4.252
Introduction to Urban Design and Development
Examines the physical and social structure of cities and ways they can be changed. Includes significant thinkers in urban form, 20th-century American city design, urban design and society, global urban design, and design of neighborhoods and streets. Core lectures are supplemented by student papers examining the relationship of contemporary projects to history and theory, and factors of high quality global urban design and development. Guest speakers present cases involving current projects or research illustrating scope and methods of urban design theory and practice. Intended for those seeking an introduction to fundamental knowledge of theory and praxis in city design and development.
Fall 2016
This course examines both the structure of cities and the ways they can be changed. It introduces graduate students to theories about how cities are formed, and the practice of urban design and development, using U.S. and international examples. The course is organized into two parts: Part 1 analyzes the forces which act to shape and to change cities; Part 2 surveys key models of physical form and social intervention that have been deployed to resolve competing forces acting on the city. This course includes models of urban analysis, contemporary theories of urban design, and implementation strategies. Lectures in this course are supplemented by discussion periods, student work, and field trips.
Readings
- Robert Fishman. “The Open and the Enclosed: Shifting Paradigms in Modern Urban Design” in Banerjee, Tridib, and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, eds. Companion to Urban Design . Routledge, 2011. ISBN: 9781138776548.
- “Introduction, Word Game, Fixes” in Clay, Grady. Close-Up: How to Read the American City . University of Chicago Press, 1980. ISBN: 9780226109459.
- Koch, Regan, and Alan Latham. “Presenting and Imagining the City” in Paddison, Ronan, and Eugene McCann, eds. Cities and Social Change: Encounters with Contemporary Urbanism . Sage, 2014. ISBN: 9781848601109.
- Whitehill, Walter Muir. Boston: A Topographical History . Belknap Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780674002685.
- Campbell, Robert, and Peter Vanderwarker. Cityscapes of Boston: An American City Through Time . Houghton Mifflin, 1992. ISBN: 9780395581193.
- SES #: 4 · TOPICS: Walking Tour of Boston · READINGS: No readings
- “The Urban System and Urban Structure” in Morrill, Richard. The Spatial Organization of Society . Duxbury Press, 1974. ISBN: 9780878720576.
- “The City as a Growth Machine” in Logan, John R., and Harvey Molotch. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place . University of California Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780520254282.
- Sherman, Roger. “Counting on Change: Property” in Varnelis, Kazys, ed. The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles . Actar, 2008. ISBN: 9788496954793.
- “The Uses of City Neighborhoods” in Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities . Vintage, 2016. ISBN: 9780679741954.
- Sklar, Holly. “Creating a Sustainable Urban Village: The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative,” and “Real Insurance.” Orion 15, no. 4 (Autumn 1996): 28-38.
- “Grand Design” in Sutcliffe, Anthony. The Autumn of Central Paris: The Defeat of Town Planning, 1850-1970 . London: Edward Arnold, 1970.
- “The Warp on the Loom” in Caro, Robert. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York . Knopf, 1974. ISBN: 9780394720241.
- Langdon, Philip. “Eminent Domain Goes to Court.” Planning 71, no. 4 (2005): 12-15.
- SES #: 8 · TOPICS: Recitation Session, Assignment 1: Urban Change · READINGS: No readings
- “Designing Cities Without Designing Buildings” in Barnett, Jonathan. An Introduction to Urban Design . HarperCollins, 1982. ISBN: 9780064301145.
- SES #: 10 · TOPICS: Case Study: Private Development and Public Benefits · READINGS: No readings
- Pages 1-20 in Davis, Mike. Planet of Slums . Verso, 2007.
- Beasley, Larry. “Living First in Downtown Vancouver.” APA Zoning News , April 2000.
- SES #: 13 · TOPICS: Recitation Session · READINGS: No readings
- Campbell, Robert. “After the Big Dig, the Big Question: Where’s the Vision?” The Boston Globe . May 26, 2002.
- -- –. “A Walk in Progress: A Tour of the (More or Less) Finished Sections of the new Greenway Reveals That Intentions Have Been Met - And Missed.” The Boston Globe . December 2, 2007.
- SES #: 15 · TOPICS: City Making IV: The Design and Development Process · READINGS: No readings
- SES #: 16 · TOPICS: Discussion of Assignment 1 · READINGS: No readings
- Kostof, Spiro. The City Assembled: The Elements of Urban Form Through History . Thames & Hudson, 2005. ISBN: 9780500281727.
- “New Towns in New England” and “Carolina and Georgia” in Reps, John William. Town Planning in Frontier America . University of Missouri Press, 1980. ISBN: 9780826203168.
