Urban Design Studio A (ABPL90061)

Intended learning outcomes

On completion of the subject, students should be able to:

• To introduce and explore urban design methodology, process and practice. To understand and be able to define the difference between strategic plans; urban planning schemes; urban design guidelines; urban design frameworks; urban character studies; urban design visions; site plans; landscape designs and architectural designs.
• To engage in a complex area of the metropolis and to analyse the existing fabric and represent this analysis in a clear graphic language at a range of scales.
• To be able to model urban form, building bulk, typology, sun-shading, topography, hydrology, public/private relations.
• To show understanding of urban spatial thinking that ranges from the scale of the street to the scale of the metropolis.
• To explore existing urban design theories and to focus on those effective in positively intervening with the contemporary metropolis.
• To investigate contemporary multi-disciplinary theories of form, space, order and aesthetics, and to test their relevance for contemporary urban design practice.
• To explore ways of representing the city in both two and three (perhaps even four) dimensional representations.

Generic skills

At the end of semester students will demonstrate the following:

1. Theory: historical, contextual, urban, social, critical
   capacity to develop and /or select from a wide range of theories (philosophical, scientific, artistic) and make them essential to the task at hand, whilst framing the task at hand in an intellectual context;
2. Materialisation/translation: rigor, accuracy, innovation research
   ability to vigorously and innovatively link relations between the selected or developed theory, the selected site, the city, the urban program and the final urban design intervention;
3. Composition: articulation, syntactics, tectonics
   ability to articulate both large, medium, and small scale formal / spatial. ordering and aesthetic aspects of the intervention in a sophisticated manner;
4. Communications: drawing models text verbal
   demonstrating competence in desktop publishing skills  and ability to develop and select from an extensive range of communication options and techniques, and select a relevant means of communicating the full range of experiential, sensual and conceptual design intentions;
5. Pragmatics: function, program sustainability, science codes
   ability integrate the pragmatic issues of project work with their urban design agenda and be fully aware of the experiential, sensual and conceptual consequences and potential of the pragmatic issues; and,
6. Engagement
   commitment, input and engagement. In addition students will demonstrate capacity to contribute to the work of others in the studio and to the overall integration of the studio generally.