VIRTUAL Manchester Livable Cities
Abstract
Tactile walking surfaces (TWS) play a critical role in supporting safe and consistent wayfinding for visually impaired (VI) individuals in transit environments. Although ISO standards emphasize that tactile systems should complement spatial design, they are often applied as add-ons rather than integrated into holistic designing. This study offers a critique to this prevailing practice and positions accessibility as a core design component of inclusive urban mobility policy. This study develops an assistive, computational decision-making tool that integrates agent-based modeling and visibility graph analysis (VGA) to guide context-sensitive TWS routing. The tool identifies locations where TWS implementation would be impractical by evaluating navigational performance under varying conditions influenced by the time of day, the presence of stationary people, and orientation constraints. VGA is subsequently employed to compute graph-based spatial connectivity enabling identification of low-integration zones. By analyzing spatial form and pedestrian movement simultaneously, the method detects areas where natural guidance is insufficient and implementation would be practical, revealing opportunities for targeted accessibility interventions. The approach is demonstrated using the Eskisehir train station while its framework is adaptable to a diversity of transit environments, including those in rapidly urbanizing regions of the Global South where accessibility resources and standards vary. Beyond a technical utility, the study contributes to broader discussions on inclusive urban policy, smart-city design tools, and the ethics of disability-responsive planning. It offers a replicable model that can inform accessibility upgrades, station retrofits, and future transit planning to support healthier, more equitable, and more easily navigated urban environments.
Selcan Ezgi Sen is an architect and a master’s student in the Computational Design Program at Istanbul Technical University. Her work explores the intersection of architecture, computation, and design research, focusing on how digital methods shape spatial perception. Her recent studies include way-finding for visually impaired users. She actively develops research linking spatial experience, data-driven methods, and cultural interpretation within contemporary architectural design practice.
Mine Ozkar is a Professor of Architecture at Istanbul Technical University. Collaborating with design professionals, computer scientists and art historians, her research focuses on visual, spatial and material aspects of design computation, and more recently on their integration to heritage studies. In her previous works, she interpreted the history and theory of progressive pedagogy in art and design from a computational perspective. Mine is the author of Rethinking Basic Design in Architectural Education, and the co-editor of Shaping Design Teaching. She guest edited a special issue of Nexus Network Journal in 2015, and co-chaired CAADFutures 2017. She taught at MIT School of Architecture Computation Group for one semester in 2013 and was a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture CodeLab in the academic year 2018-2019 funded by TÜBİTAK BİDEB. Mine currently serves on the Editorial Boards of Nexus Network Journal, A|Z ITU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture as well as the Board of the CAADFutures Foundation.
3:00 pm - 4:30 pm
Wednesday 17th June, 2026