Introduction: Urban Design Kaleidoscope 2017

2017

With this anniversary publication we celebrate 20 years of urban design at Aalborg University. The contributors to the publication are students, graduates, and faculty members, who have generously sharpened their pens and minds for this diverse collection of essays and accompanying illustrations. The resulting collaborative catalogue celebrates urban design teaching and research at AAU, and the urban design practice by graduates from this program. Authors have been invited to contribute with a brief essay, focused on a pertinent urban design issue of their own selection. Together they form a rich collection of subjects, concepts, objects, projects, and questions, which have been-and still are-on our minds in urban design throughout the past 20 years. The richness and variation demonstrated by the catalogue is in keeping with urban design's orientation towards diverse considerations when addressing contemporary urban challenges. The past years of AAU urban design endeavours have demonstrated that urban design is about acting within networks of multiple interests, concerns, stakeholders, and other actors. Urban design is perhaps well conceived of as a sensibility of the 'urban-minded', as Harvard GSD dean José Luis Sert suggested at the world's first Urban Design conference in 1956. This somewhat indefinite inception for urban design still persists, and clarity of definition seems to be defied. Rather, in the engaged attempts to operate with synthesis in the ever-changing complexity of the urban condition, urban design's elusive mandate and purpose remains in debate. If attempting to stir up this hornet's nest of urban design's contemporary raison d'etre and scope, multiple co-existing positions impose themselves. Just some of these include: Koolhaas' radical Fuck Context and push to leave architectural delusions of potency and splendor, next to Gehl's human-friendly 'let's meet between the buildings' agenda, next to Mostafavi's optimistic call for a cross-disciplinary sensibility to respond to the ecological crisis, next to Harvey's sturdy emphasis on power, justice, and the right to the city, next to Jacobs' and Appleyard's manifesto of e.g., livability, community, and public life as normative goals of urban design. This multiplicity suggests that to be an urban designer demands skillful and flexible navigation across complex issues of cities and countrysides. Urban designers must work with many elements with meticulousness and readiness. We must strive to continuously adapt to situations and to even be at the forefront of change. This also applies to urban design teaching and research at AAU, as well as to the practices of graduates. For these reasons, this publication offers its modest space for engaged professionals and students to address the diversity and variation of urban design through what they determine to be pertinent urban design matters. Thus, the contemporary versatility of urban design is reflected in this kaleidoscopic catalogue, addressing such diverse issues as urban design's social ambitions; affective encounters of urban space; the conceptualisation of spaces, landscapes, and buildings; relationships between local sites and global change; ecology; events and culture in the city; urban design's role in a complex field of interests and actors driving urban development and planning; dreams of the future; technologies; continuous urban change; experimental methods; and disputed concepts. We are proud to present these voices, and we invite you to dive into them. Thanks to all the contributors for sharing! Last but not least, thanks to the Spar Nord Foundation for its generous funding of this publication, as well as to the Study Board of Architecture & Design and to the Section of Architecture & Urban Design at the

Since its emergence and rise to significance over the fast 30 years urban design has been loosely defined. In this regard, its definition can be grouped into categories of being cursory, qualitative and prescriptive, historic, proprietary and process oriented. A practical definition, i.e. with regard to its status as a field, sees urban design as being form-giving to built environments as a primary activity involving the professions of architecture, landscape architecture and planning. In addition, 'thresholds of scale' factor into a practical definition whereby interrelationships of building site, neighbourhoods and districts, the city, metro region and 'corridors' are building blocks of design intervention. Quality of life, the public realm and process are significant aspects of the thresholds of scale.

This Master's Programme emphasises an explorative orientation and a research by design approach in order to unfold the professional profile, skill and scope of the design professions.

The greatest challenges of the 21st century will presumably require tremendous shifts in the way cities, neighborhoods and buildings are formed, designed and shaped. While the regulations and constrains predicated primarily by environmental concerns steadily rise the role of planners, urban designers, architects and engineers in shaping metropolitan cities and urban areas of the future will, more than likely, remain in the forefront of providing unparalleled vision and innovation.

2015

2016

Though urban design is historically rooted in development of cities, urban design, as a contemporary discipline, is relatively new compared to associated disciplines of architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture. Urban design’s close connection with these allied disciplines has also been the reason for its ambiguous nature, and its muddled definition. Accordingly, it is claimed here that a reexamination of the definition, status, and role of urban design is essential for the future directions of urban design as a discipline and cities as sustainable environments. In line with this, this article provides a critical framework regarding the current understanding of the discipline of urban design which is based on form, policy and efficiency, and highlights the need for place oriented approaches performed in an interdisciplinary working framework. The paper first focuses on the meaning and significance of urban design, and discusses the problems with the manner in which ur...

2017

The book respectively addresses the following seven basic domains in which urban design operates in the way of a more definite and deliberate definition of the field: ideology, sociology, morphology, bio-ecology, methodology, pedagogy and praxis. Representing a specific research field by in itself, each domain actually involves a certain series of questions, which are still subject to be investigated by various studies and explorations.

2016

Toward an Urban Design Manifesto was prepared by Alan Jacobs and Donald Appleyard, two notable United States urban design practitioners and academics. The former is perhaps best known for his books Great Streets (1995), The Boulevard Book (2003) and The Good City: Reflections and Imaginations (2011) and the latter for his important Livable Streets (1981) published before his tragic early death in a car accident in 1982.

2019

This paper examines the relative emphasis of urban and design in theories and practices of urban design. Traditionally, urban design has been conceived as a discourse in design and has been practiced as an extension of architecture, urban planning, and civil engineering. Post-modern critical thinking, in recent literature, questions the design dominance and calls for understanding complex relationships of politics, economics, sociology, behavior, and environment embedded in the urban context. In the prevalent paradigm, urban designers are primarily trained as architects, planners or engineers, each having one’s own design bias. Architects see design as formal orientation in space. Planners conceive design as implementation of policies reflecting social and economic values. Engineers understand design as efficiency in production. This eclectic approach of urban design creates a partitioned education model with conflicts and contradictions. This paper posits an inclusive model with the focus on urban instead of design. Such an approach defines the uniqueness of urban design. It allows opportunities of interrelationships and interactions among multiple disciplines and diverse issues. The inclusive approach is teleological (process oriented), relevant (specific), and catalytic (empowering). Rethinking the pedagogy of urban design is critical in understanding diverse roles urban design can play in the process of placemaking and in defining specific responsibilities urban designers can have in the society. Balance of urban and design in teaching should be explored. Proportion of the two may vary based on specific needs and individual programs. This is significant in developing urban design courses reflecting heterogeneity and complexity of the current urban environment. Further opportunities exist in applying this pedagogic model in areas of sustainable development, smart growth, and design research. Keywords: Urban Design, Pedagogy, Urban theory, Placemaking