Time Schedule:
Jeffrey Hou
L ARCH 362
Seattle Campus
Introduction to the design of landscape in urban contexts. Overview of major urban design theories and examples of historic and contemporary work. Discussion of the contesting urban processes: visions of city, social and cultural factors, public and community process, and the discourses of nature, urban ecology, and ecological design.
Class description
The practice of urban design is faced with increasing complexity in the urban environment. An investigation of the complexity should address not only site-scale design issues but also the broader processes that shape urban spaces, experiences, and discourses. This course builds on the materials introduced in LARC 341 Site Planning, LARC 361 Human Experience of Landscape to examine the multiple and competing forces that influence the making of urban landscapes. It addresses urban design from a landscape perspective that sees the urban environment as a continuum of movements, processes, and change. In examining the multiple forces shaping urban forms and processes, it investigates different paradigms and visions of cities, contestations of meanings and understanding, the social and political process of placemaking, and phenomenology and imaginaries of urban space. Cases from the U.S., Pacific Rim, Europe and Latin America are introduced to contrast and compare design practice with the everyday realities of urban landscape. While exploring the broader contexts of urban processes, the course also explores specific design strategies and devices that could begin to negotiate the competing social and spatial forces in urban landscapes.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
