Nicolas is an Architect, City Designer and Spatial Analyst trained in Chile and the UK. His multidisciplinary career includes practising in a range of projects from designing buildings and city interventions, to Urban Design research, to Urban Design and Planning advisory in the public, private and academic sectors. His unique experience bridges urban design with a quantitative understanding of cities. Nicolas is especially interested in the potential of urban data for the creative and strategic spatial analysis of urban systems to inform sustainable urban design and city planning. He tweets at npalomin and micro-blogs on urban data science at urban data notebook. A 2 pages CV is available here. Google Scholar
This webpage is a visual portfolio of his most recent works on urban data science, urban planning and urban design research.
Slide-deck in english. En español (metodos y herramientas).
Research Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis 2022
Extracting OSM data from 117 worldwide cities and comparing to alternative data sources we highlight how the OSM data model could be used to support the collection and analysis of streetspace data (in co-authorship with O. Sargoni and H. Gumble)
See poster presented at the 30th Annual Geographical Information Science Research UK (GISRUK), Liverpool, United Kingdom, 5th – 8th April 2022. Poster, Abstract.
Practice/Research Nicolas Palominos 2022
Worldwide Database Creation Model. Data Gathering Automation Work Packages and Interactive mapping
See blogpost by TranquilCity
Practice/Research Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis 2019
A tool for assessing the socio-hydrological resilience of cities that allows decision makers to assess the impact of changing water-management practices (in collab. with BGS and AA)
See the “Socio
Hydrological Resilience in Mexico City and Metropolitan Area” project’s
website
Standalone website
with matrix for comparing scenarios
Webapp for interactive
exploration of socio-hydrological scenarios and impact assessment (url)
Practice/Research Nicolas Palominos 2019-
A spatial dataset that scores every street in relation to the Healthy Streets Indicators using a composite of key city-wide datasets (in collab. with A. Dhanani, Healthy Streets and TranquilCity)
See UCL News press
release
Related work on COVID-19: streetspace for social
distancing and cycling
infrastructure
Underscore streets
a research and practice collaboration that explores the role of streets
in creating sustainable and healthy urban environments
Academic/Thesis/Publication
Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
2016/21 PhD research examining the
relationships between streetspace allocation metrics and urban
structure: Rethinking
Streets: a study of streetspace allocation metrics and street networks
in London
CASA Working Papers
Series 222 “Identifying
and Characterising Active Travel Corridors for London in Response to
COVID-19 Using Shortest Path and Streetspace Analysis”. Developed
into book
chapter
CASA Working Papers Series 212 “Quantifying
and Mapping Streetspace: a Geocomputational Method for the Citywide
Analysis of Pedestrian and Vehicular Streetspace”
Conference presentation
at the 3rd INTERNATIONAL LAND USE SYMPOSIUM. Land use changes: Trends
and projections. | Download poster
presented at the London Walking and Cycling conference 2019.| PhD
Bartlett Conference 2019 presentation
and conference abstracts
booklet.
See paper
presented at the ‘UrbanSys 2018: Transport, Smart Cities, Complexity and
Urban Networks Conference’ and the Geodesign South America 2017 conference
paper.
Streetspace for active travel media
appearance
Academic/Research
The Sir John Cass School of Architecture (Cass
Cities)
2019 Technical development of a comprehensive
field-survey of industrial activities in the borough of Southwark
Survey technical
specifications and methodology
See interactive map with
results in beta version
Academic/Research
2019 Land use mapping of Vyner Street mixed
use area in Hackney included in the book
Working Cities Architecture, Place and Production, by Howard Davis,
2019.
Book excerpt
Hi-res map
Academic/Research
2019 Urban morphology mapping study of
functions(12 classes) using open data and the kepler.gl platform - full screen interactive
map
Open geodata source
Hull
maps (colour palette reference)
Academic/Research Bartlett School of Planning and School of Architecture UCL 2019 Project examining the geography of urban manufacturing in London and its relation to mixed-use urban developments. Paper presented at GISRUK 2020 Visualising manufacturing activity in London
Academic/Research Bartlett School of Planning and School of Architecture UCL 2018 Part of the ‘Planning Urban Manufacture’ project this visualisation tool combines manufacturing indicators with street accesibility measures.
