urban fabrics, shedding some light on addressing
conflicting objectives at this scale. However, neither work considers a grammar-based ap-
proach or walkability criteria. Lima et al. (2021) have also addressed the use of MOO for
walkable urban fabrics generation, although without employing a grammar-based framework,
and Feng and Peponis (2021) analyze urban grids from a cost perspective, using syntactic
measures.
Although pedestrian accessibility and street lengths are not always in rivalry, Sevtsuk et al.
(2016) conclude that when various dimensions for plot frontage and depth, block length, and street
width are combined, smaller blocks (denser street networks) tend to generate higher pedestrian
accessibility than larger blocks. Thus, we address the pedestrian accessibility versus infrastructure
cost trade-off as a case study to verify the utility of a grammar-based multi-objective optimization
approach. The goal is to better understand this issue and evaluate more efficient solution-finding
strategies. Optimization is thus explored here as a tool for discovering potentially improved designs
or even directions for further modification, rather than a deterministic approach for selecting a
single, perfect solution.

Methodology
We implemented two case studies to explore our approach and generate optimal alternative fabrics
for the Chicago area using a Rhinoceros/Grasshopper software environment. The aim was to find
solutions that maximized the Physical Proximity Index while minimizing the street network length,
using the proposed Chicago grammar.
The next step was to translate the grammar into a parametric design environment. Granadeiro
et al. (2013b) note several strategies for “genetification” of shape grammars into parametric systems
for optimization while still encoding all possible solutions and allowing crossover and mutation to
operate (Geyer, 2008; Granadeiro et al., 2013a; Mckay and Pennington, 2006; Schnier and Gero,
1998). In this research, we created input variables based on different ID numbers, each corre-
sponding to a Chicago rule. Additional input values were set to apply the rules with different
rotations. To establish a meaningful variable structure for the optimization algorithm, we have
sorted the ID numbers in ascending order according to the total street length provided by a rule. For
instance, Rule 16 was assigned the highest ID, while Rule 12 was assigned the lowest. Thus,
inputting higher numbers means increasing the street network density and the infrastructure cost,
while inputting lower numbers means the opposite.
Considering the current availability of multi-objective optimization (MOO) tools in Grass-
hopper, four state-of-the-art MOO add-ons were evaluated for this research: Octopus, a tool that
employs Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm 2 (SPEA-2) and fast hypervolume-based many-
objective optimization algorithm (HypE); Opossum, that uses Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic
Algorithm II (NSGA-II) (Deb et al., 2000) and Particle Swarm algorithms; Design Space Ex-
ploration (Brown et al., 2020), which uses NSGA-II; and Wallacei X (Makki et al., 2020) that also
employs NSGA-II.

Table 1. The three-stage modeling logic followed in the case studies.

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3

Goal Division into squares Block arrangement Alley positioning

Shape rules involved 1 to 6 7 and 8 10 to 18
Case studies involved 1 and 2 1 and 2 1 and 2
Lima et al. 1497

Figure 3. McKinley Park and the study area (above). Diagrams explaining the case study logic and their
respective design space sizes (below). Source: Adapted from Google maps (above), and the authors
(below).

Among these possibilities, we opted for NSGA-II because it prioritizes the diversity of solutions
by using a crowding distance mechanism, emphasizing non-dominated solutions; requires lower
computational costs; and can find a much better spread of solutions and better convergence near the
Pareto front compared to SPEA (Deb et al., 2000). Although the NSGA-II algorithm is commonly
used with continuous input variables, its performance has also been tested with discrete variables
(Anagnostopoulos and Mamanis, 2010; Wu et al., 2017). For instance, NSGA-II has been used on
problems with discrete variables to optimize power converters (Visairo et al., 2012), mechatronic
systems (El-Kribi et al., 2013), and in a typical building optimization problem, improving solution
quality and convergence speed (Brownlee and Wright, 2015).
1498 EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 49(5)

Following these examples, our choice for NSGA-II relies on four primary aspects: avoiding
dependence on the initial solution to convergence toward optimal solutions, decreasing the time
required to run the algorithm, avoiding being stuck with suboptimal solutions, and the existence of a
Rhinoceros/Grasshopper tool to implement optimization procedures. Thus, Wallacei X was the
chosen tool because it uses NSGA-II in a way that was compatible with our implementation of the
shape grammars in Grasshopper, which relies on the gene pool component, and its data visualization
interface also provided more freedom of analysis.

