A Discussion on an Urban Layout Workflow Utilizing Generative Adversarial Network (GAN): With a focus on automatized labeling and dataset acquisition

Abstract

Deep Learning (DL) has recently gained widespread attention in the automation of urban layout processes. This study proposes a rule-based and Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) workflow to automatically select and label urban datasets to train customized GAN models for the generation of urban layout proposals. The developed workflow automatically collects and labels urban typology samples from open-source maps. Furthermore, it controls the results of the GAN process with labels and provides real-time urban layout suggestions based on a co-design process. The conducted case study shows that the average value of the GAN results, trained from an automatically generated dataset, meets the site's requirements. The developed co-design strategy allows the architect to control the GAN process and perform iterations on urban layouts. The research addresses the research gap in GAN applications in the field of urban design and planning. Many studies have demonstrated that training the (GAN) model by labeling enables machines to learn urban morphological features and urban layout logic. However, two research gaps remain: (1) The manual filtering of GAN urban sample datasets to fit site-specific design requirements is very time-consuming. (2) Without a suitable data labeling method, it is difficult to manage the GAN process in such a manner to facilitate the meeting of overriding design requirements.