URD1508H S
Instructor: Kanwal Aftab
Meeting Section: L0101
Wednesday, 6:00 - 9:00 p.m.
 

“Every city has an underlying operating code…signs and signals, lanes and markings, sidewalk and crossings, together these elements program the basic function of the street. The operating code is the underlying language that is given when street design intersects with people. But it’s the operation of the street – when we walk and when we don’t, the way we stop and go, the intuitive way we understand the road as well as drive, walk and bike along it, that reveals the code’s deeper meaning and its gaps.”

- Street Fight, Janette Sadik-Khan. (2017)

 

Streets are social, political and commercial arteries of cities and have a role to play in historically transformative moments of the city. However, they have been designed for the last century to keep traffic moving and have proven insufficient to support the life alongside them. As a result, inefficiently designed streets are increasingly the sites for chronic congestion, traffic deaths and political strife.

Driven by a desire for placemaking, in urban design and real estate speculation, public realm elements such as parks and enhanced streetscapes are now seen as instrumental in creating land value not just supporting it. This recent shift foregrounds the role of streets in urban form beyond mobility as an essential part of integrating infrastructures, both visible and invisible. In this way integrative street design can be understood as a driving force in the creation of circular communities, neighborhood character and urban identity.

This course will learn from precedents and best practices to present a theory of environmental and social agendas in street design. Case studies of urban form will be discussed in the context of their socio-economic frameworks. The aim of the course is to equip students with critical skills to understand how street design must negotiate public and private interests in the built environment and challenge the limits of design as an agent in the making of streets. Deliverables will be graphic, and approach Urban Design as a collaborative project. To this end, the course assumes a base competency of 2-D and 3-D software skills.