Syllabus

The course is designed to be an introduction to methods of analyzing, evaluating, and recording the urban environment first hand. Its aim is to supplement existing courses that cover theory and history of city design and planning, and to better prepare students without prior design background for the studio sequence.

The course is about learning through one's own personal experience of the environment, be it through observations, field surveys, measurements or interviews, the students will learn to draw on their own senses as much as on their ability to deduct, conclude, question, and verify. The course will guide the students to view the city as primarily a social and psychological environment. It will be concerned with measuring and testing various urban environments in relation to people' values and use.

The course will help students understand and use various graphic techniques to record and convey the built environment as well as their impressions and ideas about it. The course is set as a workshop/field survey environment through which a series of discussions analysis and design projects are carried out. Each student will engage in an environment that they will observe, record, analyze and evaluate. The case study will emphasize one's own ability to draw on her or his senses, as much as on the ability to record, deduct, conclude, question, and verify.

The course will be set in a workshop/field trip environment through which a series of discussions and case studies are carried out. Each student will engage in an environment that they will observe, record, analyze and evaluate. The case study will emphasize one's own ability to draw on her or his senses, as much as on the ability to record, deduct, conclude, question, and verify.  Participants will be required to keep a sketch/note book which will be handed in periodically during the semester.

The following topics will be studied through the cases:

• Site and natural systems
• Public spaces and place making
• Infrastructure transportation and circulation
• Built-up typologies -- single and mixed use -- infill

Themes to be explored:

1. Observing and interpreting the urban environment. Methods of studying a place by walking and observing. How to best observe, diagnose, understand and gather clues from the built physical environment. How to piece together clues that tell the history and dynamics of a place, when it was built and for whom. We will also study what are the physical and sensory indicators of economic and social change, trends, problems, the notion of vulnerability, and policy and guideline issues.
   
   
2. Methods of systematically carrying out urban field surveys and the development of new modes of inquiry which explore and verify what is happening in an environment. We will focus on how persons perceive and feel about an environment, how they use it, and what they expect to happen there. The emphasis will not be on elaborate data gathering, but rather on relating different sources of information, hypothesizing, testing and articulating the findings to possible recommendations. Understanding the physical structure of the city - the scale, pattern and form of blocks, streets, districts, public spaces, infrastructure, and nature.
   
   
3. Ways to evaluate the plural structure of the built environment, the perception, values, and behavior of planning and design professionals, public officials, clients, media, and the different users.
   
   
4. Techniques of recording, representing, and communicating what is observed. Learning the basic graphic language of analysis and design through the use of representation of tools such as: drawing, photographing, computer modeling, and desktop publishing.