urban studies

Final Project and Presentation

(Due by the week of 6/5)

Students will create an urban space specifically designed for social integration and inclusivity, and that is sensitive to local urban needs, including, but not limited to: economic factors, historical context, landscape challenges, environmental concerns around pollution, litter, greening needs, noise and smell. The goal is to pick a San Diego neighborhood and or space, and redesign it, framing it within a social theory you have learned in class.

With your group you will document the urban space you are planning on changing, just like you did in the “empty lot” assignment. Through that documentation you will describe why it needs to be changed, in other words, how it’s current design works against social integration and inclusivity.

You will then stage an intervention in the neighborhood or larger social space (i.e Westfield Horton Plaza, a playground like the 6th Avenue playground, a section of a boulevard, like Mira Mesa Blvd between Westview Road and Camino Santa Fe, etc). The goal is to take a definable area of shopping, socializing, dilapidated building, or empty space (other than a lot) and re-imagine it. The new space you design should overcome the challenges and obstacles you see in the original space and should be accessible and responsive to the needs of the local area. In other words, you need to think of this space as socializing the public, but also as a space that responds to public needs.

You will present your project in lecture. Included will be the documentation and research of the space your group did that helped define 1) the current ways in which the space socializes and is shaped by the public, 2) the needs that the space neglects and/or problems the space creates (and any strengths you might build on), and 3) the intervention in detail, including the goals of the intervention and how the design achieves those goals.

This is a materially based project, so it necessarily includes a material component to the presentation, both in terms of documenting, but also in terms of drawing up the design or providing a physical representation of the design. How you model your design is up to you, but you must model it and describe it in detail. Please account not only for the physical features but also for things like: challenges to implementation, any community partnerships, etc.

The final piece of this project/presentation is your individual paper. Your paper will frame your project as a result of a theory about how your space works. You will describe the theorists/articles that had the biggest influence on your design, and how you incorporated their thinking into your work. This doesn’t have to come from a “best practices” perspective. In other words, you might decide that you learned from the suburban development as waldie describes Lakewood, that grids prevent organic networking.

Your paper should be 6-8 pages and needs to include the process of the project itself. Citation may be MLA or APA. You should have at least 3 class sources and 3 outside sources.