Speaker
Description
This paper focuses on the creation and implementation of a post-professional graduate program on urban development and design at UNSW, the Master of Urban Development and Design (MUDD).
The program was conceived with the conviction that urban design only has purchase on the reality of city making as an integral component of urban development. The complexity of this interrelationship demands years of study in a stand-alone, studio-based curriculum, grounded in experiential learning for graduate students from many disciplines.
The curriculum drew upon a synthesis of three bodies of knowledge about the city:
• spatial political economy, the manifestation in urban form of global patterns of capital formation, investment and disinvestment;
• urban design principles and paradigms, normative models of ‘good city form’ grounded in aesthetic, social and environmental concerns; and
• ‘urban design as public policy’, the intersection of public policy, design principles, the deal-making of the property sector and defence of the public realm.
Planning theory and practice as typically taught in the Anglophone world from a social science base is necessary but not sufficient for this educational endeavour. From the outset, the program was driven by two challenges of our time. First, urbanisation on an unprecedented scale in human history. Second, the emergence of the urban project as an instrument of late capitalism. Both entailed an international commitment in terms of the academic staff, student body, theoretical content and design studios overseas working with fellow universities, city agencies and eminent design firms. As a counterpoint to this strong international focus, urban development in Sydney was drawn upon as a continuing case study. The studio projects and associated research, which addressed critical urban issues across five continents, were documented in exhibitions and yearbooks as a cumulative teaching resource – a record of engagement with the complexities of physical city making for each new class of students and the design culture of Sydney.
References
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www.academia.edu/127965555/MUDD25_Reflections_on_the_interdisciplinary_nature_of_the_program.
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| Keywords | Urban Development; Urban Design; Urban Development & Design Pedagogy |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