Case studies
A three-stage modeling logic (Table 1) was employed to drive the case studies. In the first stage,
Rules 1 to 6 were applied to subdivide a given area into a grid of 660 by 660 feet (200 m × 200 m)
squares. In the second stage, Rule 7 or Rule 8 could be picked out to divide the obtained squares,
resulting in several combinations of 330 by 660 feet (100 m × 200 m) block arrangements. In stage
3, different alley positioning rules (Rules 10–17) could be applied with different orientations for
further dividing the typical blocks, resulting in several urban fabric configurations within the
Chicago urban language. Multi-objective optimization was used to drive the selection of rules,
aiming to find fabrics that balanced pedestrian accessibility and infrastructure cost. All case studies
considered a population size of 50,000 solutions (1000 generations of 50 individuals), taking
approximately 14 h each, on an Intel® CoreÔ i9-9900X 3.5 GHz with 128 GB installed RAM
computer. The case study results were then compared to the actual area arrangement to verify the
effectiveness of our approach.

Study area
McKinley Park, a southwest community of Chicago, was the neighborhood selected as study area. It
is a dense suburban zone with 14,484 residents, good walkability, and good land-use diversity
(Niche, 2021). Our study area consisted of an 800 × 800 m grid portion with almost all blocks
aligned north-south and the following features: 7400 m of alleys, an average Physical Proximity
Index of 0.645, a total of 453 street intersections, and an average parcel area of 7619 m2 (Figure 3,
above).

Case study 1
The first case study applied Chicago’s urban rules in a restricted manner, with rules applied to create
combinations of either east-west or north-south rows of typical blocks (100 m × 200 m). This
repetition of block type emulates a situation that often occurs in the city (Figure 3, bottom-left). This
case study comprised modeling stages 1–3 and encompassed a total of eight genes and 48 values,
resulting in a design space of 1e6 solutions.

Case study 2
The second case study applied Chicago’s urban rules flexibly, meaning that each block could have
different alley layouts, thereby expanding block arrangements configurations (Figure 3, bottom-
right). This case study also comprised stages 1–3 and addressed 64 genes and 352 values, resulting
in a design space of 2.2e43 solutions. While this can lead to considerable irregularity, it can generate
significantly more diverse designs, potentially increasing the likelihood of obtaining designs with
better performance.
Lima et al. 1499

