Spring 2017 Urban Design Ideals and Action j/4.247j Wed 2-4 PM units Room

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1 MIT School of Architecture and Planning Department of Urban Studies and Planning and Department of Architecture Spring 2017 Urban Design Ideals and Action j/4.247j Wed 2-4 PM units Room Instructor: Brent D. Ryan Stellar site: stellar.mit.edu/s/course/11/sp17/11.337/ Are there multiple urban designs, and if so, which one is correct? What urban design principles best fit different human environments, old and new? How can good urban design occur in democratic, decentralized settings? Is urban design a field of planning, large scale architecture, landscape, or something else? Urban design is an increasingly popular and powerful means of shaping settlement, influencing social forces, and accentuating economic activity via the purposeful manipulation of the built environment. Yet the form and realization of urban design are often uncertain. Contrasting ideologies, shifting power structures, and competing imperatives make designers jobs challenging. The result is that many human environments, except for a few historic centers and prestige projects, seem little impacted by urban design. At the same time, urban design is riven by ideological divisions between seemingly mutually incompatible groups with little in common. There is only a single city; how can there be multiple urban designs? How is one to evaluate (or decide) which urban design ideals to subscribe to? This course begins with four assertions. First, urban design is more than a series of stylistic choices; there are good design principles that transcend today s heavily promoted ideals. Second, the contrast between ideals and the overall lack of design in today s built environment is not inevitable: unrealized potential exists to shape human environments. Third, urban designers must generate both innovative formal ideas and novel means of realizing those ideas, for unrealized urban design cannot benefit people. Fourth, urban design need not associate itself with extremes of political or economic power to achieve its esthetic and functional aims- it can exist in democratic, pluralistic settings. Over the length of this course, we will explore each of these assertions. Urban Design Ideals and Action is organized as a weekly set of presentation, readings, and structure discussions. Our inquiry will center around ideals in the first half of the semester, and actions in the second. Ideals are theories about the form of the city and region. Ideals are proposed both in theory and in practice, and they usually occupy both of these terrains. Their esthetic assertions about the form of the city often compete with one another, and each ideal rarely admits the legitimacy of its competitors. Actions denote the ability for an urban designer to actually influence any given development condition. Actions both shape and are shaped by ideals. Actions require power, but urban designers have widely varying access to power in different settings; not all actions are available to all designers, nor all ideals.

2 Course outline The course is divided into two sections: urban design ideals (six weeks); and urban design action (six weeks). The final day of each section (March 16 and April 27) will be dedicated to generating conclusions for urban design in light of the section s investigations. Date Topic Feb 8 Course introduction Feb 15 Which Urbanism? Ideals in Conflict Feb 22 Ideals: Landscape and Infrastructure Mar 1 Ideals: Bigness and Architectural Urbanism Mar 8 Ideals: The Everyday Mar 15 Ideals: Neotraditionalism and New Urbanism Mar 22 Ideals: Patchworks and Pluralism Mar 29 No class (Spring Break) Apr 5 Action: Encouraging urban design: information and advocacy Apr 12 Action: Declaring urban design: the hortatory plan Apr 19 Action: Regulating urban design: zoning and guidelines Apr 26 Action: Constructing urban design I: public private partnerships May 3 Action: Constructing urban design II: public projects May 10 In-class project presentations May 17 In-class project presentations Course requirements Participants will be responsible for attending each week s class session; reading course materials prior to each session; and participating in class discussions. There are two primary course requirements: A midterm paper (4,000 words or approximately spaced pages) on urban design ideals, due March 16. Paper details will be circulated on February 22. An urban design guideline project for a site in Manhattan. Details will be circulated April 5. Please complete readings prior to each week s class. They will be posted on the course Stellar site at least one week prior to each meeting. Each week s readings will comprise around 75 to 100 pages.

3 Course Syllabus February 8 Course Introduction, go over syllabus February 15 Which Urbanism? Ideals in Conflict 1. Sorkin, Michael. The End(s) of Urban Design, pp in Krieger, A., et. al., eds., Urban Design Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2. Cuthbert, Alexander. Whose Urbanism? Journal of Urban Design 15(3), Review of Urban Design, Krieger and Saunders, eds., University of Minnesota Press, Duany, Andres. Duany vs Harvard GSD. November 3, 2010, Metropolis P/O/V February 22 Ideals: Landscape + Infrastructure Conversation with Roi Salgueiro, Research Fellow, Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism, MIT 1. Bélanger, Pierre. Is Landscape Infrastructure? Chapter Eight, pp in Is Landscape? Essays on the Identity of Landscape. London: Routledge, Corner, James. Terra Fluxus, in the Landscape Urbanism Reader. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006, pp Waldheim, Charles, Urbanism as Landscape, in Waldheim, C., ed., the Landscape Urbanism Reader. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006, pp March 1 Ideals: Bigness and Architectural Urbanism 1. Koolhaas, Rem, Bigness, pp in S M L XL Publishers, Amsterdam. 2. Frampton, Kenneth, Megaform as Urban Landscape. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Raoul Wallenberg Lecture, Aureli, Pier Vittorio. The Urban Archipelago: Oswalt Mathias Ungers, OMA, and the project of the city as archipelago. Pp in The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture. Cambridge: MIT Press, March 8 Ideals: The Everyday City Conversation with Daniel Campo, Associate Professor, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD and author, The Accidental Playground 1. Barker, Paul, Thinking the Unthinkable, and Banham, R. et. al., Non-Plan: An experiment in Freedom (originally in New Society, 20 March, 1969), Chapter 1 in Hughes, J., ed., Non-Plan: Essays on Freedom, Participation and Change in Modern Architecture and Urbanism. London: Architectural Press, 2000, pp Crawford, Margaret. Blurring the Boundaries: Public space and private life. In Chase et. al., eds., Everyday Urbanism. New York: Monacelli Press, 1999, pp

