Urban Design I

Abstract

Students are introduced to a narrative of 'Urban Stories' through a series of three tools driven by social, governance, and environmental transformations in today's urbanization processes. Each lecture explores the spatial and organizational ingenuity of one city, born out of its particular realities, allowing students to transfer these inventions into a catalog of conceptual urban design tools.

Objective

How can architecture students become active agents of change? What is needed to go beyond the scale of individual buildings, making design decisions that impact the city rather than just a single client? How can we design in cities with limited land, a small tax base, risks, and resilience issues, keeping in mind that Zurich is the exception and most cities are the rule? How can we identify and set trends rather than follow them, and understand existing urban phenomena by activating them in a design process? The lecture series creates an expanding catalog of practical urban tools used worldwide, addressing Governance, Social, and Environmental factors. Instead of simply comparing cities through binary distinctions, we build a catalog of change by analyzing the informal, incremental urban solutions developed over time—why they emerged, how they were implemented, and what they achieved. We focus on the people, institutions, and cultures behind these designs to make the concepts behind these tools visible. Students gain firsthand insights from cities where the chair team has researched, worked, or built projects over the past year, providing practical understanding of what makes these places unique. They will be able to use and broaden an alternative set of experiences and evidence-based design tools, delve into their core concepts, and understand how and where they can be relevant elsewhere. Urban Stories is the fundamental discipline of architecture and urban design, introducing students to a repertoire of urban design instruments to test, adapt, and incorporate into their projects.

Content

Urban form cannot be reduced to physical space. Cities emerge from social construction, influenced by technologies, ecology, culture, the impact of experts, and accidents. Urban processes are ongoing responses to political interests, economic pressures, cultural inclinations, along with the imagination of architects and urbanists and the informal powers at work in complex adaptive systems. Current urban phenomena result from urban evolution. The facts stored in urban environments include contributions from their entire lifecycle, visible in both the physical environment and non-physical aspects. This imaginary city exists alongside its potential and problems, along with the conflicts that have developed. Knowledge, understanding, and critical observation of actions and policies are necessary to grasp the diversity and instability of today's cities and how urban form has evolved to its current state. How did cities develop into the places we live in today? Urban plans, tools, visions, political decisions, economic considerations, cultural influences, and social organization have all played roles during specific moments of change in urban settlements. We have chosen examples of cities that illustrate how these instruments have been implemented and how they have shaped urban environments. We translate these instruments into urban operational tools recognized and collected from tested cases in contemporary cities around the world. This lecture series introduces urban knowledge and how it has contributed to developing urban models and operational methods within different real-world contexts, shaping cities over time. It converts urban knowledge into practical tools derived from cities where they have been tested and proven effective, serving as valuable examples for understanding the formation of urban landscapes. These tools are grouped into twelve thematic categories and three scales for better comparison and cross-reflection. The case studies of these tools form a global urbanization toolbox, which we use as typological models to analyze and critically evaluate cities. The content aims to inspire future professionals and provide instruments for making informed design decisions. In an interview with a local designer, we compare our insights against the most urgent design issues facing cities today, including inclusion, affordable housing, public space provision, and infrastructure for all.

Resources