Summer School: Dense and Green Cities: Exploring New Models of Integrated Urban Development

Abstract

Interdisciplinary Urban Transformation in Altstetten, ZurichThe summer school is based on the research work of the module Dense and Green Cities: Emerging Models of Integrated Urban Development module of the Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) Global. It introduces interdisciplinary approaches to studying urban transformation strategies for sustainability through a real case of Altstetten Zurich.

Objective

The summer school is open to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral students as well as researchers with a background in architecture, urban design, urban planning, and landscape design in ETH Zurich, FCL Global and the partner institutions of FCL Global. It includes lectures and thematic input talks based on the research of Dense and Green Cities, training on ArcGIS Urban tools and seminars with collaborating stakeholders in Singapore and Zurich. The summer school uses Altstetten as a case to study for urban transformation scenarios. We expect students to achieve the following objectives at the end of the course: • Obtain interdisciplinary knowledge regarding sustainable integrated urban development and transformation in terms of urban planning and design, architecture, as well as social, environmental, and economic performance, and governance. • Use ArcGIS Urban as a web-based tool to visualise urban planning and design in 2- and 3D and analyse results. • Provide real-world scenarios and solutions for Altstetten, Zurich. • Collaborate effectively with stakeholders from many disciplines.

Content

Urban development is a complex process, with city elements being interdependent and interrelated. To address this complexity, multiple disciplines must collaborate and cooperate with one another. Based on these insights, this two-week summer school was initiated. The contents of this summer school are based on the work of the Dense and Green Cities of FCL Global. To emphasise individual knowledge and the balance of all given urban perspectives, the summer school intends to use a fresh approach to studying and experiencing urban planning and design complexity. Instead of consulting several experts, every participating student will be asked to act as “experts” from different perspectives. They will use the research findings given in the Input Talks to evaluate and optimise their planning ideas. In this way, information and knowledge of urban studies will not be provided in parallel positions supplementing each other but overlay each other to generate conflicts and highlight critical issues in urban planning ideas. The summer school program will also highlight the significance of some soft factors in urban development, such as social cohesion, community integration and interdependence of neighbourhood or district development. Students will be requested to cooperate and collaborate with their neighbouring groups to balance the distribution of residential, commercial and infrastructure development while realising their urban densification goals.

Resources