Results
Case study 1 led to 50,000 solutions sorted into 173 clusters of designs with the same performance,
shown in Figure 4 (above). This clustering results from the limited number of ways a row of blocks
can be organized, leading to many designs sharing the same total road length. Its Pareto frontier
presented 50 non-dominated solutions balancing pedestrian accessibility and street network length
across eight different performance possibilities. These designs perform better than the existing
fabric, out of 50,000 arrangement alternatives. For instance, solution S1-1 provided an average PPI
improvement of 0.01 (0.655–0.645) compared to the existing fabric, which corresponds to a re-
duction of 6400 m (= 368,000–361,600 m) in the sum of all the distances between corners. This
solution decreased the fabric’s total street length by 3400 m (= 18,600–15,200 m), meaning a 6.4
million US dollar cost reduction, as estimated by the American Road and Transportation Builders
Association (ARTBA, 2021), and the distances between corners standard deviation in 57 m (= 372–
315 m). In summary, this means it is possible to obtain a fabric with decreased infrastructure cost
than the existing block while decreasing the walking distances to go through all the corners while
providing more balanced proximity values to more blocks.
Running NSGA-II moved designs closer to an approximate Pareto front, which the algorithm is
designed to do. In this case, connecting the grammar to NSGA-II resulted in mutations that in-
creased each objective within the existing fabric, moving “up” or “down” on the Pareto front. The
number of solutions was distributed along with the design space so that the Pareto solutions that
prioritize average PPI (located at the Pareto frontier right-hand side, and in red in Figure 4) occurred
more frequently than solutions that more effectively balanced both objectives (Pareto frontier
center) and the ones that prioritize streets length (Pareto frontier left-hand size).
Moreover, most of the solutions found through the optimization process performed better than
the existing fabric, considering both objective functions. Figure 4 depicts Case 1 results, including
solution clusters and examples of design solutions on the Pareto front. Pareto solutions corre-
sponding to dots with the same color have similar street lengths but different street configurations.
Figure 4 (bottom) presents Case 2 results, also including solution clusters and design examples. The
50,000 solutions in case study 2 were grouped into 1174 performance clusters, thereby presenting more
diversity than case study 1. The Pareto frontier includes 50 solutions grouped into 20 performance
clusters. Almost all Case 2 solutions performed better than the existing fabric, considering both objective
functions. For instance, solution S2-1 provided a PPI improvement of 0.012 (= 0.657–0.645) relatively
to the existing fabric. This meant decreasing: the fabric’s total street length by 4300 m (= 18,600–
14,300 m) and an 8.1-million-dollar cost reduction; the sum of all the distances between corners in
22,400 m (= 368,000–345,600 m); and the distance between corners standard deviation in 71 m (= 372–
301 m). Therefore, solution S2-1 significantly decreased infrastructure cost while decreasing the total
distance to go through all the corners in the fabric and allowing more balanced proximity values between
blocks. Therefore, the increased design flexibility permitted in Case 2 resulted in a higher number of
Pareto optimal variations and significantly better solutions when compared to Case 1.
However, both Case 1 and 2 solutions resulted in significantly fewer alleys for peripheral areas.
This is due to the PPI logic, which avoids distances larger than 1600 m while not prioritizing
distances smaller than 400 m. Thus, the algorithm aimed at increasing proximity to neighborhood
corners located in the most distant areas, the central ones in this case.

Discussion
Our initial findings point toward several advantages of using a grammar-based optimization ap-
proach in urban design. First, our approach demonstrated promising potential in tackling trade-offs
since it helped filter out meaningless solutions from the search space and discover optimal designs
1500 EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 49(5)

Figure 4. Case study 1 results (above): All obtained solutions (50,000) are clustered into 173 performance
possibilities. The Pareto frontier is distributed in 8 performance clusters. Most of the solutions perform
better than the existing fabric (in magenta). Case study 2 results (below): All obtained solutions (50,000) are
clustered into 1174 performance possibilities. Almost all solutions perform better than the existing fabric.
Some Pareto optimal layouts examples are shown on the right.

within the predefined language. Second, our approach enabled us to find alternative urban fabric
layouts with increased pedestrian accessibility (as a proxy for walkability) and decreased infra-
structure cost (as estimated by total street length).
Lima et al. 1501

As it is broadly assumed that the likelihood of walking trips decreases with greater distances to
amenities and urban destinations, the Physical Proximity Index (PPI) assesses an essential variable
in this equation—the distances from all corners to all corners within a particular area. Decreasing the
average PPI means reducing the distances to all possible destinations. For instance, a 0.012 decrease
in the average PPI in the case study 2 (solution 2-1) reduced by 22,400 m (or 7 h of total walk) the
sum of all distances between all corners, in just a small area of 800 m by 800 m. If the same
improvement was obtained for an entire neighborhood—or the whole city—the likelihood of people
walking would increase even more significantly. Moreover, as an average PPI of 1 means that the
sum of all distances within a given area is equal to or smaller than 400 m, an average PPI of 1 is
impossible to achieve in an 800 m by 800 m area. However, small increases in these values have a
significant impact on pedestrian accessibility.
In this sense, it is reasonable to consider that our studies resulted in urban fabric layouts that
potentially reduce CO2 emissions while maintaining the logic and essential characteristics of
Chicago’s urban fabric. Third, in both case studies, the grammar-based approach resulted in al-
ternative scenarios that presented better performances than the existing analyzed fabric, in addition
to a broader range of Pareto optimal solutions to consider for further design refinement. Moreover,
in some situations, the approach resulted in bunches of optimal potential solutions, providing great
flexibility for decision-making. Finally, our case studies allowed us to identify some specific rules
that led to more balanced configurations and others that privileged one particular objective.
However, despite achieving meaningful findings, this study reveals some limitations. The
Chicago Urban Grammar is inadequate to address irregular or non-orthogonal urban block patterns.
In addition, other important features related to walkability, rather than just pedestrian accessibility,
like density, mix, amenities positioning, or the number of street intersections, should be explored as
objective functions. Therefore, for future work, there is a broader spectrum of possibilities for
exploration. We intend to incorporate more objective functions, addressing other walkability-related
metrics; increase model complexity by searching for optimal locations to insert amenities; address
other trade-offs related to climate resilience; explore shape grammars for irregular urban block
patterns; and test other optimization algorithms.
In brief, this work aimed to contribute to climate-resilient design approaches by exploiting the
potential of coupling shape grammars and multi-objective optimization to tackle trade-offs at an
urban design scale. A grammar-based optimization approach was used to find fabric layouts with
increased pedestrian accessibility (as a way to estimate walkability) and decreased infrastructure
cost. Since our experiments provided us with urban fabrics with maximized pedestrian accessibility
while minimizing infrastructure costs, this approach can be considered an initial step toward more
walkable urban fabrics.

