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Urban Constellation: Encountering the City
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This studio introduces you to an urban design process, challenges you to think critically about urban sites and programs, and asks you to consider the making of public space as a defining aspect of urban design practice. As a post-graduate studio, it is an occasion to critically reassess your existing design process and your ideas about urban design and urbanism.
This semester we use the notion of urbanconstellation as an armature for thinking about and working in the city. As an interpretive framework, constellating directs attention on the ever-shifting collection of physical and non-physical systems that interact to configure urban experience. As a design activity, constellating focuses on assembling the array of physical forms, infrastructural interconnections, development models and social agents needed to create new forms of public space. Finally, urban constellation reminds us that polishing the surface appearance of the city does not effect urban transformation. To create meaningful public space, the urban designer must also manipulate the underlying systems that structure urban experience.
The studio will build up, and upon, your understanding of the many factors shaping urban sites and programs. Throughout the semester we will apply rigorous analysis, assemble new representational tools and develop design techniques to create catalytic urban designs.
Three ambitions guide our studio curriculum:
1. To develop an Urban Design Process (the structure of the semester)
The semester frames an urban design process through a sequence that asks you to
• encounter the city, in all its physical manifestations
• understand those manifestations as “a constellation of urban effects”
• create urban design proposals that engage and impact the city as constellation of effects
We begin by tracing outward from a geographic “point” that marks the intersection of different urban systems in order to describe a site as a field of interactions. We end by projecting strategic effects of a “localized” action across that urban field. Along the way, we ask you to consider what an urban design project actively “does,” rather than what it objectively “is.”
2. To rethink Site and Program (the focus of the semester)
The studio focuses on the relationship between a site and its urban context and the role of program in urban design. Its objectives are twofold:
• To understand urban design sites as embedded simultaneously in many contexts.
• To develop urban programs that account for diverse (and shifting) agents, systems and scales.
We approach site and program as active and unstable constructions that must be created through the urban design process. If the physical design fields typically begin with a pre-designated “program” (treated as a neutral list of use-functions) and “site” (understood as the discrete, bounded place where design actions occur) we will treat the formation of site and program as the principal arena of urban design thinking.
3. To interrogate Public Space (the theme of the semester)
The field of urban design practice concerns public space making. As such, concepts and constructs of public space provide the studio’s thematic core. We begin with the premise that urban public space is layered, multi-scaled and comprised of overlapping conditions, programs, and practices. Over the course of the semester, you will be asked to locate, program and design a small urban public space for specific sites of your choosing. We will consider
• where urban public spaces might be found
• what urban public spaces can do
• how urban public spaces operate as a framework for urban life.
When treated as more than a simple, physically delimited place, the act of designing public space raises challenging questions of varied philosophical, political, social and psychological concern. Your proposals will be expected to engage such questions through provocative physical design.
Representation and Presentation (…or “A Note on Making as Communicating”)
In this studio, design is understood as a mode of critical inquiry. We encourage design-driven research and strive for design-based responses to challenging urban conditions. We therefore expect individuals to engage critically with the studio briefs that oblige each studio member to structure problems and formulate questions in specifically urban terms.
Representation, a key concern in urban design practice, is central to the studio work. By representation we refer to more than graphic techniques and formal composition. This studio treats models, diagrams and drawings (representations as artifacts) as material evidence of ways of thinking about design challenges (representations as urban ideas). We consider design a process of thinking through making, and we view each step in that process as the opportunity to hone design skills with precision and craft. To this end, the studio adopts an iterative working method. Emphasis on making and re-making invites constructive feedback and dialogue, and provides individual designers the means for testing new ideas. A studio archiving procedure (see Archiving Student Work) is intended to help you recast your design products and evaluate your design progress.
Urban design is a public endeavor, but a creative urban design process will, at times, be non-verbal and partly hermetic. While we will ask you to value and refine your design process, we also expect you to address real technical, material, and visual concerns in a concerted effort to realize conceptually rigorous design products. Further, you remain responsible for making your ideas accessible. Pursuing a public endeavor with multiple audiences, urban designers need to communicate design ideas to people without any formal design training. For this reason, the studio takes seriously the challenge of developing the necessary verbal and non-verbal communication skills to produce clear, coherent and convincing presentations.
The following page lays out, in overview form, the urban design process you will be asked to pursue this semester. It also introduces basic urban design concepts that will be encountered during the term.
Studio Logistics
Curriculum: The studio has three components: Design Studio class sessions, a Lunchtime Lecture Series, and a Symposium. Students are expected to attend all course components.
Studio Teaching: This studio is team-taught. Students will work with all studio faculty throughout all phases of the semester-long project. During this semester each student will be affiliated with a number of working sections, associated with different studio critics.
