Faculty of Engineering & the Built Environment
Aspects of City Design
Objectives
An internationally respected October 2008 United Nations report rated South African cities as the most inequitable in the world (UN Habitat, ‘State of the World’s Cities 2008/2009’). On the evidence of their existing structure, form and poor performance, they are not simply unjust: they are also inefficient, unsustainable and virtually unlivable for many, particularly the poor majority.
A major contributing cause of this situation is that there appears to be no shared agreement amongst professionals concerned with the built environment about the nature of the urban problem or about a vision of what it is they should collectively be seeking to achieve. Moreover, the gap between government and professional rhetoric on the matter of settlement-making, on the one hand, and the actual practice, on the other, appears to be growing rather than narrowing. Arguably, neither urban policy nor professional practice in contemporary South Africa is sufficiently grounded on ways of approaching settlement design in contexts where poverty and inequality are endemic and where there are significant resource and capacity constraints. Contemporary settlement-making practice continues to be based largely on the concepts, formulations and general mindset of the ‘Brave New World’ of so-called ‘Modern Town Planning’, now about a century old, with origins in Europe and the United States of America, not in a developing-country, post-colonial and post-apartheid context.
Yet, people have been making settlements for over 5,000 years in many parts of the world. This short course presents an overview of pre-industrial, modernist and post-modernist settlement-making theory and practice, so as to better project the major current issues in contemporary South African settlement-making. On the basis of a long-term view, the course seeks to provide a forum for the articulation of an appropriate settlement-making approach for South Africa at the current time. It is aimed at all built environment professionals ─ engineers, urban planners, urban designers, architects, landscape architects and environmental and heritage practitioners. It is a course that complements one offered at UCT during the past three years and to be offered again later this year, entitled ‘Placing Design central to Urban Decision Making’.
This course was successfully offered last year and has been prepared as a stand-alone introductory course that may inform the wider debates about settlement-making in our country at the current time.
Course Content
The course is an exploration into the physical structure and form of cities. Its general purpose is to develop awareness and understanding about the making of cities and about the degree to which they accommodate and celebrate life and living. Its specific purposes are:
to develop literacy in urban form in two senses;
(i).acquire skills in the reading of urban structure,
(ii).acquire basic knowledge about the art of settlement-making as exemplified in many traditions worldwide, spanningmillenia;
to expand the sense of possibilities in urban form;
to develop awareness of the nature of urbanity.
In the process, the role and responsibility of the many urbanists,and the public at large, in the making of settlement will be explored. Course content includes:
A rapid, introductory survey of urban developments of our time, attempting to come to an understanding of the major forces which have shaped recent settlements.The dimensions of change and growth. The ruling notions which order growth;
In contrast to modern cities, some lost qualities of cities of the past;
Discovering relationships as informants to the achievement of meaningful, relevant and, therefore, efficient living environments;
The urban-rural relation as a positive position, not a romantic idea;
A bundle of relationships of interdependence;
The relationship between the programmatic and the order of physical structure;
The relations between the process of building and the form;
A more in depth survey of the ruling ideas in settlement-making that emerged as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution.Exploring intentions and the interpretations of intentions.A critical review of the ways of thinking. The dreams explored;
Postulating fundamental and supportive settlement-making ideas through the organised use of precedent, both local and overseas;
Understanding Order, Structure and Process and their relation to Form;
Exploring the questions: What orders? What structures?
Seeing process as part of context;
Some observations on the nature and process of design;
Some fundamental, performance-based Ideas;
Balance;
Freedom;
Community;
Diversity;
Interdependence;
Equity;
Context: that which gives reality to idea. The concept of warp. Time and Place: the continuum of people and land;
Return to the problem of number and scale.
Course Lecturer
The convenor and lecturer of the course, Prof. Fabio Todeschini, is an architect, city planner and urban designer, an academic and a practitioner. The intention, however, is to make the course as interactive as possible.
Course Information
Who should attend?
The course will benefit all who are involved in the built environment. This includes engineers, land surveyors, architects, landscape architects, urban planners, urban designers, heritage and environmental practitioners. The course is widely applicable and designed to satisfy the multi-disciplinary nature of urban development and urban growth management.
Format
The course will comprise twelve two-hour sessions and will meet twice a week.
Cost
The fee for the total 24-hour course will be R5800.00. Discounts for staff and students of UCT, and students of other tertiary education institutes are available under certain circumstances.
Certificates
A certificate of attendance will be awarded to all course members who attend a minimum of 10 of the 12 sessions.
