Professor Joseph Heathcott will be teaching The Design of Cities, a Milano seminar course we encourage students from both the DUE and TUP programs to take. This course is especially useful for developing research skills and has been helpful to alumni from both programs before.

From Prof. Heathcott:

 

This seminar investigates major themes in the planning and design of metropolitan environments in a globalizing age.  We examine these practices in an international context, drawing on a wide range of cases.   We study the applications of urban planning and design to such elements as housing, property, land use, streets, transportation, public art, industry, parks, historic preservation, adaptive reuse, leisure and entertainment.  In all cases, we place these practices into the broader ambit of urban politics, policy, and social relations.  The animating question of the course is this: how do multiple competing and colluding interests shape the planning and design of cities, and how do cities reflect these struggles in their built forms?
 
Students will benefit from this course by developing a more comprehensive understanding of urban design and planning.  Through readings, discussions, films, and guest speakers, we explore the ways in which planning and design shape the physical, aesthetic, and social experience of cities.  Students learn to read the signatures of design embedded in built landscapes, to form critical understandings of urban planning and design schemes, and to assess their impact on people and environments.  In this way, students gain the capacity to build bridges between professions such as urban planning, design, architecture, and landscape architecture.  Ultimately, the course will better position students to work across intellectual and practice boundaries to address the most pressing problems of cities.
 
Information for Registration:
NURP 5036.A (CRN 7970) — The Design of Cities  
Wed, 6-7:50pm