Content and lessons organisationt

The integrated course Contemporary City: Descriptions and Projects is organised in two sections, which are strictly connected and integrated: Urban Planning and Design and Infrastructure and Urban Planning.
The course aims is to allow students to analyse and discuss the main questions of new urban planning and design profiles, starting from a new description of physical and social dimensions of the contemporary city dynamics and changes. The approach is referred to several scale of intervention and it is interdisciplinary.
For this reasons, to focus and clarify the deep urban changes, the course – originally founded by Patrizia Gabellini in the academic year 2006-2007 – has chosen to hold several and different contribution from scholars of different disciplines. Today the course would continue on the same track in order to investigate the urban phenomenon and to outline updated technical intervention modalities.

The Course is organised into three different parts.

The FIRST PART Descriptions and tools for contemporary cities offers several suggestions and tools for interpreting and designing the contemporary city. In this part the Urban Planning and Design section will be organised considering these main issues: the analysis of the ongoing changes within the traditional European landscapes and the emergence of new complex urban and territorial patterns; the analysis and design of different territorial patterns within the historical city (historical cores), the modern city (planned districts) and the contemporary city (diffused settlements and citadels); the problems and dimensions of contemporary planning practices considering recent technical approaches useful for contemporary cities building and management. The Infrastructure and Urban Planning section will be organised around these main issues: the crucial changes within the contemporary city deriving from new kind of relationships between spatial organisation and socio-economic dynamics; the spatial dynamics of Italian cities and territories in connection with a long run development process; the characteristics of the urban populations and the socio-spatial phenomena in the contemporary city (mobility, pluralisation of spatial practices, conflicts).

The SECOND PART Situations, projects, policies introduces and discusses several urban situations and territorial patterns which can be identified in different contemporary cities, in Europe and around the world. For each pattern different features, projects and policies, are presented by some guest scholars (researchers and practitioners).

The THIRD PART Cities will conclude the course through the presentation – by small groups of students (three people at maximum) – of one or more specific urban situation referred to some main Italian and international cities, connected with the patterns presented during the previous sections of the course. The presentations provided by the students will follow a defined format that will be given during the semester.

Evaluation

The evaluation will be based on an oral examination and on the exercise.
Each student have to discuss the contents of the lectures and:
- the complete list of English texts [if the student wants to give the examination in English]
- the whole list of Italian books [if the student wants to give the examination in Italian].

During the course students must present an exercise based on an analysis of a case study pattern. The exercize will be considered for the evaluation.
For students which will not attend at least to 70% of the course lessons the examination will be based on a different reading list published on the website of the course.

DOWNLOAD

NEW! List of Attending and Not Attending students for the a.y. 2011-2012

NEW! Evaluations of the Pattern Exercise presentations

Contemporary City. Descriptions and Projects Course Programme

Exercise format and structure + Presentation standards

Case Study - Presentation Schedule