Conclusion
This paper shows the application of a grammar-based multi-objective approach to tackle trade-offs
in the generation of urban fabrics in early design. The approach was illustrated by implementing a
specific grammar that codifies the guidelines for designing the Chicago urban fabric to generate
more integrated and walkable areas while consuming less resources and potentially emitting less
CO2.
Conceptually, in our case studies, we addressed the generation of potentially more climate-
resilient urban fabrics by confronting and comparing two opposite planning paradigms. The first
one, addressed in case study 1 and prevailing in Chicago’s original plan, is based on a nineteenth-
century design logic and imposes a more rigid grid when using shape rules. The second one,
explored in different ways in Case 2, consists of a more contemporary approach that uses the grid
rules flexibly in a multi-objective optimization framework to generate new possibilities and find
1502 EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 49(5)

optimal designs. Finally, since urban planning and design is a complex endeavor, with many
stakeholders and various viewpoints, coupling shape grammars with optimization can support a
better understanding of the trade-offs involved, promote the dialogue among stakeholders, and help
reach solutions with improved performance.

Acknowledgments
This study was financed in part by the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing and the Stuckeman School of
Architecture and Landscape Architecture, The Pennsylvania State University, United States, and by the
Brazilian Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de
Nı́vel Superior - Brasil (CAPES) Finance Code 001.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs
Fernando T Lima  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7501-1466
José P Duarte  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3826-3987

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Author Biographies
Fernando T. Lima is a postdoctoral scholar at the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing – Penn
State University, United States. He completed a Ph.D. in Urbanism at the Federal University of Rio
de Janeiro in 2017, having attended a doctoral exchange period at the Faculty of Architecture of the
University of Lisbon, Portugal. He was awarded the Brazilian CAPES Foundation Thesis 2018
Honorable Mention for his Ph.D. thesis. He is currently the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism
vice director at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil. He is a professor in the Department of
Design, representation, and technology and a permanent professor in the master’s program in built
environment. His research interests are in using computation to explore performance metrics at
various levels to support resilient and sustainable design at different scales.
Nathan C. Brown is an Assistant Professor of Architectural Engineering at Penn State University.
He is a researcher with a broad academic and professional background involving structural en-
gineering, architecture, and building science. Prior to joining Penn State, he completed a Ph.D. in
Building Technology at MIT in 2019. Nathan was a part of the Digital Structures Research Group
in the MIT Department of Architecture from 2014-2019, also earning an SMBT degree from MIT in
2016. His research seeks to understand how structural considerations interact with other perfor-
mance and architectural criteria in conceptual building design and how computation can play a role
in the creative process.
José P. Duarte is the Stuckeman Chair in Design Innovation and director of the Stuckeman Center
for Design Computing at Penn State, where he is Professor of Architecture and Landscape Ar-
chitecture and Affiliate Professor of Architectural Engineering and Engineering Design. After
obtaining his doctoral degree from MIT, Duarte returned to Portugal, where he became dean of the
Lisbon School of Architecture. As former president of eCAADe, the European association for
education and research in computer-aided design, his research interests are in the use of computation
to support context-sensitive design at different scales. Accordingly, one of his areas of research
addresses the study of the relationship between urban form and urban performance.