Urban Design Courses

Through theoretical perspectives, historical analyses, and weekly film screenings, students gain insights into dynamic connections between architecture, the city, and film examining the symbiotic...

Through theoretical perspectives, historical analyses, and weekly film screenings, students gain insights into dynamic connections between architecture, the city, and film examining the symbiotic relationship between cinematic storytelling and the built environment. The multidisciplinary approach fosters a comprehensive understanding of the interplay between the constructed urban environment and its cinematic representation, addressing social issues and themes that permeate urban spaces. By...

Connecting practice and theory, this course introduces the complexities of designing public space for changing urban conditions and public life. Lectures and readings will introduce students to the...

Connecting practice and theory, this course introduces the complexities of designing public space for changing urban conditions and public life. Lectures and readings will introduce students to the pressing issues of urbanism and the scope of urban design, from the morphology of cities to community engagement practices that shape more equitable, adaptive, and culturally responsive urban futures. Through precedents and case studies, students will gain an understanding of the processes and...

This online design media course trains students to read and construct representations of urban-scale spatial ideas with clarity, accuracy, and intention. Urban representation is taught both as a...

This online design media course trains students to read and construct representations of urban-scale spatial ideas with clarity, accuracy, and intention. Urban representation is taught both as a craft and as a method of thinking through drawing, diagramming, drafting, and modeling. Modes of representation include freehand drawing, diagramming, and technical drafting (conventions of plan and section) working with both analog and digital tools, and digital modeling. Students will be introduced...

Urban sites are inherently complex. This online seminar trains students to read a site through data, demography, history, culture, and lived experience. With a firm understanding of pluralism in the...

Urban sites are inherently complex. This online seminar trains students to read a site through data, demography, history, culture, and lived experience. With a firm understanding of pluralism in the public sphere, students then develop a persuasive narrative about the designed future grounded in evidence, public voice, and the public interest. The goal is an understanding that place is not a static construct; evolving accounts deepen as research continues and places transform. Students are...

This course is centered on the question of how people experience, think about, and contest urban form as social, cultural, environmental, and political conditions change. Study begins with the...

This course is centered on the question of how people experience, think about, and contest urban form as social, cultural, environmental, and political conditions change. Study begins with the Enlightenment, when science and reason treated physical form as something that could be studied, tested, and re-engineered, leading to the alteration of streets, public space, and the idea of what a city could become. Students move between close reading of plans and streets, key texts in urban theory and...

This online studio prepares students without prior design training for graduate work in urban design, introducing critical thinking, iterative making, and discussion as methods for understanding...

This online studio prepares students without prior design training for graduate work in urban design, introducing critical thinking, iterative making, and discussion as methods for understanding spatial composition, urban form, and human inhabitation. Through a series of urban-scale design projects of increasing complexity, students explore the creative processes of making and representing form and space, test and analyze spatial ideas, and understand strategies to investigate place, scale,...

This asynchronous graduate seminar connects urban economics, strategy, and city competition to design practice and the public value of urban change. Students learn how cities compete for capital,...

This asynchronous graduate seminar connects urban economics, strategy, and city competition to design practice and the public value of urban change. Students learn how cities compete for capital, residents, visitors, and talent, and how those contests influence regional economics, transportation, districts, streets, public spaces, and development choices. Through case studies, short memos, and a term project, the seminar breaks down economic forces, real estate logic, transportation strategy,...