One tree matters: reflections on data as a design material in urban forestry

This exploratory study explores the potential contexts and opportunities for emerging visual data in urban forest design. Forestry experts deploy drone-mounted digital sensors to capture detailed visual and spatial data urban vegetation. These sensors generate point clouds that not only inform ecological analysis but also visually construct urban environments from a pedestrian perspective. Even though many data sources and visualisation tools such as GIS are available, how visualised data should be integrated into design practice is still unclear. Using a prototype multi-sourced data visualisation, we conducted eight semi-structured interviews with urban forestry experts to elicit reflections of the analytical and cultural roles of data visualisations in the domain. Thematic analysis of the interview transcripts revealed three design-oriented themes: (1) design analysis, (2) public engagement, and (3) sustainability. By analysing expert reflections, this paper considers potential research directions for visualising social and ecological data as a design material in the built environment. We discuss the implications of such visualisations for the broader community of spatial planning research including urban designers and communication scholars, proposing future research directions that leverage visual data to better design evolving urban landscapes.