4 3. Campo, Daniel. Discovering and Engaging a Vacated Waterfront. Chapter One, The Accidental Playground: Brooklyn waterfront narratives of the undesigned and unplanned (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013) March 15 Ideals: Neotraditionalism and New Urbanism 1. Krier, Rob. Typological and Morphological Elements of the Concept of Urban Space, pp in Urban Space. New York: Rizzoli, Ellis, Cliff. The New Urbanism: Critiques and Rebuttals. Journal of Urban Design Vol. 7, No. 3, , Duany, Andres, and Talen, Emily. Transect Planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 68, No. 3, , March 22 Ideals: Patchworks and Pluralism 1. Banham, Reyner. The Art of the Enclave. Chapter Seven, pp in Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. New York: Penguin Books, Ryan, Brent D. Rightsizing Shrinking Cities: The urban design dimension. Chapter 12, pp in The City After Abandonment. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, Ryan, Brent D. Island, Grid, Periphery. Chapter 5 in Plural Urbanism (forthcoming 2017, MIT Press). March 26 No class (Spring Break) April 5 Action: Encouraging Urban Design: Information and Review 1. De Monchaux, John, and Schuster, Mark. Chapter One: Five Things to Do, pp Bianca, Stefano. Chapter Two: Direct Government Involvement, pp Both from Schuster et al., Preserving the Built Heritage: Tools for implementation. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. 2. Schuster, J. Mark. The Role of Design Review in Affecting the Quality of Urban Design: The Architect s Point of View. Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 14(3), Autumn 1997, Scheer, Brenda. The Debate on Design Review. Pp in Design Review: Challenging urban Aesthetic Control New York: Chapman and Hall. 4. Jack Nasar and Peg Grannis. Design Review Reviewed: Administrative versus Discretionary Methods Journal of the American Planning Association 65:4, April 12 Action: Declaring Urban Design: The Hortatory Plan 1. Haar, Charles M. The Master Plan: An Impermanent Constitution. Law and Contemporary Problems, 20:3, pp

5 2. Bell, Darren. The Emergence of Contemporary Masterplans: Property Markets and the Value of Urban Design. Journal of Urban Design 10:1, , Southworth, Michael. Theory and Practice of Contemporary Urban Design: A review of urban design plans in the United States. Town Planning Review 60:4, April 19 Action: Regulating Urban Design: Zoning 1. Barnett, Jonathan Chapter 13: Shaping Cities Through Development Regulations. In Redesigning Cities: Principles, Practice, Implementation. Washington D.C.: Planners Press, pp Barnett, Jonathan. Chapter One: Private enterprise and public benefit, pp , and Chapter Chapter Two: Designing Cities Without Designing Buildings, pp , in Urban Design as Public Policy New York: Architectural Record Books. 3. Baer, W.C. Toward Design of Regulations for the Built Environment. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 24(7), 1997, pp Lai, Richard. Designing the Invisible Web: New York City and San Francisco. Chapter 11, pp in The Invisible Web: Law in Urban Design and Planning New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. April 26 Action: Constructing Urban Design I: Public Private Partnerships 1. Kiefer, Matthew J. Chapter 7: Public Planning and Private Initiative: The South Boston Waterfront. In Urban Planning Today: A Harvard Design Magazine Reader. Minneapolis: The University of Minneapolis Press, Pp Sagalyn, Lynne. Deals for Development. Chapter 4, pp in Times Square Roulette: Remaking the City Icon Cambridge: MIT Press. 3. Sagalyn, Lynne. Public/Private Development: Lessons from History, Research, and Practice. Journal of the American Planning Association, 73:1, 2007, pp May 3 Action: Constructing Urban Design II: Public Projects 1. Kromer, John. Chapter 8, The Exercise of State Power: Municipal Reform and Eminent Domain in Camden, in Kromer, J., Fixing Broken Cities. New York: Taylor and Francis, 2010, pp Lai, Richard. Paying for the Power to Plan. Chapter 12, pp in The Invisible Web: Law in Urban Design and Planning New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. 3. Bianca, Stefano. Chapter Two: Direct Government Involvement, pp From Schuster et al., Preserving the Built Heritage: Tools for implementation Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. 4. Osborn, Frederick, and Whittick, Arnold. The New Towns: The Answer to Megalopolis. Selected chapters Cambridge: MIT Press.

6 May 10 Students present urban design buildouts, Day 1 May 17 Students present urban design buildouts, Day 2 (if required)