- “Master Plan for Poundbury Development in Dorchester” in Martin, Christopher. Prince Charles and the Architectural Debate . St. Martin’s Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780312040482.
- “The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh Visit Poundbury.” The Duchy of Cornwall. Press release, March 8, 1998.
- Sitte, Camillo, George Roseborough Collins, and Christiane Crasemann Collins. Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning: with a Translation of the 1889 Austrian Edition of His City Planning According to Artistic Principles . Rizzoli, 1986. ISBN: 9780486451183.
- “The Monumental City” in Barnett, Jonathan. The Elusive City: Five Centuries of Design, Ambition and Miscalculation . HarperCollins, 1986. ISBN: 9780064301558.
- Supovitz, Marjorie, and Judith Wechler. Gyorgy Kepes: The MIT Years 1945-1977 . MIT Press Visual Arts Series, 1978. ISBN: 9780262610278.
- SES #: 22 · TOPICS: Case Study: Mid-Century Modern City · READINGS: Introduction, Chapter 8 in Mumford, Eric Paul, and Hashim Sarkis, eds. Josep Lluís Sert: The Architect of Urban Design, 1953-1969 . Yale University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780300120653.
- “World of Tomorrow” in Bush, Donald. The Streamlined Decade . Braziller, 1975. ISBN: 9780807607930.
- “A Contemporary City” and “The Working Day” in Corbusier, Le. The City of To-Morrow and Its Planning . Courier Corporation, 1987. ISBN: 9780486253329.
- Fishman, Robert. “Beyond Sprawl: The New American Metropolis” in Boelling, Lars and Thomas Sieverts, eds. In the Middle of the Edge: From the Suburb to Sprawl to the Regional City . Wuppertal, Germany: Mueller and Busmann, 2004.
- Mostafavi, Mohsen. “Landscapes of Urbanism” and Corner, James. “Landscape Urbanism” in Mostafavi, Mohsen, and Ciro Najle, eds. Landscape Urbanism: A Manual for the Machinic Landscape . London: Architectural Association, 2003.
- Waldheim, Charles. “Landscape as Urbanism” and Shane, Grahame. “The Emergence of Landscape Urbanism” in Waldheim, Charles, ed. The Landscape Urbanism Reader . Princeton Architectural Press, 2006. ISBN: 9781568984391.
- Spirn, Anne Whiston. “Ecological Urbanism” in Banerjee, Tridib, and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, eds. Companion to Urban Design . Routledge, 2011. ISBN: 9781138776548
- Girot, Christophe. “Vers une nouvelle nature” in Institute for Landscape Architecture. Landscape Architecture in Mutation: Essays on Urban Landscape . GTA Verlag, 2005. ISBN: 9783856761578.
- Davis, Michael. “Fortress Los Angeles: The Militarization of Urban Space” in Sorkin, Michael, ed. Variations on a Theme Park: THe New American CIty and the End of Public Space . Hill and Wang, 1992. ISBN: 9780374523145.
- “Unlocking the Gated Community” in Low, Setha. Behind the Gates: Life, Security, and the Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress America . Routledge, 2004. ISBN: 9780415950411.
- Chapter 5 in Low, Setha, and Neil Smith, eds. The Politics of Public Space . Routledge, 2013. 9780415951395.
- SES #: 27 · TOPICS: Recitation Session · READINGS: Please submit a journal (any length) reflecting on the readings in the second half of the course. Questions to consider: what planning strategies/tools could be employed to reshape the city or suburbs? What strategies/tools of change are in the plan you are studying?
- “Time-Space Compressiong and the Postmodern Condition” in The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change . Wiley-Blackwell, 1991. ISBN: 9780631162940.
- Brown, Denise Scott and Robert Venturi. Architecture as Signs and Systems: For a Mannerist Time . Belknap, 2004. ISBN: 9780674015715.
- “Advanced Services, Information Flows, and the Global City” in Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society: The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture . John Wiley & Sons, 2011. ISBN: 9781405196864.
- Frenchman, Dennis and William J. Mitchell. “The Digital City” in Ratti, Carlo, ed. Digital Water Pavilion at Zaragoza’s Milla Digital and Expo 2008 . Milan: Electa, 2008. ISBN: 9788837064686.
- SES #: 31 · TOPICS: Wrap Up, Discussion of Assignment 2 · READINGS: No Readings
Prerequisites & course information
Same subject as 11.301[J] Prereq: Permission of instructor G (Fall) Not offered regularly; consult department 3-0-9 units
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Fall 2016
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.