URBS 333 X 2233

URBS 333/X (Fall/Winter, 2023/2024): URBAN LABORATORY

Course Overview

Urban space shapes people. The material and physical configuration of space enables certain activities and interactions while it contains and discourages others. However, people can also reshape and (re)appropriate their own space.  City-making – be it urban planning/design, space regulation, urban development, social interaction, community engagement, etc. – plays out in a tension between these two approaches. Some spatial conditions allow better for people to engage in its transformation, others virtually prevent it. A key challenge in urban planning/design is to (re)create the conditions for urban transformation in spaces that are socially and physically detached from the urban fabric. This course focuses on exploring urban planning/design strategies and tactics to (1) create vibrant, open and healthy public spaces, (2) to engage citizens in the creation of these spaces, and (3) to ultimately breach the disciplinary and conceptual divide between the human and the built environment in the city. 

 

This course has historically worked on real-life and site-specific problems in Montreal. Therefore, there is a close collaboration with the City of Montreal and its various borough governments. Urban Laboratory has a strong focus in the planning of public spaces. In this edition of the course, the challenge will focus on the the reconceptualization and urban integration of Chinatown Montreal. This reconceptualization project is a continuation of a one-year-long collaboration with the Jia Foundation, Concordia’s City Studio, The Chinatown Roundtable and other community organizations (with whom we will closely collaborate throughout the course) as well as the instructor. The students will participate in planning events such as community meetings, design charrettes, presentations to city officials and planning experiments. This provides hands-on practice in planning as well as networking opportunities for the students in the professional, academic and governmental sectors. 

 

URBS 333 tackles 5 of the most pressing challenges in contemporary cities: urban fragmentation, accessibility and mobility, diversity and inclusion, smart cities and the democratization of planning processes. The students will test a  planning methodology (open planning) that builds on community planning/design methods, placemaking, pattern language design, community charrettes and peer-to-peer (P2P) urbanism (i.e. the use of social web instruments to democratize the city). These methods are called open planning and planning-in-situ and will be tested and explored in class. This course is a transversal and comprehensive planning studio. That is to say, a hands-on laboratory that incorporates previous knowledge acquired (and in the process of being acquired) in other classes in the program) as well as empirical knowledge drawn from the field.