Week 4

Neighborhoods, Districts, Corridors, and Centersweek-4-neighborhoods-and-centers

Week 3

The City in History week-3-the-city-in-history

The Suburban Challenge

What happens when the line between suburbs and the inner city becomes blurred?  The Suburban Challenge 1-26-2009

Stimulus Package

As we understand it the stimulus package vote is likely to be cast on February 13th.  John Norquist of the CNU has written a great piece on the opportunity to take transportation policy in a new direction.

Stimulus to Nowhere?

Week 2 – What is Urban Design and How Do We Understand Space?

The class this week focused first on the varied roles that an urban designer must play.  From that base, we moved on discuss how we all perceive the physical forms of cities through the ideas of urban theorists like Kevin Lynch.  Using Lynch’s language of PATHS, EDGES, NODES, DISTRICTS, and LANDMARKS, we drew perceptual maps of our hometowns.  It was interesting to see how two people from the same place could view their towns so differently.  Sometimes, what we left out said as much as what we included.

We had a lively discussion about the qualities of successful urban places and good urban form that centered on the definition of an authentic place, as contrasted with the placelessness that has seemed to invade the country like kudzu.  Here is the presentation: Week 2 Presentation

Week 1 – Class Introduction

Welcome to PAD 4334, Urban Design, at the University of Central Florida.  Course Syllabus  This course provides an introduction to the theories and concepts of the physical, cultural, social, and economic factors associated with urban design.  Urban design encompasses interdisciplinary explanations offered by architects, landscape architects, urban planners, and sociologists.  While maintaining strong methodological links to their respective disciplines, these interdisciplinary formulations focus on the physical form of the built environment as their main subject of investigation and their analysis.  We use as a starting point Professor Jonathan Barnett’s definition of urban design: “Urban design is the generally accepted name for the process of giving physical design direction to urban growth, conservation, and change.  It is understood to include landscape as well as buildings, both preservation and new construction, and rural areas as well as cities.”  

Week 1 Presentation

The Future of Cities?

From The New York Times: A discussion among prominent urban thinkers on this question:

This year marked the first time in human history that more people lived in cities than in rural areas. What problems and opportunities does this present? What effects has it had on our local and global culture? Economy? Health?

Enjoy.