# GANs for Urban Design

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.01727 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.01727/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 21 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 4 May 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Image-to-Image Translation with Conditional Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07004/) (2016)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis and Semantic Manipulation with Conditional GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.11585/) (2017)
- [Neural Turtle Graphics for Modeling City Road Layouts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.02055/) (2019)
- [Reimagining City Configuration: Automated Urban Planning via Adversarial Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.09912/) (2020)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Development and diffusion of machine learning and big data tools provide a new tool for architects and urban planners that could be used as analytical or design instruments. The topic investigated in this paper is the application of Generative Adversarial Networks to the design of an urban block. The research presents a flexible model able to adapt to the morphological characteristics of a city. This method does not define explicitly any of the parameters of an urban block typical for a city, the algorithm learns them from the existing urban context. This approach has been applied to the cities with different morphology: Milan, Amsterdam, Tallinn, Turin, and Bengaluru in order to see the performance of the model and the possibility of style translation between different cities. The data are gathered from Openstreetmap and Open Data portals of the cities. This research presents the results of the experiments and their quantitative and qualitative evaluation.