See minisite with data analysis and complete map matrix
Academic/Research Circular Economy Lab UCL 2018 Project exploring the future of urban manufacturing in Europe with the focus on three cities: London, Brussels and Rotterdam. Case study on the ‘Maker Mile’ area in Hackney. See project website Maker Mile case study report
Academic/Research
Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
2017 Interactive map tool showing streetspace
designation metrics for Santiago in Chile. Created for an urban design
workshop addressing a downtown regeneration scheme. In collaboration
with GeodesignHub
See London
beta version
Santiago full
screen
Academic/Research School of Politics and International Relations, QMU 2017 An interactive walking tour of the City of London reflecting on the political dimension of city design. (in collab. with J. Sajuria). Based on the Reorder Publics article See full screen interactive map
Academic/Research
LSE Cities
2012 Project investigating the economic,
cultural and social diversity of a High Street in south London. We
explored the overlap of commercial and street activities that made the
street vital and vibrant.
See project website
from LSE cities
Referenced in ‘Comparative
Urbanism. Design in translation’ by Fran Tonkiss (‘Companion to
urban design’. Routledge; 2011 Mar 17.)
Keynote
at ETH FORUM WOHNUNGSBAU 2015 by Suzi Hall
Academic/Thesis LSE Cities programme 2012 Master degree thesis investigating the misfit between administrative boundaries and built area in Santiago, Bogota and London (co-autorship with M. Morel) See complete thesis manuscript
Practice/Design Comptroller General of Chile 2016 Web open platform for monitoring public investment in public works at different levels of administrative authorities aiming for citizen-driven accountability.
See project
video with english subtitles
and portal
new version
Presentation
at the Seminar “Trends and Patterns of Urban Development. New
instruments for urban information management” (in Spanish)
Leaflet on Data,
leaflet on platform diagram,
promotional poster
Publication/Research LSE Cities programme 2012 Socio-spatial research of the City of London looking at the influences of the political, economic and spatial dimensions that shape the City. The project was developed into an academic publication in City Journal
See posters series
See LSE Cities studio publication
Academic/Research LSE Cities programme 2012 Design brief to evaluate the Ahmedavad’s river regeneration project. This work was prepared for the module ‘City Making: The politics of Urban Form’ Read report
Practice/Design Inter-American Development Bank 2004 Graphic investigations for the book ‘Volver al Centro’ (Back to the Centre) that presents urban regeneration strategies for central areas. IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 202. Read book (Spanish version)
Practice/Planning/Design
Ministry of Housing and Urban Development
2006 Master planning for marginalized
neighborhoods in Barrio Tarapaca, Arica and El Cobre, Peñalolen,
Santiago, implemented under the neighborhood policy ‘The Neighbourhood
Recovery Program’ (Quiero mi Barrio).
Read barrio Tarapaca report
and regeneration works summary
Read barrio El Cobre report
Neighbourhood Good Practices publication
by Cities Alliance
Practice/Masterplan Rodrigo Perez de Arce Associates. RPA 2006 Master plan and architecture project for the new dry port logistic facilities in the main freight and passengers port in Chile.
Collaboration with RPA ‘Cript in Cathedral of Santiago’
Academic/Research Nicolas Palominos 2004 The project examines the urban regeneration process triggered by the development of a new high standard School in Santiago’s periphery. End of carreer project to fulfil the requirements for BA in Architecture and Title of Architect.
Download project thesis
report
(Spanish version)
Award to Dissertation of Metropolitan
Impact, Urban operations in the periphery: Educational facilities for
City Regeneration. Gobierno Regional Metropolitano, Santiago, Chile.
2003
Practice/Design/Architecture Nicolas Palominos 2004 A single-family suburban house and a small industrial office building in the outskirts of Northern Santiago (in collab. with J. Olavarrieta)
Academic/Research Nicolas Palominos 2003 A study for the renovation of San Agustin cablecar elevator in Valparaiso (in collab. with T. Care and J. Olavarrieta)
Download project report (Spanish version)