| CODE | SPI5711 | ||||||||
| TITLE | Urban Design and Spatial Continuum | ||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 05 - Postgraduate Modular Diploma or Degree Course | ||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 7 | ||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 5 | ||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Spatial Planning and Infrastructure | ||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | This study-unit focuses on the different theoretical and analytical perspectives on the meaning of the city, and the understanding of the critical urban paradigms that exist in the city, through formal lectures, but especially seminars and workshops that will possibly also include a field trip. It seeks to analyse different city areas at different scales, including the metropolitan scale, in order to understand different types of city morphology and to draw comparisons to the Maltese conurbation. Study-unit Aims: Students will apply the fundamental and theoretical principles of urban design to understanding the overlapping qualities that layer and make the city a functional and/or dysfunctional urban space. A specific city (local or foreign), or selection of cities, will provide the frame work for students to engage in a practical and analytical investigative approach and/or empirical fieldwork that is "tested" and critiqued through a series of seminars, conducted and curated through group work presentations. This will be done using different methods of representation in order to best represent observations of different city contexts – applying mixed forms of verbal, text, mapping, model making, film, and other methods. Drawing the lessons, critiques and analytical methods from the cities, the study-unit subsequently seeks to apply them to the Maltese conurbation. In this way, students will learn to see Malta at a different scale, the 'city' scale, as opposed to the traditional fragmented scale of small, individual urban settlements. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Build knowledge of critical questions/issues of urban design relevance, related to the city/settlement being analyzed; - Test the different urban spatial scales that exist in specific urban areas in the city, that would yield variations in results; - Critically engage in an objective manner, the overlapping architectural and urban paradigms that exist in the city from an observer perspective. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Deploy "responsive urban design" at different scales of the urban fabric; - Participate in discourse concerning the resulting themes and observations analyzed and represented through the series of texts, drawings and other forms; - Develop advanced group work and collective practice; - Filter gathered/empirical research in a clear and analytic method. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: - Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S. and Silverstein, M. (1977). A pattern language: towns, buildings, construction. New York: Oxford University Press. - Bosma, K. and Hellinga, H. (ed.)(1997). Mastering the City: North European City Planning, 1900-2000. Rotterdam: NAI Publishers. - Burdett, R. and Sudjic, D. (2007).The Endless City: The Urban Age Project by the London School of Economics and Deutsche Bank's Alfred Herrhausen Society. London: Phaidon. - Butina Watson, G. and Bentley, I. (2007). Identity by design. Amsterdam; London : Butterworth-Heinemann. - Carmona, M. (2014). The place-shaping continuum: a theory of urban design process. Journal of Urban Design, 19(1), pp. 2-36. - Carmona, M. and Burgess, R. (2001). Strategic Planning and Urban Projects – Responses to Globalisation from 15 Cities. Delft: DUP Science. - Farrell, T. (2010). Shaping London: the patterns and forms that make the metropolis. Chichester: Wiley. - Hillier, B. (1996). Space is the machine: a configurational theory of architecture. New York; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - Kostof, S. (1991). The city shaped: urban patterns and meanings through history. London: Thames and Hudson. - Kostof, S. (1999). The city assembled: the elements of urban form through history; with the collaboration of Greg Castillo. Boston; London: Little, Brown. - LeGates, R.T and Stout, F. (ed.)(2011). The city reader. 5th ed. London: Routledge. - Madanipour, A. (1997). Ambiguities of urban design. Town Planning Review, 68(3), pp.363-383. - Ortiz, P. (2014). The art of shaping the metropolis. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. - Panerai, R., Castex, J., Depaule, J. and Samuels, I. (2004). Urban forms: the death and life of the urban block; English edition and additional material by Ivor Samuels; translated by Olga Vitale Samuels. Oxford: Architectural Press. - Thadani, D.A. (2010). The Language of Towns & Cities: A Visual Dictionary. New York: Rizzoli. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture, Independent Study, Seminar and Workshop | ||||||||
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| LECTURER/S | Jacques Borg Barthet Wendy-Jo Mifsud Sarah Scheiber Antoine Zammit |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2024/5. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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