Advanced Urban Design Studio

Catalog description

This course provides advanced study for students majoring in the Sustainable Urbanism Program who want to concentrate on urban design considerations. The studio‘s purview expands beyond that of the prerequisite SURB 3011 (Introduction to Urban Design/Lab) to study the wide-ranging interrelationships of urban functional districts and infrastructural systems. With foundational perspectives of ecological sustainability and social equality, students in this project-based course analyze contemporary developmental plans for US and international cities. They learn to employ software applications to create 3-D representations of sectors in the urban matrix—commercial, residential, institutional, and recreational—and the systems that serve them—water, wastewater, energy, transportation, telecommunications, and digital. Working in small groups, students produce design proposals in response to instructor assignments; they also generate one large-scale individual project. Research in urban social, economic, and environmental data is brought to bear throughout the semester to address such urban justice issues as housing, digital resource access, and mobility. The studio aspires to engage design and planning concerns in a city other than New Orleans, working with a community partner(s) over several semesters to achieve continuity and assess recommendations. Students create deliverables to share with the studio’s partner that include graphic presentations and narrative reports