Seminar: Concepts and critique of the production of space: spaces of research, analysis and discourse
**This course will be offered by City of Vienna Visiting Professor 2017 Prof. Ed Wall (University of Greenwich) and by Ass. Prof. Sabine Knierbein**
During this seminar course students will present and discuss theories and methods that facilitate explorations and engagements with urban public places. Group and plenary discussions will focus on related theoretical texts and research/design approaches that the students have employed. In particular, the course will explore the relation between methods of generating knowledge and approaches to urban interventions (across a range of scales), the techniques necessary to research and design and the theories related to specific approaches.
The main theme will focus on the contested ways that cities are made, from everyday uses of public spaces to urban redevelopments directed by global economic forces. During the lectures, seminars and exercises, relations between scales of global national policies, metropolitan agendas, urban designs, public spaces, activities and lives will be discussed. New urban developments are refashioning public spaces as tightly managed architectural landmarks and aestheticized forms. Additionally, competition between cities is intensely expressed in global, regional, city and neighbourhood geographies through planning, design and spatial actions. How are architectural masterplans (for redevelopment), political strategies (of metropolitan and national governments) and economic agendas (of global organisations such as the UN) interacting with smaller-scale actions that unfold in and reconstitute urban spaces daily is of particular interest and how do these result in the unequal distribution of spaces and resources, less inclusive practices of making cities and greater needs for spatial justice?
Planning programs, draft plans, and the everyday cultural evidence of future cities and districts seen within projects will be discussed. Considering the spaces and relations of how public spaces are made and remade will expose what is at stake for different organisations, governments, community groups and individuals involved. Issues of urban equity, in regards to access to space and resources, opportunities to participate and rights to the city, will be discussed. When critical issues such as climate change, resource distribution, and migration increasingly shape urban agendas, wide-reaching urban action is needed to develop cross-border professional approaches. These include methods of worlded, inclusive and democratic urban design and open-ended planning processes that are increasingly relevant as local sites of action are increasingly globalized. How planners, builders, and designers are able to adapt working methods to communicate considerations of urban equity and human rights will be considered, while relations between traditional urban development approaches and less-planned urban transformations will be discussed as they relate to cases across the globe.
Seminar Units:
Seminar introduction. Unit 0
Urban publicness. Unit 1
Genealogy of urban planning and design. Unit 2
Large and small urban practices. Unit 3
Social and political theory and urban design. Unit 4
Cultures of public spaces. Unit 5
Embodied Space. Unit 6
Using urban design. Unit 7
De-Everydaying the Lived Space. Unit 8
Spaces of informality. Unit 9
Worlded resistance. Unit 10
Research to design. Unit 11
City Unsilenced: Spatial Grounds of Radical Democratization. Unit 12
Summary of seminar units, debate. Unit 13
A more detailed description of the module, the lecture units and further courses and course units is available at https://skuor.tuwien.ac.at/en/teaching/kurse-nach-semestern/sommersemester-2017/modul-11
The seminar (SE) "Concepts and Critique of the Production of Space: Spaces of Research, Analysis and Discourse" is part of the module 11 "Urban culture, public space" (consisting of three courses, VO 280.482, SE 280.483 and UE 280.484) which is offered during three five days intensive teaching blocks (ITB) by the Interdisiciplinary Centre for Urban Culture and Public Space (SKuOR). Module 11 compiles a set of integrated courses dealing with "Urban culture and public space" at the interface of the fields of urban studies and urban design/urban planning. In 2017, the main focus will be on "Urban culture, public space and the present: Urban equity and the global agenda".
The courses mainly address master students (late Bachelor or early PhD), especially from spatial planning and architecture are invited to take part. Yet we explicitly welcome students coming from other Viennese universities in related disciplines, such as urban studies, urban design, geography, sociology, landscape architecture, cultural studies, ... as well as 'Mitbeleger'. The course language is English. We support students' active participation in debates and interactive teaching formats, and encourage you to bring in and develop your own ideas and critical perspectives. We seek to create an international level of debate and exchange and welcome students from all countries and cultures. Just contact us (info@skuor.tuwien.ac.at).
Students interested in this course have to take part in the lecture (Tiss no 280.482) and are highly recommended to take part in the the exercise (Tiss no 280.484)
To take part in all three courses of the module 11 please register for module 11 until 1st of March 2017 (8.30 am) via TISS registration for the course, VO 280.482. Further course registration will be carried out directly at the kick-off meeting on 1st of March 2017, 11am in Augasse 2-6, 2nd floor, WD02B21.
Dates of the Module 11
The main body of teaching will be delivered during three intensive teaching blocks (ITB), preceded by an organisational kick-off meeting.
Kick Off 1 March 2017, 11am
ITB 1. 6 - 10 March 2017 9am - 5pm
ITB 2. 8 - 12 May 2017 9am - 5pm
ITB 3. 19 - 23 Jun 2017 9am - 5pm
Please consider the plagiarism guidelines of TU Wien when writing your seminar paper:
http://www.tuwien.ac.at/fileadmin/t/ukanzlei/t-ukanzlei-english/Plagiarism.pdfPlease consider the plagiarism guidelines of TU Wien when writing your seminar paper:
Directive concerning the handling of plagiarism (PDF)