Introduction to Urban Design Studio

Catalog description

This course introduces students to fundamental urban design considerations. To that end, students will learn to manipulate basic software applications for representing physical elements of cities at multiple scales, from the block to the neighborhood, the district, and even to the metropolitan region. Students produce figure-ground studies through hands-on exercises examining in two dimensions the spatial relationships among buildings, streets, and open spaces that configure cities. They learn to analyze these relationships from a variety of perspectives that address such urban sustainability and environmental justice concerns as scale, density, function, zoning, land use, mobility, and environmental precarity and safety. Sourcing base maps that provide geographical data for their explorations, students create design analyses in response to instructor assignments focusing on local investigations. Through site visits, they learn descriptive skills that include sketching, photographic documentation, and observational field notes. Lectures and assigned readings emphasize the urban developmental history of New Orleans as well as comparative urban histories of other US cities. Students undertake critical analyses of contemporary urban designs not only in the US but also abroad that provide best-practice precedents for their assignments.