Office Hours: To schedule meetings regarding administrative issues, contact the studio coordinator: ak49@columbia.edu. Faculty contact information: charlie@local-studios.com (Charlie Cannon); ptd6@columbia.edu (Phu Duong); verbakel@Princeton.edu (Els Verbakel)
Attendance: Attendance is expected during all scheduled studio time: M/W/F 2:00 – 6:00 p.m. You are strongly encouraged to work in studio at all times. Attendance is mandatory at pin-ups and final reviews. Absence from any review could lead to a failing grade.
Grading: While all studio work is done in groups or teams, grading is based on each individual student’s design process and progress: consistent contribution to group work; articulation of clear design goals; development of coherent design proposals; verbal and graphic presentation skills; willingness to explore and test new modes of design research. Any student considered at risk of receiving a “Low Pass” or “Fail” grade will receive formal notification by letter. We provide these letters to insure individuals the opportunity to rectify their standing, as required. Receipt of final grades will depend on full submission of project documentation materials (see Archiving below).
Working in a Digital Studio: This studio is digitally supported (each student has a computer). While much of the content will be in digital format, students will be responsible to have legible printed material from their documentation process ready for use during each studio session (group critiques, section pin-ups and studio-wide public reviews). This hard copy plays a crucial part in the studio working process. During the course of the semester students will be asked to begin successive phases of both individual and group work with the use of previously documented material. These exhibits are viewed as valuable communication tools that (1) will be used to “organize” and propose narrative approaches in the design process, (2) will serve as visual place holders/reminders of questions/challenges/edits to “reevaluate” or resolve from past critiques, and (3) also are integrated to satisfy with the Studio, UD program, and GSAPP archive requirement. Physical model making also plays a key role in the studio working process, and the studio will have access to additional working space (Rooms 504 and 505) to facilitate their production.
Citing Work and Ideas: In producing a professional body of design research, you are required to acknowledge and cite sources for ALL material referenced in your work, graphic as well as textual (images, maps, charts, statistical information and data, as well as ideas and concepts that may be considered intellectual property).
Archiving Student Work: Work will be archived in digital CD format.
• Immediately following all reviews, a digital record of the work presented, including all relevant descriptive text, bibliographic information, must be submitted to the class TA [See UD Studio Archive Protocol].
• On the Friday, August 19th, of the week following the final review, studio “working groups” will collate the digital documentation of all phases of the semester long project, for use by the “web-master” in the preparation of the studio website.
At the end of each semester the GSAPP archives a selection of student work, and uses some of the images collected to represent the summer studio in the Abstract publication. Studio critics determine the projects for inclusion in the GSAPP archive. Each student group chosen will be responsible for following the Abstract submission procedure, available on the GSAPP web site in August. Files from your final UD studio archive are intended to help fulfill this school wide documentation process.
UD Studio Archive Protocol
Part 1: Capture images (see Standard File Naming Convention)
• Save/convert digital camera images as high-resolution tif files. Photograph artifacts with proper lighting and black cloth backdrop
• Save/export critical images from presentations (Powerpoint or Flash files, etc.), export as high-res tif files
• Scan of photographs or print materials at 200 dpi, save as tif files
• Movie files should be in Quicktime or Flash movie format (.mov and .swf)
Part 2: Transfer to work space (drive) on computer
• Create new folder/directory using due date of assignment or public review and full name
• For example: yymmdd_surname_firstname (no capital characters, no hyphens) or yymmdd_locationname
• Within this directory create subdirectories to store archive images, presentations, photos, diagrams, etc.
Part 3: Creating the Archive CD
• Create 2 CDs (2 identical copies to be submitted) that contain all the subdirectories created in Part 2 that organize all the archive files from Part 1. One CD will be for the Studio archive. The second CD will be for the UD program archive (At this time it is also wise and convenient to make an additional CD for your own back up purposes).
• To confirm a successful CD recording, test the new recorded CDs in a different computer before deleting files from local drive or server
• Label CDs. Note the Date, the Phase of work, Location, and list of all Group Members. Submit all archive material to the Studio TA on the archive due date.
Standard File Naming Convention and Archiving Considerations:
The following is a required file naming convention to use for all files submitted for archiving. The basic structure considers the date and author of the file. For group work use group location in place of author. For example, “yymmdd_surname_000.tif” or “yymmdd_location_000.tif”, where the triple digits serve as place holders for a sequence such as, 001, 002, 003, … 010, 011, 012, etc.
DO NOT USE CAPITALS CHARACTERS. DO NOT USE SPACES IN YOUR FILE NAMES. ONLY USE PERIODS FOR FILE EXTENSIONS. DO NOT USE HYPHENS IN YOUR FILE NAMES! Use only underscores for space separators.
Your work needs to be edited for grammar and spelling. Any errors maybe subject to resubmission or ultimately be unsuitable for public dissemination. We urge you to correct any writing, titling, or annotation errors in your work before submission of your archive.
Failure to complete the archive procedure in-full may result in a required resubmission and a hold on semester grades. All submitted material that is not properly labeled or may be illegible for publication will need to be resubmitted.
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