CPD Credit Requirements
The course is registered with the Engineering Council of South Africa, the Cape Institute for Architectureand the Urban Design Institute of South Africa (Western Cape) and is accredited for the award of CPD points, which are now required for continuing professional registration. The ECSA course code is UCTACD13
Applications and cancellations
In order to ensure a place on the course applicants should complete and return a signed registration form to the course administrators: Heidi Tait or Sandra Jemaar:
Confirmation of acceptance will be sent on receipt of an application form.
Payment is due one week before the start of a course.
Cancellations must be received one week before the start of a course, or the full course fee will be charged
Venue
Seminar Room, Chemical Engineering Building, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town.
Date and Time
17h30 – 19h30
Tuesday 2 April
Thursday 4 April
Tuesday 9 April
Thursday 11 April
Tuesday 16 April
Thursday 18 April
Tuesday 23 April
Thursday 25 April
Tuesday 30 April
Thursday 2 May
Tuesday 7 May
Thursday 9 May
Registration
17h00, 2 April 2012, just before the first lecture
Foyer Chemical Engineering Building
Corner Ring Rd and South Lane
Upper Campus
University of Cape Town
Lecture Programme and Course Content
Twice Weekly starting on 2 April – 9 May, 5.30 – 7.30pm, as noted below session by session (12 Sessions over 6 weeks, comprising a total of 24 hours).
Tuesday 2 April
Session 1: Introduction
Double lecture, discussion.
- Lecture: The main informants of Modernist urban developments: the ruling ideas
- Lecture: Some city qualities we appear to have lost under Modernism
- The overall purpose, structure and content of the course
- Housekeeping, Participants and Discussion of references relied on in the course
Thursday 4 April
Session 2: Ideas, Theories and Practice I
Two lectures and some discussion.
- Vital relationships and how these affect people as the basic measure
- The architecture and design of public space arising as a consequence
- Introduction to the Industrial Revolution and the resulting city: a turning point in history
- Responses: Socio-urban constructs: social utopias (Owen et al) and company towns
Tuesday 9 April
Session 3: Ideas, Theories and Practice II
Two lectures and some discussion.
- Socio-urban constructs continued: Garden Cities: ideas of Howard, Perry and Stein
- Regionalism and the metropolitan imperative: the ideas of Geddes, McKaye, Mumford and Odum
Thursday 11 April
Session 4: Ideas, Theories and Practice III
Two lecturesand some discussion.
- Functionalist-rationalist constructs: the ideas of Soria Y Mata, Garnier, the Futurists and the Constructivists
Tuesday 16 April
Session 5: Ideas, Theories and Practice IV
Two lectures and some discussion.
- Functionalist-rationalist constructs continued: the ideas of F L Wright and Le Corbusier
Thursday 18 April
Session 6:Theories and Practice V
Two lectures and some discussion.
- Functionalist-rationalist constructs continued: the further ideas of Le Corbusier and the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM)
In reaction to CIAM: the ideas of Team 10, New Urbanism, Heritage and Environmental Conservation, Post-modernism, etc
Tuesday 23 April
Session 7:Theories and Practice VI
Two lectures and some discussion.
- The contemporary scene: many aerial views of international settlements compared at two scales:
–What orders / What structures?
–What is the public realm?
–What appear to be the institutions?
–What are the elements of the pattern?
–Is there repetition of patterns?
–What appear to be the dominant scales of the patterns?
–Is the texture of settlement fine- or coarse-grained?
–Are the patterns unique, or are they generic?
- The case study of the historic Indian city of Jaipur
Thursday 25 April
Session 8:Theories and Practice VII
Two lectures and some discussion.
- Some observations on the nature and process of settlement design
- The case study of the historic city of Esfahan, Iran
Tuesday30 April
Session 9:Theories and Practice VIII
Two lectures and some discussion.
- Some fundamental ideas proposed: two aspects of Balance
Thursday2 May
Session 10:Theories and Practice IX
Two lectures and some discussion.
- Some fundamental ideas proposed continued: the third aspect of Balance
- The fundamental idea of Freedom
Tuesday7 May
Session 11:Theories and Practice X
Two lectures and some discussion.
- The fundamental ideas of Community, Diversity, Interdependence and Equity
Thursday9 May
Session 12:Theories and Practice XI
Two lectures, course evaluation and a final discussion.
- Context: that which gives reality to idea. The concept of warp. Time and Place: the continuum of people and land;
- Return to the problem of number and scale;
Course evaluation.
Note: This course is accredited with The Cape Institute for Architecture for 2.4 CPD points.
This course is accredited with the Engineering Council of South Africa for 2.4 CPD points.
CPD Programme, Engineering Faculty, Menzies Building, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town
Private Bag X3, Rondebosch, 7701
Tel: ++27 (0)21 6505793; Fax: ++27 (0)21 6502669; email: ; web: